Thai Police Use Tear Gas to Disperse Anti-government Demonstrators

By SUTIN WANNABOVORN / AP WRITER

BANGKOK—Thai riot police clashed on Tuesday with thousands of protesters who barricaded Parliament and vowed to block the government from leaving, a bold new tactic that intensified a six-week political crisis.

More than 100 people were wounded including two protesters who had parts of their legs blown off by what police said was exploding tear gas canisters.

The chaos prompted Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh to resign and resulted in new Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat sneaking out of the Parliament to avoid being spotted by angry protesters demanding his resignation.

Protesters led by the People's Alliance for Democracy have occupied the grounds of the prime minister's office since late August. They expanded their protest overnight by marching to the nearby Parliament, and erected barbed wire and tire barricades to block Somchai from delivering his first policy speech to lawmakers.

Riot police moved in after sunrise and fired multiple rounds of tear gas canisters to clear a path for the government and lawmakers.

Somchai opened the parliamentary session after a 90-minute delay but as he spoke chaos escalated outside the building. Anti-government protesters regrouped and barricaded all four entrances to the Parliament, saying their goal was to block top officials from leaving the building.

Police fired more tear gas canisters to disperse a group of demonstrators armed with wooden batons and slingshots, who were throwing firecrackers at police. The opposition Democracy Party boycotted the speech.

After the parliamentary session ended, lawmakers said they were too afraid to leave the building.

"We are under siege now," said Kuthep Saikrajang, a spokesman of the ruling People's Power Party, speaking by mobile phone from inside Parliament. "But we will have to figure out a way to get out without using force."

Hundreds of lawmakers waited inside the lobby of the Parliament, monitoring the chaos outside.

It was unclear how Somchai evacuated the building, but he arrived by helicopter later in the day at the Supreme Command Headquarters to meet with army chief Gen. Anupong Paochinda and Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niempradit.

Earlier in the day, spokesman Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the army was "concerned" about the violence against unarmed protesters and that any serious injuries should be investigated. He dismissed speculation of a military intervention to end the unrest in Thailand, where the military has staged 18 coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

"Victory is near. We are surrounding the building," one of the protest leaders Somsak Kosaisuk told a cheering crowd outside Parliament, where protesters had chained one of the gates shut.

The unrest was the latest twist in a political crisis that has gripped Thailand for six weeks and virtually paralyzed the government.

The clashes wounded 118 people, including 24 seriously, said Petpong Kumtonkitjakarn of the Erawan Medical Center.

A few policemen were among those hurt, including one who needed surgery after being stabbed in the abdomen with a pole by a protester, said police Lt. Thirapol Pokpong.

Queen Sirikit, the wife of the country's revered monarch, donated 100,000 baht (US$2,900) to Bangkok's Vachira Hospital to help treat the injured, said hospital director Wanchai Chareonchoktawee.

Reporters outside Parliament heard gunfire when police moved in after sunrise, but police insisted that only tear gas was being used against the crowd in Bangkok.

"We did not use any weapon other than tear gas and shields to clear the path for parliamentarians to go into the building," said deputy Bangkok police chief Maj-Gen Umnuey Nimmanno. "It is conventional practice in dispersing a crowd. We did not use disproportionate force."

Somchai made no immediate comment about the unrest as he stood before lawmakers reading from a prepared policy text, covering issues from the global financial crisis to global warming, health care and restoring national unity.

Somchai was sworn in as prime minister on September 25 but has been forced to run the government from a makeshift office at Bangkok's Don Muang airport.

The protest alliance says Somchai is a proxy for ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 by military leaders who accused him of corruption and who now resides in exile. Somchai is a brother-in-law of Thaksin.

When protesters originally took over the grounds of Government House on Aug. 26, their intention was to oust then-Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej—whom they also accused of being a puppet of Thaksin. They later said they also opposed his successor, Somchai.

Samak was dismissed from office on September 9 by a court decision that found him guilty on a conflict of interest charge. He had accepted pay for hosting a TV show while in office.

The alliance claims Thailand's rural majority—who gave strong election victories to the ruling People's Power Party—is too poorly educated to responsibly choose their representatives and says they are susceptible to vote buying.

The protest group wants the country to abandon the system of one-man, one-vote, and instead have a mixed system in which some representatives are chosen by certain professions and social groups.

Chavalit, the deputy prime minister in charge of security, was seen as a key figure in helping the government to resolve the crisis.

"What happened was partly my responsibility in failing to resolve the conflict," he said in his resignation letter, according to Agriculture Minister Somsak Prisananantakul.