'People's Army' mobilises support

Thaikorn Polsuwan, a leader of the group, said yesterday that the movement would rally at Parliament when they had gathered enough support.

As it was Mother’s Day tomorrow, members of the public visiting Lumpini Park would be offered free vegetarian meals and the opportunity to purchase consumer products such as vegetable oil and sugar at 30 per cent below the market cost.

He said workers from state enterprises would today join their anti-government protests.

The group urged the Pheu Thai Party to switch their allegiance to support the people not the Thaksin regime.

Samdin Lertbut, coordinator of the Dharma Army, said his group had decided to team up with the People’s Army, not because of politics, but to provide them with supplies, food and first-aid treatment. 

The anti-government People’s Army group yesterday took a break from stage activities and moved the stage from the aerobic area in Lumpini Park, nearer to the park’s entrance and the park’s fence next to the King Rama VI monument.

They modified the stage and set up a large roof to cover it. The group also reorganised its rallying areas – cleaning up and making them more acceptable for any additional protesters joining the group. 

Thaikorn said the group would continue to protest. He called on the government to open ways for the people to closely monitor the deliberations of the amnesty bill in the House committee, as people would have only seven days to propose ideas to the 35-member vetting committee, which meets on Thursday. If the bill was not challenged, some people might try to deliberate the law in such a way that the bill would benefit Thaksin. MP Warong Dechgitvigrom said the Democrats had the right to fight against the “parliamentary dictatorship” of the majority MPs as the majority rule should be based on justice and legitimacy and be in public interest.

“Censure debate by the opposition [against the government] related to corruption in the rice-pledging scheme also lost to the majority in Parliament anyway,” he said.

“Although our [political] system allows protection of the minority by, for example, allowing petitions to the National Anti-Corruption Commission or the Constitutional Court, some people disrespect independent organisations and send people to threaten them. The latest case was after the National Human Rights Commission reported that the red shirts did not rally peacefully in 2010. There were “men in black” and armed militants. These people did not listen to the report but called on the NHRC commissioners to resign. This is nothing but parliamentary-backed dictatorship supported by bad capitalism,” he said.