Summary / Update on Thai crisis
PHUKET: Thailand is tense this morning after clashes between “Red Shirt” anti-government protesters and troops left one dead and eight wounded, including a renegade general allied with some factions among the demonstrators.
The fresh violence in Bangkok last night came after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva shelved a plan to hold early elections in November and hopes faded for resolution of the crippling political crisis.
Renegade Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol, a key figure in the protest movement, was shot in the head and seriously wounded while he was giving an interview to a newspaper journalist close to the protesters’ sprawling camp.
Another demonstrator died later in clashes with security forces.
Defiant Red Shirts vowed no surrender.
Hours before the general was shot the army had warned it would deploy snipers in the area around the Reds’ rally site as part of a ‘lockdown’ aimed at preventing more protesters entering.
An army spokesman had said troops would surround the rally site with armoured vehicles and that demonstrators would be allowed to leave but not enter the area.
Gen Khattiya remains in critical condition this morning.
Phuket remains calm with no street-level evidence of the strife in the Thai capital.
— Nation / Canada.com reporters
