Thai Political Crisis Talks Resume
Thailand's deeply divided power blocs on Thursday resumed crisis talks ordered by the country's no-nonsense army chief, as supporters of the beleaguered government called for a national referendum on how to break a crippling political deadlock.
The opposing camps and other top political actors gathered at the bargaining table for the second straight day at a heavily guarded military social club in the capital Bangkok beginning at 2 pm (07:00 GMT).
In a surprise move on Tuesday, army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha invoked martial law, saying he acted to prevent deadly political tensions spiralling out of control.
The move has been denounced by critics as a slow-motion coup by the army, which has intervened repeated in politics through history and assumed wide powers to ban public gatherings, restrict movements, detain people, and has already muzzled the media.
But Prayut insists he intends to cajole the warring factions into reaching a still-unclear compromise to an impasse that has paralysed politics and saw Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dismissed from office earlier this month.
"In order for the process to continue (the army) invites those important people for further talks at 2 pm at the same place," said a military order read out on national television ahead of the meeting.
"Protesters and supporters need not come; they must remain at their rally sites, as they have been told before."
The political crisis broadly pits a Bangkok-based royalist elite and its backers against the billionaire family of Thaksin Shinawatra -- Yingluck's elder brother.
Thaksin was ousted by the military in 2006 but still enjoys strong support particularly in rural northern Thailand.
Only scant information has emerged from Wednesday's gathering -- the first time several of the Thai political contenders had met face-to-face.
An army spokesman said the tough-talking Prayut, who has vowed he would not let his country become another "Ukraine or Egypt," had on Wednesday given the participants "homework" -- to go back to their respective camps and devise proposals for a resolution.
The leader of Thailand's pro-Thaksin "Red Shirt" movement said he had proposed during Wednesday's meeting that a national referendum be held to determine a key sticking point: the timing of future elections.
The Red Shirts want new national polls they hope will provide a fresh mandate to the beleaguered elected government, now headed by a caretaker premier.
But the anti-government protesters who have waged a debilitating protest campaign for seven months, are demanding vague political reforms first.
The reforms are widely seen as a bid to cripple the political power of Thaksin's family and allies.
"Whatever the outcome is, we are ready to accept it (a referendum result)," Red Shirt chairman Jatuporn Prompan said at a press conference.
"We are not extremists who don't listen to anything."
The deadlock has seen nearly seven months of streets protests that have left at least 28 people dead and hundreds wounded.
The United States has led international expressions of concern over martial law, calling for a speedy resumption of civilian control.
The move has so far had little impact on people's lives in Bangkok, whose residents have become inured to the political polemics and went about their daily business. Even the pro-government Red Shirts have muted their criticism for now.
But in a sign of the potentially lethal passions, the army said police and military raids had seized four different caches of weapons in areas near the capital since martial law was imposed.
The weapons are suspected to have been gathered for the purpose of fomenting political violence, but it was not known who had collected them, army spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree told reporters.
An Agence France Presse journalist saw demonstrators at a protest site at a government complex in northern Bangkok set up months ago -- who had previously refused government and police demands to clear out -- leaving peacefully on Thursday afternoon at the military's request.
However, it was not immediately clear what their plans were.
The military has ordered 14 satellite television stations to suspend broadcasts and has announced restrictions on social media content, to the alarm of human rights campaigners.
Source: Agence France Presse
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