20,000 Thai red shirts expected at rally today

Thousand of red-shirted protesters in Bangkok in April.

By THE NATION ON SUNDAY
Published on May 10, 2009

Police estimate that about 20,000 red-shirt supporters will turn up at the Wat Pai Kiew rally in Don Muang district today.

Metropolitan Police Bureau commander Pol Maj-General Sarot Promcharoen said three companies or 450 police officers would be deployed to keep security at the temple.

Three checkpoints will be set up - on Ngamwongwan Road, Chaengwattana Road and outside the Don Muang district office. He said intelligence officials had not uncovered any move by a third party that could destabilise the rally.

Red-shirt leaders have insisted the rally will be confined to the temple.

A source said supporters of the red shirts in Ubon Ratchathani had dramatically decreased after realising they had been exploited for political and personal interest by politicians during the Songkran riots. They have decided not to join the rally today even though they had been urged to do so. Only canvassers for local politicians and ex-communists were expected to turn up.

However, there have been more moves by the red shirts in the central region: protesters from Sing Buri, Ayutthaya, Sara Buri and Suphan Buri will converge on Lop Buri before banding together and moving to Don Muang.

Pathum Thani red-shirt leader Sombun Khunthongthai said more than 1,000 protesters, most of them government officials and community leaders from the province, would attend the rally today.

He denied that they had been hired by politicians to do so and said they were loyal supporters of the red shirts and would protest against the government's double standards in running the country.

Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva's personal spokesman Thepthai Senapong said the red shirts had been trying to justify their rally by distorting the facts, even though society opposed the movement.

He said the red-shirt leaders did not care to mobilise protesters who have political ideology or educated but they were violent-prone. When the rally turn violent then the leaders blamed the third party.

Meanwhile, Pheu Thai Party MP for Chiang Mai Surapong Towichakchaikul said the party would distribute two million CDs at the Wat Pai Kiew rally today to counter allegations that the red shirts had been the cause of the Songkran riots.