PAD vows to fight reconciliation bills 'till the end'
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Yellow-shirt protesters yesterday vowed to "fight till the end" against the reconciliation bill tabled by former coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and another one from red-shirt politicians in the ruling Pheu Thai Party.
“No laws are damaging to the country as much as these reconciliation bills,” said Chamlong Srimuang, a co-leader of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).
“We will continue our protest and fight to the end, whatever it will be,” he told the PAD rally.
“We will go step-by-step and there will be the day for the final assault, which could be in a day or two.”
Some 3,000 yellow-shirt supporters had gathered at the Royal Plaza, which is not far from Parliament, for the PAD rally in the afternoon. In the morning, many of them began setting up about 20 tents there.
Chamlong said PAD regarded all four reconciliation bills as “laws that damage the country”, which the yellow shirts would not tolerate.
PAD leaders would carefully consider the movement’s next steps in their latest rally against the reconciliation bills, he said.
Sondhi Limthongkul, another PAD co-leader, told the rally that more than six years ago in February 2006 at the same site, PAD kicked off its street protests that led to the ouster of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in the coup of 2006.
“Nobody could’ve imagined that the coup leader would one day help with drafting a law that would whitewash the wrongdoing of the man from whom he seized power,” Sondhi said, referring to Sonthi, who staged the putsch when he was Army chief.
Sonthi, who is now chairman of the House committee on national reconciliation, recently submitted his reconciliation bill that would grant general amnesty to everyone involved in the political conflicts.
“PAD is like the main army. We will fight until we win. Amending the law to expunge court verdicts is tantamount to violating the power of His Majesty the King because judges make their rulings on behalf of the King,” he said.
“Whitewashing someone’s crime by cancelling court verdicts is not a personal matter. It’s a matter for the country.”
Sondhi also criticised Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha for repeating his mantra that “a political problem must be solved through political means”.
Due to the Army’s weakness for many past years, PAD had to take over its role of protecting the nation and the monarchy, he said.
Drizzles in the afternoon failed to disperse the protesters. At about 2.30pm, Chamlong ordered them to march on Parliament.
At the same time, about 500 people from the multicoloured-shirts group, led by obstetrician Tul Sittisomwong, assembled in front of Parliament to protest against the same reconciliation bills.
By 3pm, all of U-thong Nai Road outside Parliament was full of cheering and yelling protesters. The police guard was beefed up from 700 to 2,000 members to maintain law and order.
Inside the Parliament compound, seven opposition politicians led by Democrat MP Attaporn Ponlaboot raised signs with the message, “Stop phoney reconciliation intended to whitewash corrupt people’s crimes”.
At 4pm, PAD leaders entered the Parliament compound to hand deputy House speaker Charoen Jankomol their open |letter demanding the scrapping of the four reconciliation bills.
The petition was signed by |co-leaders Chamlong, Sondhi, Piphob Dhongchai and Somkiat Pongpai-boon.
