Thailand is ready to host Asean Summit in October

May 29, 2009
The Nation

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya on Thursday insisted that Thailand was ready to host Asean summit and dialogue partners in Phuket.

The 15th Asean summit will be held during October 23-25 in Phuket. To participate in the summit were 16 leaders of Asean and dialogue partners countries, UN Secretary General and executives of international economic and financial organizations.

Kasit added that he informed a meeting of Asean foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia recently that Thailand was ready to organise Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM), Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) and Asean Regional Forum (ARF) between July 16 and 23 in Phuket.

There will be representatives of 26 countries and one international organization attending the meeting.

Kasit said Thai foreign ministry officials will visit Phuket from June 5 to 7 to check the readiness of meeting venue.

Thai protesters disrupt Asia summit

• Protesters blockade meeting venue
• Anti-government "red shirts" clash with pro-"reds"
• Organisers say summit will go ahead

By John Ruwitch

PATTAYA, Thailand, April 11 (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters in Thailand disrupted an Asian summit on Saturday, forcing the cancellation of meetings by the foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and China.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were scheduled to sign an investment agreement with China, but red-shirted supporters of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra blockaded the venue, forcing the meeting to be delayed.

"The ASEAN-China meeting has been delayed because of attempts to block delegations and leaders,"Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told reporters. "They have confirmed they are still interested to attend. We wish to ensure their safety and we expect the meetings to resume soon."

The meeting between the Japanese, Chinese and South Korean foreign ministers would have been their first opportunity to discuss last Sunday's launch of a North Korean rocket widely viewed as a long-range missile test.

Protesters blocked the entrance to the meeting venue, and Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone was unable to reach it from his nearby hotel, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

"The trilateral meeting has been cancelled," the Japanese foreign ministry official said, "But the Japanese foreign minister has spoken by telephone separately with his South Korean and Chinese counterparts."

The East Asia Summit brings together the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand for discussions about trade, economic issues and regional security.

The full summit itself takes place on Sunday and will focus on responses to the global financial crisis. On Saturday, ASEAN leaders were due to hold a series of mini-summits with their North Asia counterparts.

RED SHIRTS VS BLUE SHIRTS

Hundreds of troops were guarding entrances to the Royal Cliff Beach Resort in Pattaya, about 150 km (90 miles) south of Bangkok, but "red shirts" were already massing at the sprawling resort complex, their numbers swelled since Friday.

"There have been clashes in the periphery of the meeting venue, but this won't affect security of the meeting," Panitan, the government spokesman said. "A few people have been injured, just two or three, with minor injuries."

More security headaches arrived in the form of "blue shirts", a new group of pro-government supporters making their debut at the summit, as Thailand's deep political divisions play out on an international stage.

"The blue shirts are people who we believe are concerned about the meetings," Panitan said. "They want them to continue, and they want them to continue peacefully."

But Reuters photographers said the "blue shirts", wearing balaclavas around their heads to keep from being identified, were armed with truncheons, bricks and slingshots and were clashing with the "red shirts" on streets leading to the Royal Cliff. Smoke bombs were thrown.

On Friday, at least 2,000 of "red shirts" broke through roadblocks manned by police and soldiers, pushing aside police vans and buses and even driving away a fire truck, before confronting soldiers at the summit venue.

They only dispersed after an official from the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) came out to accept a letter from them.

The protesters say the government of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is illegitimate and not empowered to sign any summit agreement because he came to office in December through parliamentary defections they say were engineered by the army.

Thaksin, now in exile, was ousted in a 2006 coup. His reconstituted party, however, regained power after elections, which sparked months of protests last year that closed airports in Bangkok and took a huge toll on the economy.

The Chinese investment agreement due to be signed on Saturday is the final piece of a Free Trade Agreement that will create the world's largest free trade area, encompassing 1.9 billion people.

The ASEAN leaders were also scheduled to hold separate meetings with the leaders of Japan and South Korea and then with all three later on Saturday in the so-called ASEAN + 3 process.

