Thailand protesters besiege ASEAN summit site

PATTAYA, THAILAND —  Thousands of anti-government protesters temporarily blocked access to the site of a key summit early today, delaying a meeting between top Asian leaders.

Facing off with riot police and military troops, the protesters, who are seeking the ouster of Thailand’s prime minister, disrupted a meeting between delegates from South Korea, Japan and China.

It was the second day of disruptions at the meeting of the Assn. of Southeast Asian governments. On Friday, after a tense hours-long standoff, protesters broke through razor-wire barricades and a wall of riot police and military troops.

Hundreds in red shirts pushed past the police and raced to the entrance of the posh seaside hotel hosting the regional leaders, some of whom were already inside.

At the steps of the hotel, the protesters, who numbered more than 2,000, threatened to occupy the building if they could not deliver a letter of demands to a summit delegate -- anyone from another country. The breach came minutes after an official had assured reporters that the situation was under control.

After delivering the letter demanding Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s resignation, the protesters retreated down the road just as the first drops of a monsoon rain began to fall.

“Our conditions are simple. Abhisit must go. This government must go,” a protest leader told reporters.

As the protesters backed off Friday, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said he gave a “deep sigh of relief.”

“This is a feature of democracy. We thank the protesters for showing maximum restraint,” he said.

Leaders from six other nations, including China and Japan, are attending the summit in Pattaya, about 90 miles southeast of Bangkok, the capital. Foreign ministers of member nations began meeting Friday.

The protesters, known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or the UDD, are supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. They allege that Abhisit came to power undemocratically and they demand that his 4-month-old coalition government be dissolved.

“The prime minister came to power with assistance from the army. It was a ‘silent coup’!” shouted a protest leader with a megaphone from atop a truck outside the hotel.

The UDD, known as the “red shirts,” is also pushing for the prosecution of the leaders of a rival yellow-shirted protest group that occupied Bangkok’s Government House and overran its two international airports last year in its successful campaign to oust two Thaksin-linked governments.

“We have broken no laws. No government places have been overrun,” UDD spokesman Sean Boonprapong said.

Demonstrations began outside the hotel with protesters chanting anti-government slogans and taunting Abhisit. The 44-year-old Oxford-educated economist was selected prime minister by the parliament after his party came in second in elections late last year.

The opposition’s latest attempt to discredit and topple the government follows a wave of crippling protests in Bangkok that have frozen the city center and thrust the image-conscious country back into international scrutiny.

On Thursday, UDD lawmaker Jatuporn Prompon declared that red-shirted supporters would not allow the summit to commence. “We have run out of peaceful measures,” he told a crowd of supporters.

In turn, the government assured the public that the summit, delayed from December because of the earlier unrest, would proceed no matter what the UDD did. About 8,000 police officers and troops were deployed to Pattaya, known for its beach resorts and bars.

Since Wednesday, more than 100,000 red shirts have been rallying and marching in Bangkok; at one point hundreds surrounded the home of Privy Councilor Prem Tinsulanonda, a retired general who they say was behind the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin.

Thaksin says the UDD is a “people’s revolution” pitting democracy against an “aristocracy.”

Two days earlier, UDD members attacked Abhisit while his vehicle was stopped at a traffic light in Pattaya, smashing the rear window and pummeling his driver and bodyguards.

“This is not the game, they cannot play like this,” said Abhisit, who has rejected the calls to resign. “If they are sincere the government is open to political reform.”

Thaksin, a former policeman who became a billionaire telecom tycoon, has been in hiding since he was ousted in the bloodless military coup and received a two-year jail sentence on corruption charges. Still, he has a strong support base, especially among the rural poor, mostly in the north, because of his populist policies.

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McDermid is a special correspondent.