BANGKOK, (Reuters) – Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency yesterday to quell political unrest and threatened to take tough action against protesters who have gathered in Bangkok.
Troops fired into the air when anti-government protesters stormed the interior ministry yesterday. The crowds mobbed the prime minister’s car and beat it with clubs as he drove away from the ministry.
Supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra triggered the emergency when they pushed past riot troops into the venue of a major Asian summit in the southern resort of Pattaya, forcing the meetings to be cancelled. Some leaders had to flee by helicopter.
After declaring victory there, the “red shirt” Thaksin supporters have been gathering all day at Government House in central Bangkok. By evening they numbered around 40,000.
The protesters set up makeshift road blocks and men, some with sticks, manned the barricades. Near midnight, the crowd remain-ed large, although some had begun trickling home.
Thaksin, who has been making nightly phone calls to his supporters from exile, said earlier yesterday it was now the “golden time” to rise up against the government.
He repeated his call for a “people’s revolution” and said he was ready to move back to Thailand to lead a people’s uprising if there was a coup.
