Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed Sunday to take legal action
in the next four days against protesters who forced the closure of a
major Asian summit.
Abhisit
Vejjajiva’s threat of legal action came in his weekly address to the
nation on Sunday, as red-shirted supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the
former prime minister, regrouped around his office in Bangkok, the
capital.
"I
promise that in the next three to four days there will legal action
taken," he said. "It is most important for the government to prove it
can bring peace to the nation." Abhisit has apologised to the country and to regional leaders
for having to cancel the East Asia Summit yesterday after protesters
overran the summit venue at the resort town of Pattaya.
On Saturday, leaders of the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations(Asean) had to be
evacuated by helicopter after protesters broke into the summit venue at
the Thai beach resort of Pattaya. The protesters breached police
lines, smashing their way into the venue’s media centre, while most of
the leaders were having lunch at the adjacent Royal Cliff hotel.
Once in the media centre,
the protesters paraded around with flags, blew whistles and horns,
helped themselves to the snack buffet laid on for the journalists. About 100 demonstrators got as far as the driveway of the hotel.
A group of rival blue shirt-clad protesters clashed, with the red
shirts, throwing stones and smoke bombs at each other about five
kilometres from the venue. A Thai official said two or three people were injured in the clashes and there were reports of gun shots and an explosion.
The collapse of the summit puts more pressure on British-born
Abhisit, who has pledged that his four-month-old government will heal
years of political turmoil since Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup.
The abandoned summit – the biggest international gathering since the
G20 summit in London earlier this month -grouped the Asean nations with
China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
