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| Southeast Asia |
| Focus turns to Thai military, anti-govt protesters tell them to pick sides |
| 2013-12-13 |
| [Al Ahram] Anti-government protesters in Thailand pinned their hopes on winning support from the powerful security forces on Thursday as they push to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and install an unelected administration. A small group of protesters scaled the walls into the grounds of Yingluck's Government House office on Thursday but soon left without a confrontation with cop shoppeed there. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy premier accused of murder during widespread 2010 protests, has asked police and military chiefs to meet him by Thursday evening and to choose their side in the latest crisis engulfing Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy. The politically powerful army has staged or attempted 18 coups in the past 80 years - including the ousting of Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. It has said it does not want to get involved this time but may mediate. The latest crisis in an eight-year, on-and-off political conflict again centres on Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon popular among the rural poor. The protesters view Yingluck as her brother's puppet. |
| Posted by:Fred |