Troop Train Seized By Red Shirts

[MAC10]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pac...3614325589.html

Red Shirt Seize Thai Troops

Red shirt leaders have said they are willing to hold negotiations to prevent further confrontations

Anti-government protesters in Thailand have seized a train carrying soldiers northeast of the capital, Bangkok. The troops were travelling through the Khon Kaen area, a stronghold of the so-called red shirt protesters, when they were seized on Wednesday. Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Bangkok, said negotiations between police and red shirts are under way to allow the 20-carriage train to continue after it was stopped 450km from Bangkok.

"The red shirts say that those soldiers were heading to Bangkok as reinforcement for a potential crackdown on their protests which have been running for five months now," he said.

"The army though says these soldiers were in fact heading towards the troubled southern provinces of Thailand as part of a regular rotation of soldiers."

Army warning

Earlier on Wednesday, the Thai army said that it would use force to disperse anti-government protesters occupying Bangkok's main shopping district. The warning came after red shirt leaders announced they would not march to the capital's Silom financial district but instead stay at their main protest camp "indefinitely".

in depth A spokesman for the government's Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation said the guidelines for suppressing violent protests had been altered after authorities had found that "terrorists" had infiltrated the demonstrators, armed with weapons such as bombs, sharpened sticks and acid.

In a statement the centre said action would be taken " considering the safety and lives of the people, and only when there is reason to do so, including for self-defence and in extreme cases. An attempt by security forces to disperse protesters on April 10 erupted into the worst political violence Thailand has seen in almost two decades, leaving 25 people dead and more than 800 wounded. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, said on Monday he would not set a deadline for protesters to be forced out of their encampment, but speculation has been growing that a crackdown is imminent.

The red shirts, meanwhile, have been reinforcing defences at their base, and prepared homemade weapons including hundreds of sharpened bamboo poles and broken up pavement slabs. They have been camped out on the streets of Bangkok since March 12, with the standoff causing widespread disruption, closing shopping malls, hotels and causing millions of dollars in losses for Thailand's vital tourism industry. The unrest has also taken a toll on some residents' patience with some on Tuesday evening trying to chase red-shirt protesters out of their camps. Shouting "Kill them, kill them" some residents scuffled with a man believed to be a red shirt protester.

Dialogue offer

Believing that a crackdown is imminent, red shirt leaders have said they are willing to hold talks through a third party to avert bloody clashes with troops. Speaking to Reuters news agency two of the protest leaders said on Wednesday they would consider offers of dialogue, but not from the government.

"We believe a crackdown is coming before April 25 and we need to make a compromise," said one leader, Kwanchai Praina.

"I will propose in a meeting later today that we consider house dissolution in three months."

The red shirts consist mainly of poor rural workers pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted the then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. They want parliament dissolved immediately and new elections called. They believe Abhisit's government is illegitimate because it came to power through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected, pro-Thaksin administrations.

The conflict has been characterised by some as class warfare, pitting the country's vast rural poor against an elite that has traditionally held power.

Edited April 21, 2010 by MAC10

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