Protesters have blocked the entrance to the terminal therefore we closed services until 6pm (5pm, Singapore time) on Thursday,' said Flying Officer Anirut Thanomkulbutra, director of Don Mueang. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESSNov 27, 2008
AP
BANGKOK - THAI authorities shut down Bangkok's second airport on Thursday after it was overrun by anti-government protesters, completely cutting off the capital from air traffic as the prime minister rejected their demands to resign, deepening the country's crisis.
Thailand's powerful army commander, who has remained neutral in the conflict, stepped into the fray on Wednesday, urging Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to step down.
He also asked thousands of protesters to end their siege of the main international Suwarnabhumi airport since Tuesday night, which has forced authorities to shut down the facility and cancel hundreds of flights, drawing world attention to a turmoil that has reduced Thailand to a dysfunctional nation.
The anti-government protests, which gathered pace four months ago, have paralysed the government, battered the stock market, spooked foreign investors and dealt a serious blow to the tourism industry.
The crisis worsened on early Thursday as authorities shut down the Don Muang domestic airport, which had been receiving some diverted flights from Suwarnabhumi.
Mr Serirat Prasutanont, chief of Thailand Airport Authority, said authorities feared that protesters who stormed the terminal building late on Wednesday might harm passengers and aircraft.
He said authorities might consider using the U Ta Pao air force base, 140 km southeast of Bangkok.
'We will also alert all of airports nationwide to be ready to receive more diverted flights,' he said.
The protests are being led by a loose coalition known as the People's Alliance for Democracy. It accuses Somchai of acting as the puppet for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a September 2006 military coup after being accused of corruptionand abuse of power.
Mr Thaksin is in exile, a fugitive from a conviction for violating a conflict of interest law. Mr Somchai is Thaksin's brother-in-law.
But Mr Somchai, who returned from Peru on Wednesday but was forced to land in the northern city of Chiang Mai, remained defiant.
Mr Somchai said in an address to the nation that he came to power through elections and has 'a job to protect democracy for the people of Thailand.'
The statement amounted to a rejection of Army General Anupong Paochinda's suggestion to quit, which seemed to put him on a collision course with the military, although the general has said he would not launch a coup.
Mr Somsak Kosaisuk, a key protest alliance leader, said protesters stormed Don Muang airport because they want to prevent members of Somchai's Cabinet from flying to Chiang Mai for a proposed emergency Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
The drive from Bangkok to Chiang Mai takes about eight hours.
Still, government spokesman Nattawut Saikau said the emergency meeting would go ahead.
'The key issue is how to deal with escalating violence in the country,' he told The Associated Press.
The People's Alliance for Democracy insists it would continue its airport occupation and other protest activities until Somchai resigns. It rejected the general's proposal for new elections, pushing instead for the appointment of a temporary government.
As the deadlock continued, political violence spread on Wednesday to Chiang Mai, where government supporters attacked a radio station aligned with the protesters. Separately, there were unconfirmed reports that one man was killed and several people assaulted in an attack on the city's local airport.
Thousands of travellers were stranded in Bangkok when members of the alliance swarmed the airport on Tuesday night, forcing a halt to virtually all outgoing flights.
Several thousands passengers were bused to city hotels on Wednesday to await developments, but many other passengers spent a second night at the airport after a day of behind-the-scenes negotiations failed. All flights have been suspended until further notice.
Among those stranded were Americans trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
Cheryl Turner, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, had asked neighbours to pull an 18-pound turkey from her freezer a day ahead of time to defrost so she could cook it for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
'My turkey is sitting in the sink at home,' she said.
The protest alliance launched its current campaign in late August, storming the grounds of the prime minister's office, which they continue to use as their stronghold. The group has also tried twice to blockade Parliament, in one case setting off a daylong street battle with police that left two people dead and hundreds injured.
Skirmishes on Bangkok streets on Tuesday and Wednesday left more than a dozen people hurt. The action came as the protest alliance's public support seemed to wane, and they appeared to be seeking confrontations to up the ante in their struggle.
Thailand's powerful army commander, who has remained neutral in the conflict, stepped into the fray on Wednesday, urging Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to step down.
He also asked thousands of protesters to end their siege of the main international Suwarnabhumi airport since Tuesday night, which has forced authorities to shut down the facility and cancel hundreds of flights, drawing world attention to a turmoil that has reduced Thailand to a dysfunctional nation.
