NEWSMAKER-Thailand's humiliated PM strikes at protesters
12 Apr 2009 11:47:13 GMT Source: Reuters
By Bill Tarrant BANGKOK, April 12 (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose gentle treatment of protesters at an Asian summit led to its collapse in chaos, struck back on Sunday, declaring a state of emergency to quell protests in the capital. Abhisit was humiliated on Saturday when his strategy of avoiding violence with red-shirted supporters of his nemesis, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, backfired. The emboldened protesters broke through a cordon of soldiers and hurtled through a glass facade at the media centre, shattering as well any chance the East Asia Summit would continue in the southern Thai beach resort of Pattaya. A visibly angry Abhisit, in a brief statement to reporters after the Asian leaders were evacuated by helicopter and had left the country, declared the protesters enemies of the state. "On the country's loss today, whoever declares this as victory, I will treat them as national enemies. I will do whatever I can to make sure these people cannot stay above the law." As he strode briskly from the podium, a Reuters reporter shouted: "Do you plan to resign over this?" "I have to restore law and order," he replied, without breaking stride. "ENEMIES OF STATE" On Sunday, he ordered the arrest of one of the leaders of the Pattaya protests, Arismun Pongreungrong, and then declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, where "red shirts" have surrounded his Government House for more than two weeks in their campaign to get him to quit. The protesters responded by surrounding Abhisit's car as he drove away from the interior ministry where he made the emergency declaration, beating it with sticks and clubs before they stormed into the ministry compound. [ID:nBKK464323] It is a defining moment for the soft-spoken, Oxford-educated Abhisit. Critics have long sneered that the veteran leader of the Democrat Party does not have the fire in his belly to play hardball in the rough and tumble world of Thai politics. But on Sunday Abhisit vowed to finally get tough on the protests that have once again brought the country to a state of political gridlock and are gouging an economy already reeling from last year's political chaos and the global financial crisis. "We want to ask you to stop such action," he warned demonstrators in a brief televised statement after the ministry was stormed. "It is necessary for the government to adopt the measures allowed in the emergency decree in order to get the nation back to peace." It was not immediately clear if that meant the military would start dispersing the red-shirt siege of Government House. MILITARY PUPPET" Abhisit, 44, became Thailand's third prime minister in as many months last Dec. 15, coming to office through parliamentary defections that the opposition says were engineered by the army and they call him a puppet of the military. Born in Newcastle in northern England to a pair of medical professors, Abhisit was educated at Eton college and then Oxford University, where he graduated with first class honors in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. His undoubted intellect and overseas education made him a favourite of the foreign business community, but cut little ice with the rural northeastern Thais who formed the backbone of support for Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup and now living in self-imposed exile. In nearly three years as opposition leader, his excursions outside Bangkok or the Democrat heartlands of the south were rare and almost always met with hostility. Once, Thaksin supporters disrupted a Democrat rally in the northern city of Chiang Mai, forcing Abhisit to flee the stage under a barrage of rotten vegetables. Despite espousing an affinity for clean government and denouncing the coup against Thaksin, Abhisit has been criticised as an opportunist who would have gone nowhere without a helping hand from the military and the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). The PAD organised last year's "yellow shirt" demonstrations that also began with a siege of Government House and ultimately led to the capture of Bangkok's main airports late last year. He failed to condemn the PAD, even when the royalist demonstrators occupied the airports. Similarly, it was his party's decision to boycott a 2006 snap poll that precipitated the constitutional crisis that eventually led to the coup. His policies borrow heavily from Thaksin, in particular the commitment to continue the universal public healthcare scheme and cheap rural loans introduced during Thaksin's five years in office. (Editing by Alan Raybould)
Supporters of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra sit in front of a portrait of Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit near Government House in Bangkok April 12, 2009. ...
