Protestors continue to occupy Thai PM's compound

Thousands of demonstrators occupying the Thai prime minister’s office compound beat back an effort by riot police to remove them today and vowed to stay until the government resigns.

Police, meanwhile, said they will seek arrest warrants for eight protest leaders from the People’s Alliance for Democracy as well as a court order to force the protesters to leave the compound known as Government House.

Alliance protesters, who accuse Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of corruption and of being a proxy for his disgraced predecessor, have camped in a huge garden outside Government House offices since scaling fences there yesterday afternoon.

They have remained peaceful and have not tried to enter any government buildings.

About 500 helmeted riot police forced their way into the compound overnight, briefly clashing with protesters.

But the police later backed off from the confrontation, while establishing themselves inside the compound and mingling with protesters at the perimeter.

The early morning clash did nothing to shake the resolve of the protest organisers.

The alliance accuses Mr Samak of being too close to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and faces several pending corruption cases. Mr Thaksin is in self-imposed exile in Britain.

“If we leave before this government resigns, that means we are defeated,” Chamlong Srimuang, one of the protest leaders, told the crowd inside the compound.

The alliance, which is loosely aligned with conservative factions of the monarchy and the military, said the protests and the seizure of a state-run television station by a mob of their masked security enforcers were a “final showdown” in efforts to oust the government.