The anti-government protests, which gathered pace four months ago, have paralysed the government, battered the stock market, spooked foreign investors and dealt a serious blow to the tourism industry.
The crisis worsened on early Thursday as authorities shut down the Don Muang domestic airport, which had been receiving some diverted flights from Suwarnabhumi.
Mr Serirat Prasutanont, chief of Thailand Airport Authority, said authorities feared that protesters who stormed the terminal building late on Wednesday might harm passengers and aircraft.
He said authorities might consider using the U Ta Pao air force base, 140 km southeast of Bangkok.
'We will also alert all of airports nationwide to be ready to receive more diverted flights,' he said.
The protests are being led by a loose coalition known as the People's Alliance for Democracy. It accuses Somchai of acting as the puppet for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a September 2006 military coup after being accused of corruptionand abuse of power.
Mr Thaksin is in exile, a fugitive from a conviction for violating a conflict of interest law. Mr Somchai is Thaksin's brother-in-law.
But Mr Somchai, who returned from Peru on Wednesday but was forced to land in the northern city of Chiang Mai, remained defiant.
Mr Somchai said in an address to the nation that he came to power through elections and has 'a job to protect democracy for the people of Thailand.'
The statement amounted to a rejection of Army General Anupong Paochinda's suggestion to quit, which seemed to put him on a collision course with the military, although the general has said he would not launch a coup.
Mr Somsak Kosaisuk, a key protest alliance leader, said protesters stormed Don Muang airport because they want to prevent members of Somchai's Cabinet from flying to Chiang Mai for a proposed emergency Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
The drive from Bangkok to Chiang Mai takes about eight hours.
Still, government spokesman Nattawut Saikau said the emergency meeting would go ahead.
'The key issue is how to deal with escalating violence in the country,' he told The Associated Press.
The People's Alliance for Democracy insists it would continue its airport occupation and other protest activities until Somchai resigns. It rejected the general's proposal for new elections, pushing instead for the appointment of a temporary government.
As the deadlock continued, political violence spread on Wednesday to Chiang Mai, where government supporters attacked a radio station aligned with the protesters. Separately, there were unconfirmed reports that one man was killed and several people assaulted in an attack on the city's local airport.
Thousands of travellers were stranded in Bangkok when members of the alliance swarmed the airport on Tuesday night, forcing a halt to virtually all outgoing flights.
Several thousands passengers were bused to city hotels on Wednesday to await developments, but many other passengers spent a second night at the airport after a day of behind-the-scenes negotiations failed. All flights have been suspended until further notice.
Among those stranded were Americans trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
Cheryl Turner, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, had asked neighbours to pull an 18-pound turkey from her freezer a day ahead of time to defrost so she could cook it for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
'My turkey is sitting in the sink at home,' she said.
The protest alliance launched its current campaign in late August, storming the grounds of the prime minister's office, which they continue to use as their stronghold. The group has also tried twice to blockade Parliament, in one case setting off a daylong street battle with police that left two people dead and hundreds injured.
Skirmishes on Bangkok streets on Tuesday and Wednesday left more than a dozen people hurt. The action came as the protest alliance's public support seemed to wane, and they appeared to be seeking confrontations to up the ante in their struggle.
13 comments:
Go on, ....Go On Khmers-Issan!! STAND UP against the Thais. Parts of Present-day Thailand were yours.
You have the rights to claim an Independent or Autonomous State from Thailand.
Just Put your former territory back under YOUR CONTROL. You are entitled to do so.
Autonomous State of Khmers!!!
Siphandon
Yes you can make independent declaration of another state if you do not want to join Cambodia.
NO... this is not a good job, yet! PAD, you hear me buddy? We still have long way to go! DO NOT YOU EVER LEAVE THE AIRPORT, okay? Oh, let go to the Stock Market place, Ministry of Economic, The Royal Palce, International Corporation, and other important places?
Go Go Go... PAD! Shut your country down!
Ahahahaha, eh you guys, do you know how much I love my buddy PAD?
hahaahhha! Smart, Smart, Smart!
fuck the thais in the ass guys. I just returned from Phuket fucking girls in the ass for what their country's violation of our territories. I fucked one of the bar girl I picked up from the go-go bar until blood comes out, using 2 doses of viagra.
