Explosions detonated near protest site in Thai capital; dozens wounded

Explosions wound dozens near protests in Bangkok

BANGKOK — A series of blasts were detonated Thursday near a massive encampment of anti-government protesters in Bangkok, wounding as many as 28 people and sending passengers running from the station, according to witnesses and local media.

The cause of the blasts, in the heart of the Thai capital’s business district, was not immediately known. The area has seen Red Shirt protesters, who are demanding Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resign, and troops face off over the past several days.

More recently, a rival mob has rallied in the area, occasionally hurling stones and insults at the Red Shirts, creating a volatile mix. Several of the blasts near where the rivals have gathered.

Previously, explosions at the site have been from fireworks.

The TPBS television network reported a total of 28 people wounded, including three foreigners. Associated Press reporters saw at least four people injured after four blasts, two with serious wounds who were not moving.

The streets were full of people tending to the injured and carrying away casualties.

The Red Shirts, who believe Abhisit came to power illegitimately and are pushing for him to call elections immediately, have rallied in the streets for several weeks. On Thursday, the army warned that time was running out for the protesters to clear the streets, warning they would crack down soon.

“To take people in Bangkok hostage is not right,” army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd warned the Red Shirts. “Your time to leave the area is running out.” The army has issued several warnings that it will move to break up the protests if they are not ended voluntarily. They are already in violation of several laws, including a state of emergency.

Prospects for a peaceful solution to the political crisis appear slim, and every night brings a new flurry of rumors of an imminent crackdown.

A failed April 10 attempt by security forces in Bangkok to flush protesters from their first encampment erupted into the worst political violence Thailand has seen in 18 years, with 25 people dead.

Witnesses said the first of four explosions Thursday night occurred at an elevated train station. Another appeared to happen on the streets below, where the Red Shirts have erected a formidable looking barrier of sharpened bamboo sticks and old tires atop which their guards perch. Behind the Red Shirts’ line is their redoubt, which extends for more than a mile (2 kilometers) up to another intersection, where tens of thousands of supporters gather around a stage to hear nearly nonstop speeches.

Across from the Red Shirt wall are several police trucks, dozens of police in riot gear, and a few hundred anti-Red Shirt demonstrators, who are waving Thai flags and hurling abuse at their opponents.

The anti-Red Shirt group includes office employees, middle class families, academics, some low-wage workers and members of the Yellow Shirts, a group that supports the current government and who themselves rampaged through Bangkok and seized the city’s airports two years ago.

While some are genuinely aggrieved by the inconveniences wrought by the protests, many seem to have primarily political objections to the Red Shirts, including claiming the movement is directed against the country’s widely revered monarch. A songsheet distributed to followers included hateful right-wing songs used in military-backed anti-communist campaigns of the 1970s.

Weng Tojirakarn, a Red Shirt protest leader, accused the government of hiring the mob in order to cause trouble that could be blamed on his group.

In one effort to avert further violence, the head of a pro-Red Shirt political party has asked for an audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who in the past has stepped in to end violent political crises, the newspaper Matichon reported.

The ailing, 82-year-old king has been hospitalized since Sept. 19 and has made no comments on the current turmoil. In 1992, the king ended a bloody confrontation between the military and pro-democracy protesters by calling in leaders of the opposing sides and instructing them, on nationwide television, to cease hostilities.

Now, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, a former prime minister who now heads the pro-Red Shirt Pheua Thai Party, is seeking a similar intervention.

The protesters consist mainly of poor rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted him in 2006 after months of demonstrations by the Yellow Shirts.

The Red Shirts believe Abhisit’s government is illegitimate because it came to power under military pressure through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected pro-Thaksin governments.

Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker, Denis D. Gray and Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.