Boonlert: I think I made the right decision to end rally

“I didn’t want anyone to get killed. I’m really sorry already that people got hurt,” he told The Nation.

 

The retired general also blamed police’s use of teargas and blockades for the attendance missing the target of 50,000.

 

Many protesters criticised him for deciding to stop the rally too soon, he said.

 

It was unusual for police to block protesters from marching over the Makkawan Rangsan Bridge to the rally site at the Royal Plaza because the organisers had already informed the authorities of the plan, he said.

 

Police fired teargas against the protesters without justification, he said.

 

“This scared upcountry people, making them afraid to join the demonstration. Some protesters were also blocked by police from reaching the rally site,” he said.

 

The organisers had failed because they could not clear the blockades to help demonstrators get through to the site and could not convince enough people to come out to defend the country, he said.

 

Most people would grow scared and not dare to pursue the cause of defending the country, he said.

 

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung defended the use of teargas, saying police officers’ lives were in danger. 

 

Water cannons would be ineffective because protesters were driving into them with a truck, he said.

 

United Nations regulations allowed police to bypass standard procedures to take more drastic actions to save themselves when their lives were at risk, he said.

 

Several police were injured by the truck and one was stabbed with a pointed iron rod, he said.

 

“Had police not used teargas, many of them would have been killed,” he said.

 

Police did not block the protesters from joining the rally, just from entering the roads around Government House, he said, adding that warnings of the temporary closures of the roads were given two days earlier.

 

The rally site could be entered via the roads near the First Army Division and Benjamabophit Temple, he said.

 

There were only some 10,000 protesters and the Royal Plaza site was big enough to accommodate them without the need to use Ratchadamnoen Road. Had there been more, the rally site would have been allowed to expand to the Makkawan area, he said.

 

Police did not take the first steps to try to disperse the demonstrators at the Royal Plaza. It was the protesters who tried to break up police lines around the restricted road, he said.

 

Boonlert probably ended the rally because the number of protesters was too low and most people in the country did not support them, he said.

 

Now that the Internal Security Act would be lifted and the situation had returned to normal, he felt relieved, he added.