Empty planes leaving Bangkok
Officials hope to clear besieged airport of protesters
BANGKOK, Thailand – Airlines were flying dozens of empty planes out of Bangkok’s international airport today as authorities struggled to clear it of protesters to reopen international links and move 100,000 travelers stranded by the crisis, the airport said.
Some 30 planes had been flown out starting Sunday and an additional 50 were to be moved later today, some of them to protest-free airports elsewhere in Thailand so that stranded travelers can fly out of the country, said Serirat Prasutanont, director of the Airports Authority of Thailand.
Thailand’s political crisis escalated Sunday when thousands of pro-government activists converged on Bangkok to counter rival protesters who seized the city’s two airports last week and have forced the prime minister to run the country from outside the capital.
Explosions Sunday targeting the anti-government protesters injured at least 51 people, officials said, with blasts hitting the prime minister’s compound in Bangkok where the protesters have camped out since August and a road near the occupied domestic airport.
Neither the army nor Thailand’s revered king have stepped in to resolve the crisis – or offered the firm backing that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat needs to resolve the leadership vacuum.
The problem runs deeper than the airport closures. Political violence has added to the sense of drift bordering on anarchy that pervades the country’s administration, and has damaged Thailand’s international image.
Thailand’s foreign ministry planned to propose Tuesday the postponement of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, scheduled for mid-December in Thailand, ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdee told the Associated Press.
No one claimed responsibility for Sunday’s blasts, but Suriyasai Katasila, a spokesman for the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy, blamed the government.
The alliance says it will not give up until Somchai resigns, accusing him of being a puppet of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the alliance’s original target. Thaksin, who is Somchai’s brother-in-law, was deposed in a 2006 military coup and has fled the country to escape corruption charges.
Alliance protesters managed to shut down the international Suvarnabhumi airport last Tuesday, stranding scores of planes. Local newspapers said protesters allowed the airliners to leave the airport starting Sunday, but that the departing planes nevertheless dimmed their lights to avoid notice of anyone potentially violent.
Some countries evacuated nationals by land. The Australian embassy was helping stranded tourists in Bangkok travel by bus to the southern resort island of Phuket, where air traffic has not been disrupted, for onward travel to Australia.
On Sunday, thousands of government supporters wearing red shirts, headbands and bandanas joined a rally against the protest alliance. Some danced and clapped to music blaring from loudspeakers. They have adopted red to distinguish themselves from their yellow-garbed rivals.