Anti-government demonstrators carry a wounded woman to safety near the Government House in Bangkok November 30, 2008
Nearly 50 antigovernment demonstrators were rushed to hospital early Sunday morning after a grenade attack on one of their protest sites in Bangkok. The attack comes on the sixth day of the antigovernment occupation of Bangkok's two main airports, where demonstrators have been involved in minor clashes with the some 2000 police officers deployed there. Meanwhile, in the old quarter of the Thai capital, tens of thousands of government supporters were preparing to rally, raising concerns about a confrontation between the two opposing groups. See pictures of the Thai protests here.
The opposition gathered support over the weekend, as business leaders joined the chorus calling for Thailand's democratically elected ruling party to step down from power. "The situation has gone from bad to worse," the Thai Chamber of Commerce said in statement on Saturday, "signaling that [the government] is incompetent at ensuring peace and order ... coalition parties should have the political courage to withdraw from the government and allow a new government to be installed." The chamber also urged antigovernment protesters to end their occupation of the two airports. Some members told the Bangkok Post they would stop paying taxes as a form of civil disobedience of the government did not resign.
The protesters' leadership, despite the injuries their ranks incurred overnight, remain resolute. Chamlong Srimuang, one of the heads of the antigovernment People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), told supporters at New Bangkok International Airport, also known as Suvarnabhumi, on Sunday morning that they would soon be victorious. Lawyers for the ruling People Power Party and two other political parties in the government coalition are scheduled on Tuesday, Dec. 2, to make closing arguments before the Constitutional Court in election fraud cases that could result in the parties being dissolved, effectively ending their hold on power.
It is not clear, however, how quickly the court will render its verdicts, leaving the question of how long antigovernment forces intend to maintain this vigil that, in the last week, has led to the loss of millions of tourist dollars and left an estimated 100,000 passengers stranded. The PAD has been protesting since May, when the government announced it would begin amending the constitution. The protesters and other critics of the government claim it intends to change the charter in ways that would torpedo the cases against it, and also cases and convictions against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin, the ousted premier who many believe is still the real power behind the ruling party, has been convicted and sentenced to two years in jail for conflict of interest over a land deal. He fled the country in August, and has been nation-hopping since then. On Saturday, Thaksin gave an interview to a journalist in Dubai in which he demanded that antigovernment protesters respect the law. "If some people are above the law ... then everything is finished," Thaksin said. If everyone respects the law, he continued, the situation could end soon.
The escalating violence, however, hardly indicates the situation is headed in that direction. The grenade attack on members of the People's Alliance for Democracy took place around midnight at Government House, the office compound of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, which the protesters have occupied since August. Most of the wounded were women, four critically. It was the fourth grenade attack on the compound this past week by unknown assailants. One PAD security guard was killed and several others were wounded in the previous attacks. Two grenades and several rounds of gunfire were also fired at the offices of ASTV, a satellite television station owned by Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the protest leaders, early Sunday, and a bomb exploded at a barricade erected by the PAD outside Don Muang Airport. No one was wounded in either incident.
On Saturday, police abandoned their checkpoints leading to the international airport when several truckloads of PAD members ran the blockade to reach their fellow demonstrators. Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat had issued a state of emergency covering the two airports the day before and ordered police to clear them of the several thousand PAD protesters. So far, the police have not attempted to enter the terminals at either airport. Olan Chaipravat, an economic advisor to the government, said on Saturday that the closure of the airports could cost the country one million jobs in the tourism industry, as arrivals could drop from an expected 14.5 million this year to just 6 or 7 million in 2009.