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BANGKOK: Thai police fired tear gas on Tuesday to disperse anti-government protesters blocking parliament, injuring 190 people as months of political turmoil boiled over into clashes, police and medics said.
Twenty-one people suffered serious injuries, a medical official said, as police tried to disperse several thousand protesters surrounding parliament who tried to stop the first policy speech by new prime minister Somchai Wongsawat.
The address went ahead but the special session ended after two hours as protesters continued to mass outside, forcing Somchai and five aides to climb over a fence to escape the mob, an AFP correspondent saw.
"House speaker Chai Chidchob called the meeting off because he is concerned that the situation could deteriorate," government whip Witaya Buranasiri told AFP, adding that parliament would not convene on Wednesday as planned.
Hundreds of lawmakers and senators remain locked inside the parliament building as angry protesters regrouped and surrounded all the exits.
A senior police official at the Bangkok police headquarters said 8,000 protesters were now surrounding parliament.
The clashes cap months of unrest which began in late May when protesters launched their campaign to overthrow Thailand's elected government because of its ties to Thaksin Shinawatra, the premier ousted in a September 2006 coup.
Supporters of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) stormed Bangkok's main government compound on August 26 and have been barricaded there since, also protesting the government's plans to amend the constitution.
Late Monday, thousands heeded a call from a protest leader to march on parliament for a "final battle," prompting about 4,500 police including riot squads to move in and fire canisters of tear gas early Tuesday.
"Police have had to disperse the protesters by firing tear gas to make way for MPs to enter parliament," metropolitan police Major General Anan Srihiran told AFP.
One of Thailand's five deputy prime ministers, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, resigned over the crackdown, saying his role as chief negotiator with the protesters had been compromised.
Nanthana Mesprasart, supervisor at Bangkok's emergency medical response centre, said one man had his left foot amputated after it was injured in the chaos. A journalist was among the 190 people who received treatment.
Parliament, however, went ahead with its session on Tuesday, despite a boycott by the opposition Democrat Party in protest against the crackdown.
Somchai said in his speech that his new administration was "determined to create national reconciliation" but as he spoke protesters who had earlier scattered returned to the parliament building, blocking off the exits.
Thai media, meanwhile, announced that Queen Sirikit was donating 100,000 baht (3,000 dollars) to pay medical expenses for the wounded protesters, who claim they are carrying out their campaign out of loyalty to the palace.
The People Power Party won elections in December last year that marked the end of military rule brought in by the 2006 coup, but the old power elite in the palace and military resented the return to power of Thaksin's allies.
Former prime minister Samak Sundaravej was forced from office in September, after a court ruled he had accepted illegal payments for a TV show, and his successor Somchai formed his new government last month.
Somchai – Thaksin's brother-in-law – has urged the PAD to leave his offices by November and opened talks with the protest leaders.
Those talks were jeopardised over the weekend with the arrest of PAD head Chamlong Srimuang and protest organiser Chaiwat Sinsuwong.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, told AFP that the PAD was protesting against the democratic system in Thailand, raising the spectre of a prolonged crisis.
"This is the end of Thailand as we know it ... and the PAD is the spearhead of this right-wing conservative reassertion. There's no quick end here," he said.
- AFP/so
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