Tension eases in Thai capital
An anti-government protest in the centre of Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, has broken up.
The BBC reported that large groups of demonstrators who had been camped around the Government House have been walking away from the area that has been occupied for three weeks.
The news follows calls by protest leaders for people to leave the area, after thousands of police and soldiers moved to tighten a cordon overnight.
Protest leaders said they were allowing people to leave because they feared that more lives would be lost if the demonstrations continued.
Two people were killed and more than 100 were injured in yesterday’s confrontations between protestors, troops and even local residents, who came out of their apartments to confront the rioters.
As dawn broke over Bangkok earlier today, the situation remained tense even though Thailand’s prime minister declared that troops had brought the city under control after a day of battles with anti-government protesters.
A day of urban terrorism resulted in clashes between residents and protesters near Government House.
Government troops in armoured vehicles were reported by local radio stations to be moving in on the last of the protestors around Government House in a bid to end the stand-off.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told the BBC that people were entitled to carry out peaceful protests – but not to riot.
"We are confident that we are in control of the situation," he said.
However, government security ministers were warning Bangkok residents to avoid the streets after nightfall for fear of isolated acts of violence by protestors.
Yesterday, clashes between demonstrators and local residents living hear Government House saw two local people killed and several injured by gunshots.
Red-shirted supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – who want Mr Abhisit to resign – burnt buses and threw firebombs in retaliation for shots fired by soldiers.
At one point, protesters hijacked two liquefied-petroleum-gas (LPG) trucks with the intention of using them against soldiers at two locations in Bangkok before they were seized without incident.
PM Abhisit declared a state of emergency on Sunday after the protests forced the cancellation of meeting of Asian leaders in the resort city of Pattaya.
The streets of downtown Bangkok remained untypically dry yesterday, with few people venturing out to splash water on unwary passers-by, with all official Songkran festivities cancelled and the city under emergency law.
The traditional convoys of pickups and trucks laden with drums of water and people soaking each other and pedestrians were conspicuously absent from the city’s roads.
Phil Davies
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