My flight back to PP was cancelled, but I travelled back overland. Now I am safe in PP, and I just want to share with you guys the joy I have of seeing the Thais going nuts and crazy and out of control, destroying their future..hahaha..a.ahaha.a.ahahaa.a.a. I say go all the way PAD. Kill each other. Where are you government supporters? Come out to support your hero, bring guns along too.
For those back at PP, don't let any Thais leave PP. If they are girls, fuck them in the ass. Trust me, it is sweet and feel much much better than in the vagina. Fuck in the ass, use gel if the girl is virgin in the ass. Trust me, me and 2 of my friends had the best fun ass fucking Thai girls in our adult lives.
Go, go go go. I wish they have civil war, tanks in the city, humvees on the street. Kill each other as much as possible. Fuck the Thais!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's my apologies for the intrusion, but I thought you might be interested in this article I found about the U-Tapao airbase in Thailand. Also, I think the B-52 that dropped bombs in Cambodia tookoff from this airfield.
Thanks, guys!
ASIA HAND
What Obama means to Bangkok
By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - Balloons popped, confetti fell and the assembled cheered the announcement that Barack Obama was officially elected the next president of the United States. The US Embassy sponsored event bid to highlight the resilience of US democracy, significantly at a time its erstwhile ally Thailand finds its own nominally democratic system in peril.
It is precisely in places like Thailand that Obama will need to repair once strong, now strained bilateral alliances and reaffirm the US's commitment to democracy and human rights in its foreign policy, both to restore America's flagging credibility as a force for democratic good and to forestall China's recent gains in
the region, which have come by and large at the US's expense.
Outgoing President George W Bush's singular concentration on the "war on terror", of which Southeast Asia was the campaign's less militarized second front, came at a high cost to US credibility - including with its key strategic ally Thailand. Bangkok was a reluctant signatory to Bush's military campaigns, providing a small number of troops to the coalition of the willing in Iraq while allowing US warplanes access its U-Tapao air base during runs to and from Afghanistan.
Thailand also participated in the controversial covert dimensions of the campaign, where Thai intelligence agents worked hand-in-hand with their US counterparts at a joint counterterrorism center created in 2001. That entailed some less than democratic exercises, including the apprehension and hand-off without due process of law into US custody of at least one major terror suspect, Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali.
It also served as willing host to one of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) secret prison sites, where terror suspects sent from third countries were detained and apparently tortured by Thailand-based US agents at a Thai military base. Thai officials have denied the claim, which was first reported in a Washington Post story and later reconfirmed by US officials and media amid the controversy that erupted over the CIA's use of water-boarding while interrogating terror suspects. (See US and Thailand: Allies in torture, Asia Times Online, January 25, 2008)
There are also unanswered questions about the US's role in southernmost Thailand, where a Muslim insurgency has raged since January 2004. The renewed conflict followed on reports that Hambali and other terror suspects had taken refuge in Thailand's southern hinterlands after being flushed out of Malaysia after an alleged terror plot against US interests was upended in Singapore, another key US strategic ally in the region.
Then, US officials were critical of Thailand's inability to manage its borders and some analysts believe that former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's 2003 "war on dark influences" campaign - which took a disproportionate human toll in the deep south - was at least partially a response to US pressure to rein in the crime-ridden and often lawless region.
The US has maintained throughout that the escalating conflict is an internal Thai affair and not a front in its war on terror campaign. Officials have consistently denied US military or intelligence officials have played any role in Thailand's often controversial counterinsurgency exercises, which have been hounded by reports of disappeared and tortured militant suspects by Thai police and military officials.
Abusive ally
Bush had his way with Thailand due largely to the two sides' long time strategic and economic engagement, where formal diplomatic relations date back over 175 years. US military support was instrumental in Thailand's defeat of China-backed communist guerillas during the Cold War and Bangkok's enduring wariness of Beijing's intentions - at least until recently - had kept Thailand firmly in the US's regional strategic orbit.
Thailand is also highly dependent on exports to the US for its economic growth. Rather than pushing for democratic progress in exchange for strategic and economic privilege, the Bush administration goaded regional countries - including Thailand - to cooperate with its counterterrorism policies in exchange for preferential bilateral free trade agreements.
