Stranded Bangkok total reaches 300,000
More than 300,000 travellers were today stranded in Thailand, trapped in the siege of Bangkok’s two airports by anti-government demonstrators.
All commercial flights in and out of the capital have been halted. Meanwhile airlines were flying dozens of empty planes out of the city’s Suvarnabhumi international airport.
Some 30 planes were flown out yesterday and an additional 50 were moved today, some to protest-free airports elsewhere in Thailand so that stranded tourists, businesspeople and others can fly out of the country, said Serirat Prasutanont, acting director of the Airports Authority of Thailand.
He said the airport will remain closed at least until Wednesday, renewing a shutdown that has been repeated every 48 hours.
The loss of international air links over the past week has forced thousands to cancel their holidays during peak tourist season, halted vital postal air services and stopped the arrival of everything from specialised medicines to raw fish for Bangkok’s Japanese restaurants.
Neither the army nor Thailand’s king has stepped in to resolve the crisis – or offered the firm backing that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat needs to resolve the leadership vacuum.
Bombs yesterday targeting the anti-government protesters injured at least 51 people with blasts hitting the prime minister’s compound, known as the Government House, and a road near the occupied domestic airport. No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but the alliance blamed the government.
Government House, which has been occupied since August 26, has been attacked several times with grenades.
To avoid more injuries, alliance leader Chamlong Srimuang called on protesters to move out of the prime minister’s compound “to the airports to support our people there.” By dusk, only a couple of hundred remained.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has intervened to resolve several political crises over the past four decades, is scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated speech on Thursday, the eve of his 81st birthday. But whether he will actually move to resolve the paralysing situation is uncertain.
The Constitutional Court also is to rule soon on whether three parties in the governing coalition, including Somchai’s People’s Power Party, committed electoral fraud. Closing arguments from the defendants will be heard tomorrow.
If found guilty, the parties would be dissolved immediately and executive members including Somchai could be barred from politics for five years. Whether this would satisfy the anti-government protesters is uncertain.
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
Kongrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand, said over 300,000 travellers were stranded in Thailand, with 35,000 to 45,000 being added to that number each day the airports remain closed. Thousands of others trying to enter Thailand from around the world are also in a holding pattern.
Stranded travellers are driving hundreds of miles to other airports such as Chiang Mai in the north and Phuket in the south to leave the country.
Thailand’s government has claimed that the protesters are trying to spark anarchy so the military will feel compelled to take over the country.
But the army, which overthrew Thaksin and has a history of previous coups, says it has no plans to oust the current prime minister. Still, it has failed to back up Somchai’s efforts to restore order.
The supporters of the alliance are largely middle-class citizens who say Thailand’s electoral system is susceptible to vote-buying and argue that the rural majority – the Thaksin camp’s political base – is not sophisticated enough to cast ballots responsibly.
