Anti-government Protests Continue Across Thailand
- 14 years ago
About 200 red-shirted protesters converged on the United Nations headquarters in Bangkok Thursday.
They were there to deliver a letter requesting peacekeeping troops be deployed in Thailand.
Thailand's tense political standoff is nearing a climax. Anti-government protesters are preparing for imminent battle in central Bangkok against tens of thousands of armed troops.
Some 40,000 red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have created a base in a Bangkok commercial district with homemade barricades, expecting the army to evict them any time now.
[Nattawut Saikeau, Protest Leader]: (Thai)
"I don't have any problems. The government aims to make us worry and feel fear but our red-shirts have surpassed that feeling. We have been fighting (for democracy) for four years and we have seen all the tricks of those aristocrats. Meanwhile, the incidents on April 10 have proved that even the dead can't scare us."
And 250 miles from Bangkok, in Khon Kaen Province, around 200 protesters are blocking a military train.
The train was meant to take troops to Thailand's deep south to help contain a Muslim insurgency.
But protesters thought the soldiers were going to Bangkok.
Talks between the country’s president and the protesters collapsed last month when the red shirts rejected his offer to dissolve parliament within nine months… which isn’t soon enough for them.
They were there to deliver a letter requesting peacekeeping troops be deployed in Thailand.
Thailand's tense political standoff is nearing a climax. Anti-government protesters are preparing for imminent battle in central Bangkok against tens of thousands of armed troops.
Some 40,000 red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have created a base in a Bangkok commercial district with homemade barricades, expecting the army to evict them any time now.
[Nattawut Saikeau, Protest Leader]: (Thai)
"I don't have any problems. The government aims to make us worry and feel fear but our red-shirts have surpassed that feeling. We have been fighting (for democracy) for four years and we have seen all the tricks of those aristocrats. Meanwhile, the incidents on April 10 have proved that even the dead can't scare us."
And 250 miles from Bangkok, in Khon Kaen Province, around 200 protesters are blocking a military train.
The train was meant to take troops to Thailand's deep south to help contain a Muslim insurgency.
But protesters thought the soldiers were going to Bangkok.
Talks between the country’s president and the protesters collapsed last month when the red shirts rejected his offer to dissolve parliament within nine months… which isn’t soon enough for them.