While the Bush administration took strategic advantage of Thailand's hospitality, China simultaneously made new inroads through its "soft power" diplomacy, which emphasized bilateral trade and investment initiatives. That included a bilateral free-trade agreement where the US was unable to come to terms for a similar agreement. Beijing was able to leverage that economic goodwill to strategic ends culminating in the first ever bilateral naval exercises between Thailand and China in 2005. Thai military officials have also recently observed major Chinese military exercises and purchased major Chinese-made military hardware.
Thaksin's willingness to promote defense ties with China came at the US's direct strategic expense and many observers believe that's one reason Washington's reaction to the September 2006 military coup that ousted a democratically elected government was so muted. A small dollop of US military assistance was suspended after the coup and months later US and Thai troops held uninterrupted their annual Cobra Gold joint military exercises, the largest in Asia.
Many of the coup-makers were known US allies, including alleged masterminds and former CIA-trained spy chief Prasong Soonsiri and Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda. Prasong has openly accepted his role in the coup, while top royal advisor Prem has denied any involvement. While Thaksin has on numerous occasions visited China while in exile, he has failed to travel to the US, where he attended university.
Mixed US signals about its actual commitment to democracy promotion have arguably shored up Thailand's resurgent reactionary forces, including an emboldened and politically active military. The US has stood back studiously from Thailand's current political turmoil, where Thaksin's embattled supporters in government claim to uphold democracy while his military-backed detractors in the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) aim to overhaul Thai democracy through less elected and more appointed parliamentarians.
One government insider says that US ambassador Eric John has impressed on army commander General Anupong Paochinda that the US's soft response to the 2006 coup would be much firmer should the military launch another intervention to seize power and suspend democracy. That may or may not be true. PAD co-leader Sondhi Limthongkul, on the other hand, said in a recent interview that the US had long ago lost its legitimacy to preach to Thailand about democracy in light of its own recent democratic failings.
That sentiment underscores the perceptions that the Bush administration abused the large store of Thai goodwill towards the US. With Obama's election, hopes are high here that a more democratic-minded and less militaristic US will move quickly to restore principle to its foreign policy, shifting back towards a more genuine promotion of mutual interests.
To be sure, there are nascent regional concerns that the US will lurch towards more trade protectionism under Obama, likely implemented through tougher labor and environmental standards on the region's merchandise and other exports. But as US financial markets' collapse and US consumption is expected to substantially diminish, the time is ripe for the US to redefine its diplomacy towards the region. Even after eight years of Bush-led abuses, a fresh and genuine US commitment to democracy promotion would be a powerful comparative advantage in the region vis-a-vis authoritarian China.
One US diplomat noted aside that two democratically elected leaders, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayothin, were both invited to Wednesday's US election gala, while ranking members of the Thai military were not in attendance, including top 2006 coup-maker General Sonthi Boonyaratklin, who apparently had requested but was denied an invitation. It's a symbolic gesture many gathered at the event, and this writer in particular, hope Obama will build on through policies and actions in the years ahead.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.
3 in the pink 1 in the stink
lol this news were so big in new zealand now its like on the news everyday bcoz there were like 100 new zealanders at thailand and said they were disappointed about this issue and one of them were on live with the news saying this is the first time he been in thailand and its tune out to be something terrible lol GO GO GOOOOOO
4:34, how the hell do you fuck a whore until blood come out? Their holes would be as big as the sewers after opening their legs to Farang for as long as they know. I smelled lies brother....ahahahaha
Yeah, karma is on Thailand now. i wish they killed each other. Kill all the mother fuckers Thais, and wipe them off the map and off the face of the earth, you mother fucking cunts.
The land of evil (not smile) is in deep shit.
You're right. Sooner or later these troublemakers will eat shit and die.
Go on,Go on!!
Khmer people have to do the same this Sima people against the government!!!
Khmer have to stand up against the dictator Regime Hund Xen,youn's dog!!!
Please all khmers have to look for and stand up all against Dictator Hund Xen!!!
Yeah! go to hell Siam! time for them to suffer! I want to see the war between the Thai and Siam going bigger and bigger and some refugees come to Cambodia side then we will chuck them in the landmines to see if they can escape.
Destroying the BangCOCK city is the best for the Siam PAD to kick out the Thai govt.
I am 100% support these Thai and Siam war.
Go,Go,Go PAD!
hey,,,BAB PAKAM TAM CHONG PEAR...
go go go, close all the airport block the tourist, they will hate Thai because they will missing to do their important job,,,,,
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