Police officers on Sunday inspected the site of an attack on antigovernment protesters in Bangkok. Narong Sangnak/European Pressphoto Agency

Bangkok Protests Hit by Two Explosions

International New York Times | 19 Jan. 2014

BANGKOK — More than two dozen people were injured in twin explosions at an antigovernment demonstration in Bangkok on Sunday, a further escalation of violence in Thailand’s protracted political crisis.

Officials with Bangkok’s emergency services said at least 28 people were wounded. The blasts, which occurred at a major intersection that protesters have blocked for the past week, followed a grenade attack on Friday that killed one protester and wounded more than 35. On Saturday, another protester was shot and seriously wounded.

The daily violence has not reached the level seen during the political upheaval in 2010, when a few neighborhoods in Bangkok turned into something resembling a war zone.

But once again, weapons of war are being used on the streets of this otherwise cosmopolitan city and tourist hub, underscoring the depth and complexity of the country’s eight-year power struggle. Thailand is divided between north and south and between the supporters and the detractors of a political movement founded by Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra is the current prime minister.

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An injured protester arrived at a hospital in Bangkok. European Pressphoto Agency

Foreign embassies have advised their citizens to stay away from protest areas, which include the streets outside the city’s largest shopping malls, a number of major intersections in the central business district and a bridge across the Chao Phraya River that a faction of protesters is occupying.

The government and protest leaders blamed each other for the violent attacks in Bangkok, which also included explosions and shootings last week, about half of which resulted in injuries.

The government and its supporters say the protesters are trying to create the kind of political chaos that would lead to another coup.

The protesters, who seek to derail the elections scheduled for Feb. 2, say the attacks show that the government has lost control and should resign and be replaced by a “people’s council” that would carry out political reforms in the country.

Despite the blasts on Sunday — and in contrast to the more funereal tone after the attack on Friday — the protesters continued a festive march through Bangkok on Sunday afternoon. As he has done for several weeks, the leader of the protests, Suthep Thaugsuban, collected wads of donated cash and urged more Bangkok residents to join the protest movement.

A television channel allied with the protesters, Blue Sky, broadcast an upbeat protest song as Rattiya Mingsakul, a reporter who narrated the segment, reported that Mr. Suthep “looks delighted as he greets the people and collects donations from the masses.”

At an intersection blocked by protesters, another opposition leader, Sathit Wongnongtoey, took to a stage after reports of the explosions and urged the crowd to continue “fighting.”

“We have almost won,” he said. “We will definitely win.”

In recent days, the opposition has been encouraged by protests involving farmers in central Thailand who say they have not received payments as part of a controversial government scheme to compensate them well above market prices for their rice. The Election Commission has barred the government from paying the farmers before the elections, saying it could be interpreted as a form of vote buying.

The protesters in Bangkok, many of whom are from southern Thailand, say their goal is to remove Mr. Thaksin and his family from Thai politics. On Sunday, they repeated their call for Ms. Yingluck to take responsibility for the violence and step down.

Mr. Thaksin’s political movement, the first in Thai history to successfully win the majority of rural voters by offering policies such as universal health care, has repeatedly defeated the party of the Bangkok establishment, the Democrats, which is boycotting the elections.

The Democrats, which are allied with the protesters, say Mr. Thaksin’s political movement is corrupt.

Government supporters counter that the Democrats’ party, which has not won a general election in more than two decades, is boycotting the Feb. 2 elections because it knows it would lose.

As a counterpoint to the Bangkok protests, nightly candlelight vigils have been held across the country against the protesters’ efforts to sabotage the elections.