We will die rather than give in, say Red Shirts

by admin on May.17, 2010, under Attack Suicide, Children hospitalized, Dead, Deadly Attacks, Disturbing Videos, East Middle

Anti-government Red Shirt protesters have ignored an ultimatum to abandon their occupation of central Bangkok, as the leaders of the demonstration promised to die rather than give in to the authorities.

Helicopters dropped leaflets warning that anyone caught inside the area faced two years in prison.

But almost two hours after the 3pm [9am UK time] deadline, several thousand people remained in the protest area, which has been sealed off and fortified with towering barricades of rubber tires and bamboo poles.

Weng Tojirakarn, a senior Red Shirt leader, said: “If you insist on brutality, we will stay here persistently, and we will tell our people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stay here, do not fight back, and let them shoot us.’”

Satit Wonghnongtaey, a minister attached to the office of the Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said: “The operation [to disperse] will be executed as soon as possible. The authorities will do everything possible … including broadcast radio messages, police loudspeaker trucks and leaflets.”

But both sides still held out the faint possibility of a compromise, suggesting that even at the moment of greatest tension a peaceful solution was being discussed behind the scenes.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, spokesman for Mr Abhisit, said: “The Government is ready to go forward with negotiation when the situation is defused, when the protest ends, violence ends and attacks on authorities end.

“We insist they have to be sincere to make every effort to return the country to normality … This sincerity must be reflected by their action to bring back peace.”

Earlier, doctors announced the death in hospital of Major General Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a militant supporter of the Red Shirts. He was suspected by many Thais of organising a covert militia to fight off attempts to break up the demonstrations. General Khattiya was shot in the head last Thursday during an interview with an American reporter by an unidentified sniper.

Red Shirts in the central stronghold in the Ratchaprasong district wept as a song was sung to honour him and at least 36 other people killed in the past five days, as armed soldiers have attempted with mixed success to create a perimeter around the Red Shirt area.

Supplies of food, water and tires for constructing barricades are still entering Ratchaprasong. A new protest base has been established to the south-east at the Bon Kai intersection beneath one of Bangkok’s elevated expressways. Young men continued to play a dangerous cat and mouse game with soldiers along the Rama IV road in front of it, throwing fireworks and petrol bombs and ducking down side alleys when the soldiers fired their rifles.

The Government has frozen 106 personal and business bank accounts of leading Red Shirts and of companies associated with Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister whose ejection from power in a 2006 coup was the beginning of the protest movement. The Reds are demanding that Mr Abhisit, whose party was repeatedly defeated by Mr Thaksin, step down and call a general election.

The authorities have been encouraging women and children to move from the protest area to the sanctuary of a nearby Buddhist temple, but the suggestion appears to have been largely ignored. Rojanee Cheepacrarat, a 57-year old volunteer nurse at one of the medical and first aid stations in the protest area, said: “My children are worried about me, but I am not afraid.

“I smile at the soldiers – I call them my sons. They are innocent, and they are scared – it is just their officers who tell them to shoot.”

There have been reports of splits among the protest leaders, with some of them favouring a compromise to bring an end to the confrontation, but Dr Weng insisted that they were united. He also called for direct intervention by foreign governments to pressure the Government.

“Let all the civilised countries of the world know [the truth of what is happening],” he said. “We cannot walk out of here, because they will shoot us with snipers.

“People all over the world are a brotherhood. How can they let their brothers be killed by this government?”

By Richard Lloyd Parry, Bangkok