On Friday, Southeast Asian foreign ministers "expressed concern" about tensions in Northeast Asia during a meeting on politics and security on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds and Martin Ruwitch; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by David Fox)

Protesters reach ASEAN summit hotel

04/10/2009
Agence France-Presse

PATTAYA, Thailand—(UPDATE 2) Hundreds of Thai anti-government protesters Friday reached a hotel hosting a major Asian summit after breaking through a final security cordon, AFP reporters said.

About 200 protesters passed through the last line of unarmed riot police with little resistance, chanting anti-government slogans, cheering, and clapping their hands.

Some arrived on pick-up trucks and on scooters, moving to within 50 meters (yards) of the front doors of the luxury hotel where a meeting of 16 nations is being held this weekend.

The demonstrators were part of a group of about 1,000 supporters of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra that gathered in the resort town of Pattaya after causing chaos Thursday with traffic disruptions in the capital Bangkok.

The main crowd briefly clashed with police guarding the summit venue before a smaller number forced their way closer to the building.

They waved red posters reading "Get out" and "Thailand needs change," in their campaign for the ouster of current premier Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has resisted calls to step down and order early elections.

An earlier AFP report said hundreds of riot police and troops were guarding the Royal Cliff Beach Resort, the summit venue.

Pattaya is the site for the summit, which groups the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Protesters break through security at Asian summit

Supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra break through a cordon of anti-riot policemen near the venue of the 14th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Pattaya April 10, 2009. Anti-government protesters converged on the Thai beach town of Pattaya on Friday with plans to disrupt an Asian summit as part of efforts to try to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to step down. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

Friday, April 10, 2009

PATTAYA, Thailand (AFP) — Thai protesters pushed through security at a summit of Asian leaders, forcing their campaign to topple Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva into the international spotlight.

Thai police vowed to use "all means necessary" to clear the hundreds of protesters away from the beach resort hotel where the leaders of China, Japan, India and 13 other nations were to gather for the three-day summit.

Around 400 protesters faced off outside against at least 200 security forces -- including riot police in full gear and army soldiers -- who stood in formation outside the hotel.

The security breach came after months of assurances from the government that it would not let the kingdom's internal political turmoil, which has been boiling for months, disrupt the meeting.

Protesters launched new mass rallies in Bangkok on Wednesday to push Abhisit to resign, insisting that he came to power undemocratically through a court ruling that toppled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's allies in December.

"Today we are not coming to stop the summit. We have come to join the summit to represent the Thai people because Abhisit cannot be responsible for our rights," protest leader Arismun Pongreungrong told AFP.

"Abhisit is not the legitimate prime minister. We have to pressure him to resign."

Thai authorities have gone out of their way to avoid clashes with protesters since mass violence broke out at a rally by anti-Thaksin demonstrators in Bangkok last October, leaving two people dead and 500 injured.

The protesters on Friday passed through the last line of unarmed riot police with little resistance, chanting slogans, cheering and clapping their hands.

Some protesters arrived on pick-up trucks and on scooters, moving to within 50 metres (yards) of the front doors of the luxury hotel and waving red posters reading "Abhisit get out" and "Thailand needs change".

British-born Abhisit has repeatedly resisted their calls to go and his government hardened its stance earlier Friday, saying it intended to arrest the leaders of the protests against the government.

Abhisit said late Thursday that he had boosted security in Pattaya for the summit, which groups the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

China earlier this week expressed concerns about security at the summit but said it was confident the Thai government could keep protesters away. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was due to arrive later Friday.

The protests have marked the biggest challenge to Abhisit since he came to power four months ago. On Thursday around 100 taxi drivers blocked a major intersection in Bangkok, snarling traffic across the capital.

"Certain people must take responsibility for all these incidents," said the Oxford-educated premier.

Thaksin, a billionaire populist who still has a loyal following among the country's poor but is loathed by the Bangkok elite, was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

Living in exile to avoid a two-year prison sentence for corruption, Thaksin has been egging on the protesters with nightly messages to them via videolink.

Abhisit announced a public holiday across Thailand on Friday in a bid to ease tension across the country.

The government has repeatedly said it would ensure the security of the summit -- which was postponed twice and moved to different cities twice in a bid to keep away from the protests.

"We are using international standards of security protection for the 16 leaders," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, in charge of national security, said on Friday. "They will be safe."