Red Shirt Terrorists hijacked military train with heavy arms + soldiers

[taksinloong]

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/4/21/nation/20100421221935&sec=nation

Red shirts stop train with military equipment

BANGKOK: Red Shirt protesters in northeastern province of Khon Kaen, Thailand are reported to have blocked a train carrying military equipment, said AP.

It said according to the Bangkok Post website, that about 200 of the anti-government protesters had blocked the train carrying military vehicles, which they claimed were headed for Bangkok.

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.

They want current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament right away and call new elections.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that railway officials said while the protesters had mistakenly believed the soldiers and equipment were to be used in the Bangkok crackdown, they were headed for southern Thailand where a separatist insurgency is taking place.

“The train is still parked at Khon Kaen station with 50 to 60 (national service) conscripts who are taking care of the weapons,” said Lieutenant General Chotjin Kengkijkarn from the State Railway of Thailand’s police force.

He said Red Shirt protesters surrounded the train, overwhelming the outnumbered soldiers, before provincial authorities agreed to stop the train from departing Khon Kean.

In a later development, AP reported that Abhisit was ready to negotiate with protesters seeking a change of government, but only when the demonstrators who have illegally occupied city streets agree to abide by the law, his spokesman said.

"The attempt to negotiate has been ongoing, but the official talks can't proceed as long as the demonstration remains unlawful. The current atmosphere doesn't provide room for talks to move forward," said the spokesman Panitan Wattanyagorn.

 

[taksinloong]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/04/201042193614325589.html


News Asia-Pacific
Protesters seize troops in Thailand

Anti-government protesters in Thailand have seized a train carrying about 70 soldiers and military equipment northeast of the capital, Bangkok.

The troops were travelling through the Khon Kaen area, a stronghold of the so-called red shirt protesters, when they were seized on Wednesday.

Hundreds of red shirts stopped the 18-car train from leaving a station 450km from Bangkok.

Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Bangkok, said negotiations between police and red shirts are under way to allow the train to continue after it was stopped.

"The red shirts say that those soldiers were heading to Bangkok as reinforcement for a potential crackdown on their protests which have been running for five months now," he said.

"The army though says these soldiers were in fact heading towards the troubled southern provinces of Thailand as part of a regular rotation of soldiers."

Protesters warned

Earlier on Wednesday, the Thai army said that it would use force to disperse anti-government protesters occupying Bangkok's main shopping district.

Action would be taken "considering the safety and lives of the people, and only when there is reason to do so, including for self-defence and in extreme cases", the government's Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation said.

The warning came after red-shirt leaders announced they would not march to the city's Silom financial district but instead stay at their main protest camp "indefinitely".

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, said on Wednesday that he is ready to negotiate with protesters but only when they agree to abide by the law.

Panitan Wattanyagorn, a government spokesman, said an attempt to negotiate is being hindered by illegal demonstrations in Bangkok.

For their part, the red shirts say they are willing to hold talks through a third party to avert bloody clashes with troops.

Speaking to Reuters news agency on Wednesday, two of the protest leaders said they would consider offers of dialogue, but not from the government.

"We believe a crackdown is coming before April 25 and we need to make a compromise," Kwanchai Praina, one leader, said.

"I will propose in a meeting later today that we consider house dissolution in three months."

However, Jatuporn Prompan, a core red-shirt leader, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that talks were "out of the question.

Base reinforced

The red shirts have been reinforcing defences at their base, and prepared homemade weapons including hundreds of sharpened bamboo poles and broken up pavement slabs.

An attempt by security forces to disperse the red shirts on April 10 erupted into the worst political violence Thailand has seen in almost two decades, leaving 25 people dead and more than 800 wounded.

The red shirts have been camped out on the streets of Bangkok since March 12, with the standoff causing widespread disruption, closing shopping malls, hotels and causing millions of dollars in losses for Thailand's vital tourism industry.

The unrest has taken a toll on the city's patience. Some residents on Tuesday evening tried to chase red-shirt protesters out of their camps.

Shouting "Kill them, kill them", several residents scuffled with a man believed to be a red shirt protester.

The red shirts consist mainly of poor rural workers pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted the then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. They want parliament dissolved immediately and new elections called.

They believe Abhisit's government is illegitimate because it came to power through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected, pro-Thaksin administrations.

 

[taksinloong]

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/hom...rains-and-detained-soldiers-in--30127633.html


Red shirts seized trains and detained soldiers in Khon Kaen
By The Nation

Red shirts in Khon Kaen separately detained altogether 230 soldiers after seizing their trains as they were about to travel to Bangkok to join their comrades to disperse the red shirts protesters.


About 1,000 red shirts in Khon Kaen gathered at Khon Kaen train station at about 1.30pm after listening to a community radio programme which claimed that soldiers would leave for Bangkok to disperse the protesters.

They then seized the train which also carried 21 army vehicles and detained 80 soldiers on board.

Their commander then ordered his soldiers to get off the train. He told the red shirts that the soldiers would go to Pattani not Bangkok as claimed, but to no avail. Khon Kaen governor and other senior officials who rushed to the scene also failed to convince the red shirts to free the soldiers and trains.

A red shirt leader said that the leaders in Bangkok ordered the group to detain the soldiers and trains for five days.

"They told us that don't allow the soldiers to leave otherwise they would join other soldiers in Bangkok in dispersing the protesters. If we allow that happens, a large number of protesters would be killed, the leader said.

The red shirts then set up tents over the rail tracks to prevent the train from leaving the stations.

Later at about 4.30pm, a group of 1,000 soldiers blocked an intersection in Khon Kaen's Ban Pai district and seized three army buses which had 150 soldiers on board for the same reasons.

A police commander said that the soldiers were from an army camp in Udon Thani province. They were assigned to work in deep south province of Pattani, not in Bangkok as claimed by the red shirts leaders.