Dozens hurt by bomb at Thai protest march

A bomb attack
wounded dozens of people at an opposition protest
march in Thailand’s capital on Friday, sending
tensions soaring following weeks of mass rallies
aimed at overthrowing the government.
The kingdom has been periodically rocked by
political bloodshed since former prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown by royalist
generals in a coup seven years ago.
His sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, has
faced more than two months of street
demonstrations aimed at forcing her government
from office and installing an unelected “people’s
council”.
The authorities and the demonstrators both blamed
each other for the blast, which was apparently
caused by a grenade-type device thrown from a
nearby building.
The anti-government movement said the explosion
happened shortly before rally leader Suthep
Thaugsuban was due to pass.
“The bomb went off about 30 metres (100 feet) from
Suthep,” protest spokesman Akanat Promphan told
AFP. “Then his bodyguards escorted him back to a
rally stage.”
Television footage showed several people lying on
the ground as ambulances rushed away the
wounded. Protesters were seen searching nearby
buildings for the attackers.
The city’s Erawan emergency centre said 31 people
were hurt, including one with severe injuries.
Eight people have been killed and hundreds
wounded in street violence since the protests
began.
Demonstrators, backed by the country’s royalist
establishment, have occupied major intersections in
the capital since Monday in what they have dubbed
the “Bangkok shutdown”.
There have been a series of drive-by shootings at
rally sites and grenade attacks on the houses of
opposition politicians that both the demonstrators
and the government have blamed on each other.
“Yingluck must take responsibility,” one of the
protest leaders, Satit Wonghnongtaey, said on stage
soon after the blast.
“This government, Yingluck and Red Shirt thugs are
creating violence,” he said, referring to a rival pro-
Thaksin protest movement whose rallies in 2010
were suppressed in a bloody military crackdown.
The government and the Red Shirts denied the
claim, saying the protesters were trying to incite
violence.
“A movement has been set up to create a situation
of bomb attacks against leaders’ houses and
protesters,” Deputy Prime Minister Surapong
Tovichakchaikul told reporters.
The government has urged police to detain rally
leader Suthep, who faces an insurrection charge —
in theory punishable by death — in connection with
the protests.
Yingluck’s supporters fear the attacks aim to
provoke another military or judicial coup to remove
her from power.
The protests were triggered by a failed amnesty bill
that could have allowed her brother Thaksin to
return without going to jail for a past corruption
conviction.
The demonstrators accuse the billionaire telecoms
tycoon-turned-politician of controlling his sister’s
government from his base in Dubai.
Thaksin has strong electoral support in northern
Thailand, but he is reviled by many southerners,
Bangkok’s middle class and members of the
royalist establishment.
Yingluck has called an election for February 2 in an
effort to defuse the deepening crisis but the main
opposition Democrat Party is boycotting the polls,
which they fear will only return the Shinawatra
family to power.
“I think the election will be the answer,” Yingluck
told foreign reporters on Friday before the blast,
saying that her family was “one of the victims”.
“We just do our job. So that is why (an) election will
be the only way to clear out our family,” she said.
Yingluck is also facing several legal moves which
experts say could potentially bring down her
government.
On Thursday the National Anti-Corruption
Commission launched an investigation into possible
negligence of duty by Yingluck in connection with a
controversial subsidy scheme for rice farmers.