BANGKOK — Tensions escalated in the standoff between anti-government demonstrators and Thai security forces as the army said Tuesday that deadly force could be used against protesters besieging the heart of the capital.
The so-called Red Shirt demonstrators, meanwhile, reinforced defenses at their urban encampment — already shrouded with netting to foil the prying eyes of potential attackers — and prepared homemade weapons including hundreds of sharpened bamboo poles and broken pavement stones.
No new clashes were reported as the Red Shirts, who have occupied Bangkok’s streets for more than five weeks, abandoned plans to march into the central business district after soldiers in full combat gear were garrisoned there to bar the way.
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 Parliament dissolved immediately and new elections called.
They regard Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government as illegitimate because it came to power through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected, pro-Thaksin administrations. The conflict has been characterized by some as class warfare, pitting the country’s vast rural poor against an elite that has traditionally held power.
Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the guidelines for suppressing violent protests were being adjusted because the authorities had found that “terrorists infiltrating the demonstrators were preparing to use weapons such as throw type bombs, sharpened sticks and sticks tied with nails, as well as acid.”
