A grenade blast has wounded eight anti-government protesters camped outside the Thai prime minister's office in Bangkok, emergency services say.
Demonstrators from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) group have occupied the area since August.
The attack comes two days after another grenade attack on the protesters killed one person and injured more than 20.
The PAD wants the government to resign, saying it is too close to ousted former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
.........
The PAD is an alliance of conservative and royalist activists.
They accuse Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and his recently ousted predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, of being proxies for Mr Thaksin.
The former prime minister, who is Mr Somchai's brother-in-law, was forced from office in a military coup in 2006 and remains in exile.
The PAD wants to replace Thailand's one-man, one-vote system with one in which some representatives are chosen by professions and social groups.
The protests have seen some of the worst street violence since pro-democracy activists challenged Thailand's army in 1992.
SOURCE
For the record, in May 1992, when Suchinda tried the final solution on the protesters, making North Bkk into a warzone with battlefields on temple grounds, it ended up with a death score that official numbers counts in hundreds, but NGOs puts in thousands. The skirmish ended by the palace interfering.
For years to come --and several times under Thaksin-- state television rerun the audit the king summoned Suchinda and Chamlong to, as an educational example I guess. First time they used the media for crowd control in those parts of the world, and until recently it worked fine, seeing Suchinda with bowed head in (supposed) repent to his king, who himself in that universe is above the law, 'dharmaraja' in their beliefs (and written into everyone of their so far about 30 attempts of writing a constitution). BTW, 'dharmaraja' literally means 'king of the law', and as Bhumibol himself has said, “the king can do no wrong.”
Somehow the magic doesn't work anymore. Too many are informed, they know Suchinda never paid, except for being done a scapegoat character. He kept all his holdings, never did any time, but was confined to his mansion to some degree. Later, under Thaksin, he reappeared as a mentor of his government and a supporter of its special twists. When the man himself was excommunicated doing his job at a (another useless) UN assembly, it didn't mean much he sold his mobile company, a national provider and entrepreneur, as he was, it meant once more 'the little man' was trapped by the elite of old money. Because let us not forget Thaksin was born in modest conditions as a second generation of illegal immigrants, 'jinhaw', of the Mon tribe, Chinese origine, number 4 or 5 in the mess they have made their ethnic diversity into. And as such he is worth following.
And as such –sure in Thailand-- the maverick stands as “the revolutioneur”. A currant example is a general, who in the currant row with PAD has gained a kinda popular platform promoting tactics like delivering snakes over the protesters from helicopters. In Thailand 9 out 10 snakes are poisonous. Seh Daeng is his name, he is now assign to educating aerobics in rural districts. But to some degree he is the type of man Thai people admire.
Maverick Thai general does the hand-grenade waltz
www.nationmultimedia.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



Like L.A.
after the not-guilty verdict for the cops who beat Rodney King! 