Thai protesters defy order to leave PM's compound
Samak, who ordered police to break up the rally at Government House on Wednesday, softened his tough stance after they failed to exercise arrest warrants overnight for nine leaders of the three-month-old, anti-government campaign.
"After thorough consideration, it would be too dangerous to do so," Samak told reporters at army headquarters after being forced to abandon his main office this week.
"I've told the police not to break up the crowd, but to encourage people to leave," Samak said of the 10,000 supporters of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) camped on the Government House lawn behind makeshift barricades.
The PAD leaders have been charged with trying to overthrow the seven-month-old government through violent insurrection, a crime that can carry the death penalty.
"We won't leave Government House as ordered by the Civil Court," said retired general and PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang, whose group planned to appeal against the court order.
"Our demands remain the same – to have the government resign and to prevent an amendment of the 2007 constitution," he said of the army-approved charter drawn up after the military ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 coup.
The PAD, a motley group of royalist businessmen and academics, accuses Samak's coalition government of being an illegitimate proxy of Thaksin, now in exile in London.
It also proclaims itself to be a defender of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej against a supposed Thaksin plan to turn Thailand into a republic – a charge vehemently denied by both Thaksin and the government.
"MEN IN GREEN"
Earlier protests by the PAD were key to the turmoil that led to the 2006 coup, but several newspapers said this week's storming of government offices and a TV station went too far.
Nevertheless, analysts said the standoff was likely to drag on as long as the government kept its cool.
"As the police have so far shown restraint and resisted efforts to disperse the crowd by force and shoulder the consequences, the PAD is pinning its hopes on some men in green sharing its goal of toppling the government," the Bangkok Post said in a column.
With army commanders pledging to stay in their barracks, investors appear to be ignoring the impasse for now. The stock market rose 1 per cent on Thursday, while the baht was flat.
Thai shares have fallen 23 per cent since the street campaign began in May amid fears of everything from policy paralysis at a time of stuttering economic growth to bloodshed on the streets.
The crowd at Government House is expected to grow by tens of thousands again tonight, making removing them by force a potentially bloody and therefore politically suicidal operation.
In an effort to discourage more people from joining the rally, police erected small banners at the gates to Government House reading "No entry as ordered by the court; violators to be prosecuted". Newcomers arriving at the compound ignored them.
Makeshift barricades of car tyres, crash barriers, razor wire and pot plants blocked all roads leading to the PM's compound, where 40,000 people, including large numbers of middle-aged women, had gathered on Wednesday night.
Despite Samak's record as an instigator of a bloody crackdown on left-wing students in 1976, the police appear to be well aware of the risks of using force, analysts said.
"Samak would love to do a 1976 and go in and shoot them all down. That's his style, but the police desperately don't want that to happen because it would really do no good to anybody," Christopher Bruton of Dataconsult said.