Reporting from Bangkok – Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat today declared a state of emergency around two Bangkok airports occupied by protesters, but insisted he wants a peaceful resolution to the crisis."I do not have any intention to hurt any members of the public," he said in announcing the targeted restrictions on civil liberties aimed at reopening the country's main international airport.
By declaring a state of emergency in the two airport areas, the government can suspend civil liberties, ban public gatherings and take other measures to restore order, without imposing broader restrictions that many Thais had feared.Thousands of People's Alliance for Democracy demonstrators seized the newly built Suvarnabhumi International Airport, one of the busiest airports in Asia, on Tuesday, marooning thousands of foreign travelers.Earlier today, anti-government protesters took control of the city's decommissioned Don Muang airport, and as rumors of an impending coup spread, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat called an emergency cabinet meeting.
In a nationally televised address Wednesday night, Somchai rejected army chief General Anupong Paochinda's call for the prime minister to dissolve parliament and hold new elections.Public health minister Chalerm Yoobamrung told reporters following the cabinet session that police would soon be assigned to clear out the thousands of protesters now entrenched at the airports.By shutting down the main gateway for visitors Thailand, the protesters have damaged the tourism industry, the country's largest earner of foreign currency, as passengers were arriving for the peak Christmas and New Year's season.The anti-government alliance activists, some whom were armed with golf clubs, sticks and metal rods when they stormed Suvarnabhumi's busy departure terminal Tuesday night, were bracing for potential clashes if, as expected, police are ordered to evict them.At Government House, where hundreds of demonstrators have camped out on the lawn since August, protest leaders reportedly warned their followers "this may be our last night."Demonstrators there, and at the two airports, were also told to remove their yellow t-shirts, a symbol of PAD support, and put on others if they decided to leave the areas.No timeframe has been announced for the resumption of flights, but at least one Thai Airways flight, from Los Angeles, reportedly landed at air force base outside Bangkok Wednesday.Unable to land in Bangkok after returning from an Asian-Pacific leaders' summit in Peru Tuesday night, the embattled Thai prime minister had to summon his cabinet to the northern city of Chiang Mai.Somchai is the brother in law of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 bloodless military coup. The anti-government alliance, which draws its chief support from the urban middle class and business leaders, regards Somchai as a proxy for the exiled Thaksin.A billionaire, Thaksin recently vowed to return to politics in Thailand even though the Supreme Court ruled last month that he should be jailed for two years on a corruption conviction.After the meeting, government spokesman Nattawut Saikura Saikura denied that the government had intended to remove Army chief Anupong Paochida and asked the military "to remain in their barracks."The Nation, an English language daily newspaper, said the comments led to a deluge of phone calls asking about a possible military coup. The rumors prompted government workers to be sent home from work, worsening public anxiety, according to the Nation.Many Thais are deeply concerned about an escalating political crisis in which the country's top government office – Government House – and its two biggest airports are now occupied by the anti-government PAD. Protesters overran the decommissioned Don Muang domestic airport on Wednesday, storming the control tower and locking the government out of its ad hoc administrative center.In recent weeks, Bangkok's police headquarters and Parliament have also been besieged. In Chiang Mai on Wednesday, a pro-government group allegedly attacked a PAD radio station and there were unconfirmed reports that one man was killed and several people assaulted in an attack on the city's local airport."This is the reckoning. What happens next will be cataclysmic -- the build up to the end of Thailand as we know it," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Chulalongkorn University and the author of an editorial in today's Bangkok Post titled "Going all the way." The specter of widespread civil strife has never been more real to me in Thailand," he added.
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