Thai authorities said today they would intensify efforts to contain anti-government protests in Bangkok, a day after a soldier was killed in the latest clash of a campaign to force early elections.
The "red shirt" supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra remained defiant in their makeshift encampment in the capital after skirmishes with Thai troops yesterday on a busy highway in Bangkok's northern suburb wounded 19 people.
"We are ready for them to come to get us. Let's see how many of us they have to kill to satisfy them," said Saman Chantikul, a 50-year-old fruit seller who was among thousands occupying Bangkok's upscale shopping district for nearly a month.
"We are not going anywhere until this government listens to us."
Seven weeks of increasingly violent protests and their economic toll on Southeast Asia's second-largest economy are piling more pressure on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to end the crisis that has killed 27 people and paralysed Bangkok.
Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said troops at checkpoints on roads leading into the area would stop people bringing in weapons and might discourage more from going in.
But red shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn said he expected more protesters to join the mostly rural and urban poor movement seeking to throw the government out. "We believe victory is near," he said to loud cheers from thousands in their encampment behind medieval-like barricades made of tyres, bamboo poles and chunks of concrete.
About 100 protesters today entered Chulalongkorn Hospital, which lies alongside their encampment. A witness said they were looking for troops they suspected were stationed inside. They later left the building.
With neither side showing any sign of compromise, analysts expect the stalemate to go on with potential flashpoints ahead.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban acknowledged to reporters today it would be hard to forcibly eject the red shirts because many women and children are among them.
Red shirt leaders appealed to the European Union to send observers to Bangkok to prevent a violent crackdown in a letter they handed to EU Ambassador David Lipman at his office. In the letter, they said were open to negotiations.
Mr Lipman called for "constructive dialogue and a negotiated solution to the current political crisis through peaceful and democratic means".
Thailand has insisted the deepening crisis is an internal affair. The foreign ministry said in a statement today it was concerned about the visits diplomats have made to the protest site "which could be misconstrued as the rally is illegal" and many of the protest leaders have arrest warrants against them.
About 300 supporters from a rival protest group, the "yellow shirts", went to the prime minister's office to demand military action to disperse the red shirts.
"The red shirts have created a state within a state and they are getting away with it with impunity," said Suriyasai Katasila, a spokesman for the group who closed down Bangkok's main airport for a week in late 2008 and helped bring down a pro-Thaksin government.
"The authorities must put an end to this."
Yesterday's bloodshed flared after 2,000 red shirts moved out of the central shopping area in a "mobile rally".
Fighting erupted on a crowded highway 40km north of central Bangkok when security forces barred their way. Troops fired rubber bullets and live rounds, first in the air and then into the charging protesters, witnesses said.
The red shirts oppose what they say is the unelected royalist elite that controls Thailand and broadly back Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 but before that built up a following among the poor through rural development and welfare policies.
The former telecoms tycoon was convicted in absentia on corruption-related charges and lives abroad to avoid jail.
Reuters