Blasts Hit Bangkok Protests

Updated Jan. 17, 2014 9:42 a.m. ET

Bombs thrown into a crowd of antigovernment protesters injured dozens of people in Bangkok. The WSJ’s Ramy Inocencio speaks with James Hookway about the situation on the ground.

BANGKOK—An explosive device thrown at antigovernment demonstrators injured some 36 people in the Thai capital on Friday, providing a violent turn to a week of protests that started out resembling a carnival more than a political rally.
At least one protester was seriously hurt by the blast, according to the Bangkok city government’s emergency response unit. Police said it was caused by a device lobbed at the crowd as they marched with protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban near Chulalongkorn University in the center of Bangkok.

Photos: Explosion Stuns Protesters

Protesters helped a comrade who was injured when an explosive device was thrown at antigovernment demonstrators. Reuters

Mr. Suthep was unharmed and later led prayers for the injured at one of the stages that the protest movement has set up around the center of the city.
It wasn’t clear who was responsible for the attack, adding to the sense of uncertainty accompanying this week’s protests.
The explosion followed a spate of incidents in the past two days, including attacks on the homes of a former prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, and Bangkok’s opposition-leaning governor, Sukhumbhand Paribatra. Nobody was injured in those earlier attacks. But Friday’s bloodletting highlighted the fragile security situation in the country despite the street-party atmosphere that has accompanied many of the Bangkok demonstrations.
The protests started out on Monday as an attempt to shut down the heart of the Thai capital and force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign. Mr. Suthep, a 64 year-old career politician, resigned his seat in the country’s parliament to lead the campaign. He says Ms. Yingluck is a proxy for her brother, former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a miliary coup over seven years ago.
Despite the Shinawatra clan’s widespread popularity elsewhere in Thailand, Mr. Suthep and his followers say she should step down to allow an unelected government to take over and pursue a range of reforms. They want to strengthen Thailand’s democratic checks and balances and prevent the Shinawatra family from swaying poorer voters with vast subsidy programs and other populist policies.
Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied in support Mr. Suthep’s cause, including local pop stars, movie actors and former colleagues in the opposition Democrat Party. Many of the protesters wore headbands declaring support for the country’s ailing 86-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej and accuse Mr. Thaksin of undermining the revered monarchy, a claim Mr. Thaksin has repeatedly denied.
Korn Chatikavanij, an opposition politician and former finance minister, said in an interview earlier in the week that the rallies suggested Thailand could be on the cusp of achieving a lasting political change without the intervention of its armed forces. Before the coup that removed Mr. Thaksin from power, the army had toppled 10 previous governments over the past 80 years. “We’ve never had the opportunity to achieve something like this,” Mr. Chatikavanij said.
Legal challenges to the Yingluck administration’s authority also are strengthening. On Thursday, Thailand’s anticorruption panel said it would investigate Ms. Yingluck’s role in the country’s multibillion-dollar rice subsidy program.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission said it specifically would look at whether Ms. Yingluck neglected to prevent financial damages to the state from the subsidy, which so far has cost the government around 670 billion baht, or roughly $20 billion, since it began in October 2011.

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The agency has the power to launch criminal investigations against politicians in addition to initiating impeachment trials in the country’s senate. It already has charged two of Ms. Yingluck’s former ministers, along with 13 other people for their alleged involvement in fraudulent rice deals relating to the program.
Ms. Yingluck, though, is continuing to resist the pressure on her to resign.
In an interview with foreign media at a defense ministry facility in the north of the city on Friday, she said she intends to push ahead with plans to hold national elections on February 2. She dissolved parliament on Dec. 9 to defuse the political tension in the country after nearly eight years of turmoil following the 2006 coup and secure a fresh mandate after winning in a landslide in 2011. “This is the democratic process,” she said.
Meantime, while journalists and military personnel were able to enter the disused building from which the explosive device was believed to have been thrown, police said angry crowds prevented forensics experts from entering the area. Television footage showed weapons said to be have been found inside.
—-Nopparat Chaichalearmmongkol and Wilawan Watcharasakwet contributed to this article.
Write to Wilawan Watcharasakwet at wilawan.watcharasakwet@wsj.com and James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
CorrectionThailand’s rice-subsidy program has cost the government about 670 billion baht. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave the amount as 670 million baht.

Original post: Blasts Hit Bangkok Protests