THAILAND: Police, anti-coup protesters clash in Thai capital

Police clash with anti-coup protesters in Bangkok during a demonstration to demand the resignation of Thai king's top adviser. Anti-coup protesters clashed with police in Bangkok on Sunday (July 22) during a rally to demand the resignation of a top adviser to the king. About 5,000 demonstrators marched to the house of Prem Tinsulanonda (pronounce: Prem Tin-su-la-non), the chief adviser to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, accusing him of being the mastermind of a coup that removed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last year. When anti-riot police tried to disperse the crowd outside Prem's house, the protesters hurled rocks, water bottles and other objects at them. Earlier, another group of protesters scuffled with police blocking a road leading to the former prime minister's home. More than 40 people, including some police officers, were taken to hospital with minor head wounds and other injuries, hospital officials said. A key leader in the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship told Reuters that they will keep on fighting and accused the police of using tear gas to disperse the crowd. However, the stand-off at Prem's home ended when the crowd marched back to a parade ground near Bangkok's glittering Grand Palace where they planned to continue the rally. At face value, the coup stems from middle-class street protests in 2006 against Thaksin's autocratic style and huge personal wealth, which his opponents say he wielded unfairly to secure unassailable support from rural voters. But analysts say it was as much about a royalist military and corporate elite removing a nouveau riche, ethnic Chinese businessman who had encroached too far on their traditional turf. Thaksin was in New York at the time of the coup and has spent most of the interim in London, trying to buy an English football club, or travelling round Asia playing golf and giving interviews and lectures that have unnerved the generals. Last week, Thaksin sued a military-appointed anti-graft panel for 50 billion baht (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) in compensation for damage caused by its order to freeze 1.58 billion USD of his assets.

ITN Source | July 23, 2007

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