Bangkok: Thai "red shirt" protesters said on Sunday they would not give up their fight for early elections after clashes with security forces in Bangkok the previous day killed 20 people.
The red shirts, mostly rural and working-class supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a coup in 2006, are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve parliament immediately and leave the country.
The fighting, the worst political violence in the country in 18 years, some of it in well-known tourist areas, ended after security forces pulled back late on Saturday.
The city of 15 million was quiet on Sunday and the overground Skytrain, halted as violence intensified, reopened with a restricted service, avoiding the central shopping district occupied for over a week by the protesters.
Thai media reported that around 500 red shirts had again forced their way into the grounds of a Thaicom satellite earth station north of Bangkok, a flashpoint on Friday when the authorities blocked an opposition TV station.
The government said it had appointed a senior prime ministerial aide to make contact with the red shirts to try to find a way to halt the confrontations, but having seen off the attempt to disperse them, they seemed in no mood to compromise.
"The time for negotiation is up. We don't negotiate with murderers," Weng Tojirakarn, a red shirt leader, told Reuters.
"We have to keep fighting. We can't give up. The military will come out again," he said, although he said they would simply hold their ground on Sunday "out of respect for the dead".
Seen hitting tourism, markets
Foreign investors have been ploughing money into Thai stocks but the outbreak of violence since the middle of last week caused them to pause. The stock market is open on Monday but closed from Tuesday to Thursday for the Thai New Year holiday.
"The political scenario has changed. It's now more likely that the government will move ahead with negotiations with the red shirt leaders. So, we think the dissolution of parliament looks to be a possible solution at this stage," said Kasem Prunratanamala, head of research at CIMB Securities (Thailand).
"Tourism will be the very first sector to be hit and the Thai stock market should react negatively on Monday. The heavy foreign buying we have seen in the past month will hold back until the political situation is clearer."
More than 800 people were wounded as troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of demonstrators, who fought back with guns, grenades and petrol bombs near the Phan Fah bridge and Rajdumnoen Road in Bangkok's old quarter, a base for the month-old protest. Four soldiers were among those killed.
Thai media reported that an M79 grenade was fired at the headquarters of army-owned Channel 5 TV station in the northern province of Phayao early on Sunday.
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters forced their way into government offices in two northern cities, raising the risk of a larger uprising against the 16-month-old, army-backed government.
"There is no precedent for something so massive, prolonged and disruptive on the part of the underclasses," said Federico Ferrara, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore.
"The people who are leading the protest now are people whose right to participate in government has never been fully recognised, hence the coups that have removed governments elected by the provincial electorate."
Thaksin allies
The protesters say Abhisit lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a 2008 parliamentary vote following a court ruling that dissolved a pro-Thaksin ruling party. Thaksin's allies would be well-placed to win fresh elections.
The red shirts have shown they have support among Bangkok's poor but have angered the middle classes, many of whom regard them as misguided slaves to Thaksin, a former telecoms tycoon who fled into exile in 2008 to avoid a jail term for graft.
The twice-elected Thaksin was despised by many of the Bangkok elite who accused him of corruption and undermining the monarchy, but popular with poor, rural majority for policies such as cheap healthcare and microcredit grants to villages.
The government declared a state of emergency in Bangkok on Wednesday after red shirts briefly broke into the grounds of parliament, forcing some officials to flee by helicopter.
After hours of violence on Saturday, army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said troops would pull back in the old quarter as the riot spread to Khao San Road, popular with back-packing tourists, where many people were wounded and property damaged.
A red shirt leader later called on supporters to pull back to the main protest sites, including Bangkok's main Rachaprasong shopping district, a stretch of upscale department stores and five-star hotels.
In a televised statement, Abhisit expressed regret to the families of the victims and said the army was only allowed to use live bullets "firing into the air and in self-defence".
Among those killed was Reuters TV cameraman Hiro Muramoto, a 43-year-old Japanese national who had arrived in Bangkok on Thursday to cover the protests.
"Journalism can be a terribly dangerous profession as those who try to tell the world the story thrust themselves in the centre of the action," said David Schlesinger, Reuters Editor-in-Chief. "The entire Reuters family will mourn this tragedy."
Japan's Foreign Ministry urged the Thai government to investigate Muramoto's death.
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