Thaksin's supporters extend protest to Thai ministry
Posted: 02 April 2009 1711 hrs

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BANGKOK - Supporters of fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra extended their protest to the finance ministry Thursday, as mass rallies against the government entered a second week.

Thousands of demonstrators have surrounded Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's offices in Bangkok since March 26, demanding that he dissolve his three-month-old government and hold snap elections.

Police said about 1,600 of the so-called "Red Shirts" split off from the main rally on Thursday and arrived at the finance ministry four kilometres away in trucks and on motorcycles.

They chanted slogans against the government's plans to borrow up to two billion dollars from international financial institutions to curb the effects of the global economic crisis.

"We deployed around 200 police to prevent protesters from entering the ministry premises," said local police commander Colonel Piyaphol Pholvanich.

The government on Wednesday offered to hold talks with Thaksin to end the protests, the biggest since Abhisit took office in December on the back of a court decision that removed Thaksin's allies from power.

Thaksin was toppled in a military coup in 2006 and his supporters accuse Abhisit of being a stooge of Thailand's powerful army.

Abhisit is currently in London for the G20 economic summit.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Thursday urged protesters to comply with a court injunction to open the gates of Abhisit's office and allow officials to enter.

"I call on all protesters to respect the law," he told reporters. "It is tantamount to intimidation and violates other people's rights to ask officials to walk into Government House and be subject to a body search."

Suthep denied that the government had blocked a satellite television station run by the protest movement which had been broadcasting Thaksin's speeches to the crowds.

The Red Shirts say they expect tens of thousands of people to attend a mass rally in Bangkok in a week's time -- echoing the street campaign by rival anti-Thaksin activists last year that helped bring Abhisit to power.

Thaksin remains hugely popular among the rural and urban poor but he is loathed by Thailand's old guard in the palace, military and bureaucracy.

- AFP/ir