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Thai protests escalate, deputy PM quits
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-08 09:20
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh quit Tuesday after more than 380 people were injured in street clashes with police as campaigners intensified their four-month old bid to unseat the government. One person was killed in a blast that destroyed a truck near parliament where anti-government protesters were battling riot police amid clouds of tear gas. "I suspect it was a car bomb because the body parts were cut in pieces and an arm was blown 20 meters away from the car," Colonel Somchai Choyklin, head of Bangkok's Dusit police station, said, without giving no further details. Shortly after dawn, more than 380 people were injured after riot police moved to clear thousands of protesters barricaded outside parliament to stop ministers from attending the start of the legislative session. Some protesters were badly hurt, including two men who had part of their legs blown off by exploding teargas canisters, prompting Chavalit to take responsibility and quit. He said he had asked police to exercise restraint. "Since this action did not achieve what I planned, I want to show my responsibility for this operation," Chavalit said in his resignation letter. The loss of the government's top negotiator with the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) was a further blow to new Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's efforts to end a long-running crisis that has damaged investor confidence in Thailand. By late afternoon, the PAD controlled several city blocks and clashed with police around parliament, Suan Dusit Rajabhat University and police headquarters. Political crisis "Overthrow the Thaksin regime. Together we win or lose. We will know it today. We won't give up," PAD leader Anchalee Paireerak said. The PAD, a coalition of businessmen, academics and activists, accuses Somchai of being a puppet for former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, his brother-in-law, who was removed in a 2006 military coup. The group argues Thai democracy has been undermined by billionaire Thaksin and his allies, who easily won the last three elections, and has called for a "new politics" that would include a proportion of appointed MPs. Somchai, a soft-spoken former judge, has proved a harder target for the PAD than his predecessor, the abrasive Samak Sundaravej. The demonstrators failed to stop Somchai's speech, in which he called for national reconciliation to end a three-year crisis.
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