By DPA,
Bangkok : Tens of thousands of protesters arrived at the outskirts of Bangkok Saturday to participate in demonstrations aimed at forcing the Thai government to resign and call for new elections.
In Wang Noi in Ayutthaya province, an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 demonstrators had gathered Saturday morning, witnesses said, as they prepared to descend on Bangkok, where the main protest is planned Sunday.
Wang Noi, about 90 km north of the capital, is a major meeting point for protesters travelling from the northern and north-eastern regions of Thailand.
At Nakorn Sawan, 200 km north of Bangkok, authorities had reportedly blocked thousands of vehicles carrying protesters from advancing to Bangkok by limiting traffic to one lane, People’s Channel television reported.
“We have been stopped at Nakorn Sawan,” Waipot Arpornrat, a member of the Puea Thai opposition party, told the anti-government TV station. “The government does not have the authority to block us.”
The government has put Bangkok and the seven surrounding provinces under the Internal Security Act, which allows authorities more leeway to bar protests in sensitive areas and arrest perpetrators of violence.
It has also set up 170 road checkpoints outside the capital to check for weapons.
But Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has vowed to allow the protests to take place so long as they remain non-violent.
The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), whose members are better known as the red shirts for the colour they wear, has vowed to bring 500,000 to one million demonstrators to Bangkok.
The demonstrations are more likely to summon 300,000 to 400,000 protesters at most, according to sources close to the UDD.
The UDD is a mass movement whose broad goals are to force Abhisit to resign and new elections to be called to pave the way for a political comeback for fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, continues to hold sway over millions of the country’s urban and rural poor and also enjoys support from a broad spectrum of Thai society intent on changing the status quo.
The populist politician was toppled in a military coup in September 2006 and has been living in self-imposed exile, mostly in Dubai, since August that year to avoid a two-year jail sentence on abuse-of-power charges.
Thailand’s Supreme Court for Political Office Holders on Feb 26 ordered the seizure of $1.4 billion of the $2.3 billion in frozen bank assets belonging to Thaksin and his family.
The court found him guilty of abusing his power to benefit his business empire and of holding a larger-than-allowed share in Thaksin-founded Shin Corp during his time as prime minister.
The former telecommunications tycoon on Saturday posted messages from Dubai on the micro-blogging website Twitter, urging his supporters to join the weekend protests.
He denied reports that the United Arab Emirates asked him to leave the country but admitted he was travelling to Germany this weekend to visit his two daughters there.
Thaksin’s ex-wife and three children have all left Thailand in anticipation of trouble this weekend.
It is widely understood that Thaksin, despite his diminished fortune, remains one of the main financiers of the UDD, which needs an estimated 30 million baht ($909,000) per 100,000 protesters to feed and transport them for the protests.
Many of the protesters have been paid about 1,000 baht to join the demonstrations and others have been promised debt relief should the protests lead to the return of a Thaksin-led government, sources from rural ares said.
The protest coincides with the hot season in Thailand, when there is little agricultural activity in the provinces.
“There is nothing to do in the dry season up here, so if some one is going to pay you to go to protest in Bangkok for a few days, why not?” said Martin Wheeler, a British resident of Khon Kaen province, about 350 km north-east of Bangkok.
The UDD plans to hold its main protest Sunday, but demonstrations could last as long as a week, after which the initiative is likely to run out of funding.
The government has a 35,000-strong joint police and army force on hand in Bangkok this weekend with another 46,000 civilian volunteers available if things get hectic.
Hospitals have been put on alert and information centres set up in the city for potentially befuddled foreign tourists.
About 30 countries have issued travel warnings for Bangkok because of the protest.