Security forces patrol near Thai Buddhist temple as slain Thai protest leader mourned

Police patrol as slain Thai protest leader mourned

BANGKOK — Security forces converged on a Buddhist temple in Thailand’s capital where thousands of mourners were expected to pay their final respects Tuesday to a renegade general assassinated at the height of last month’s anti-government protests.

Police feared the cremation of Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, shot in the head by a sniper while giving interviews to foreign journalists, would draw Red Shirt opposition supporters from across the country.

“The funeral is a time for mourning, but it’s also a time to show solidarity,” said Pongsak Phusitsakul, a provincial protest leader who planned to attend with other Red Shirts from his province.

The Red Shirts staged ten weeks of protests during which nearly 90 people were killed — most of them protesters shot by soldiers — and more than 1,400 injured before security forces drove them from the enclave in downtown Bangkok they had occupied.

The protesters were demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva — who they see as illegitimate because his party did not win the last elections — dissolve Parliament and call early elections.

Khattiya, better known as “Seh Daeng,” was singled out by the government as the leader of a militant wing of the Red Shirts and a key organizer of rudimentary bamboo-and-tire defenses around the area they occupied.

His slaying on March 13 enraged the protesters and led to a final showdown with army troops six days later.

The government claimed that the use of force was necessary to combat so-called “men in black,” armed Red Shirts security believed to be trained by Khattiya.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Vichai Sangparpai said that 800 policemen — including bomb squads, riot police and undercover officers — were being deployed in and around the Buddhist temple, which was a few blocks the area where the Red Shirt protest started.

Many of the Red Shirts, who are mostly rural poor, are supporters of former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and is now in self-imposed exile. The government says Thaksin was a key instigator and financier of the protests.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told Thai PBS television channel that he was not worried about a large group of Red Shirt supporters turning up at the funeral.

“I’ve got total confidence in the police,” said Suthep.

Emergency decrees are still in place forbidding any political gathering of more than five people. Under the decrees, anyone can be taken into custody for a week without being charged.

Pongsak Phusitsakul, the provincial Red Shirt leader, said he had arranged transport for about 70 supporters from his province. Many more will join him in the one-day trip to Bangkok in their own vehicles, he said.

Pongsak said that many provinces were organizing similar trips. “This is natural for a mass movement. Seh Daeng is just a symbol,” he said. “We are here to make our voices heard again.”