Rubber-price rally leaders face arrest

The protest by rubber farmers in Nakhon Si Thammarat has reached boiling point, with a court issuing arrest warrants for six protest leaders in the face of road closures and a rail line being blocked off.
Warrants were issued at the request of police yesterday for the arrest of Chayanin Konglang, Kongkiat Chuthong, Sompas Kwanthong, Sammit Juiplod, Prapas Pakdeerat and Wanida Kaewmanee.
This is in addition to the arrest warrants issued for nine people last Friday after a bloody clash between police and protesting farmers erupted in this southern province.
Nakhon Si Thammarat police chief Maj-General Ronnapong Saikaew said he expected the arrests of the six protest leaders to take place this morning. Anti-riot police have already been dispatched to a wildlife sanctuary near the protest sites, he said.
Meanwhile, Governor Viroj Jivarungsan via a representative yesterday asked the provincial court to approve operations to reclaim public space from the protestors.
Police spokesman Maj-General Piya Uthayo said the road and railway blockades had affected about 15,000 travellers. “Train passengers are stranded, while those travelling by road have to take a detour,” he said.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday urged protesters not to cross the line.
“The government has embraced patience, but people who have violated the law will face legal action,” she said.
Several government figures have now tried to link opposition politicians to the intensifying protest by rubber farmers.
Labour Minister Chalerm Ubumrung said he was fully confident that someone had engineered the ongoing protest. “I can predict that this protest won’t end easily,” he said, adding, “It has never been easy to stop rallies in the South.”
The southern region is known to be the stronghold of the Democrat Party.
PM’s deputy secretary-general Suporn Atthawong claimed his negotiations with rubber farmers’ representatives had concluded satisfactorily with an agreement that the government would peg the rubber price at Bt80 per kilogram, but dozens of teenagers outside the meeting venue in Nakhon Si Thammarat later loudly rejected the agreed price.
He insisted that the teenagers were not, however, rubber farmers.
Piya, meanwhile, said the demonstrators at the protest sites could be divided into two groups: real rubber farmers, and those who are pursuing a political goal.
Twenty-five Democrat MPs yesterday held a press conference at Parliament House to dismiss any suggestion that they were behind the angry protests.
“Those who hurl such allegations are shameless and unethical,” said Surat Thani MP Suthep Thaugsuban.
Democrat deputy leader Thaworn Senneam said Democrat politicians had met protesters merely to express moral support after some of the locals were injured during the clash on Friday. He urged the government not to use violence against any of those involved in the protest.