Take group seriously : Abhisit

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva urged the government yesterday to consider why people had to wear masks to protest against it.

Commenting on the rally by hundreds of people wearing the white Guy Fawkes masks, Abhisit said the government should not have dismissed the protesters as the same old group of opponents.

“The government should have considered what caused them to come out to protest,” Abhisit said.

He said if the Pheu Thai-led government had resolved national problems, the country would have remained peaceful and it would have had time to solve issues.

If the government had not tried to help former prime minister Thaksin and pushed for an amnesty bill, political tension would not have mounted.

Abhisit also called on the PM to warn the red shirts to stop breaking the law by intimidating opponents. He said the red shirts did not hold symbolic demonstrations but blocked roads and searched other people’s vehicles, which violated the law.

About 700 hundred opponents of the government clad in white Guy Fawkes masks walked from CentralWorld shopping complex to the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre on Sunday to protest against the Yingluck Shinawatra administration, which they say is a puppet regime controlled by her brother, the fugitive former PM Thaksin. Shortly after the group left, government supporters wearing red masks and calling themselves ‘Ultra Red’ and ‘Daeng Sayiew’ held a counter-protest at Siam BTS station.

Hundreds of protesters from another anti-government group, who have been rallying at Sanam Luang, marched to Government House yesterday to show moral support for former National Security Council secretary-general Thawil Pliensri. Some of these people also wore white masks.

Deputy Premier Chalerm Yoobamrung yesterday dismissed the white-mask activists as yellow-shirt people with a new symbol for campaigning.

“They are yellow shirts in disguise. They look familiar to me as they look similar to those in photos taken by the Special Branch police,” Chalerm said.

He said the government did not know the identity of the leaders of the new white-mask group yet, as these people dared not come out.

Chalerm claimed he did not know who organised the campaigns by the red-mask people, which were held to counter rallies of the white-mask group.

He said he had nothing to do with the red-shirt people or the red-mask group. He added that he did not rely on information from the Special Branch Police and the National Security Council because he had his own intelligence officers.

Chalerm also dismissed the Thai Spring group of Kaewsan Atibodhi, a former Assets Examination Committee member, and former senior police officer Vasit Dejkunjorn, as a group of “people with nothing to do”.

Kaewsan and Vasit formed the Thai Spring fan page for people who disagreed with the speech PM Yingluck Shinawatra made in Mongolia, to unite and express their disagreement.

Deputy government spokesman Sunisa Lertpakawat said the mask protests from various groups reflected diversity in society. 

However, she said the current movements reflected fighting between two opposing groups: a democratic group that supports elected government and a group of “old power” people who did not want to lose power. 

The latter group was used to oust former premier Thaksin and now comes in various new identities, including the Thai Spring and White Masks groups, and the protest at Sanam Luang, she said.

“These people don’t have any new issues (to protest) but to oust the Thaksin government and the Shinawatras. They don’t accept the truth. 

“Fifteen million Thais liked the administration under Thaksin Shinawatra and voted for Yingluck Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai Party to be the government,” she said.