Thai protest leader stable after shooting

BANGKOK (AP) - A Thai protest leader shot by assailants after days of rioting in the capital is in stable condition and recovering rapidly, doctors said Saturday.

The brazen attack on Sondhi Limthongkul, leader of the “yellow-shirt” movement that helped topple Thailand’s government three years ago, has raised political temperatures that had started to cool after rioting by rival “red-shirt” protesters was quelled earlier in the week.

Dr. Thirapong Chaorenwit, acting director at Chulalongkorn Hospital, said Sondhi, who had bullet shards removed from his head, would need a few more days to recuperate and then another week of rest before he can head home.

“He now can sit, walk and eat normally,” Thirapong said. An aide who was hit in Friday’s pre-dawn attack on Sondhi’s car was also improving, though the driver was still in serious condition, he said.

Bangkok remained under emergency rule and security was tightened around Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who said the assassination attempt on Sondhi should not serve as an excuse for more conflict.

“We are concerned by the shooting obviously. We’ve got to restore order,” Abhisit said. “We do not want this to be used to create a wider conflict.”

But the attack was a new strain in long-standing tensions between backers of Abhisit’s government and supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and whose allies were removed from power by the courts last fall.

Sondhi, an outspoken media tycoon and founder of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, was ambushed on his way to work by gunmen in a pickup truck firing M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles. At least five men are now believed to have been involved, Deputy Police Chief Jongrak Chutanond said Saturday. The car’s windshield was riddled with bullet holes and the rear window shattered.

The publisher used his media empire and influence to organize the “yellow-shirt” alliance and lead protests before Thaksin’s ouster in 2006 and then again last year to drive the former prime minister’s allies from power.

Sondhi’s supporters come mainly from the middle class and educated elite of Thai society, and include royalists, academics and retired military. Thaksin’s backers are mainly from the rural poor who like his social welfare programs.

Last year’s demonstrations, which paralyzed the government for months and occupied the capital’s airports for a week, ended after court rulings removed two Thaksin-allied governments, paving the way for Abhisit’s rise in December.

That prompted the recent protests by the “red-shirts,” who staunchly support Thaksin and argue that Abhisit has no popular mandate to rule. Their demonstrations drew up to 100,000 people in Bangkok last week and forced the cancellation of a regional summit.

The protests were called off Tuesday after several days of violent street clashes drew a threat of a military crackdown.

Abhisit said the Cabinet decided not to lift emergency rule that was imposed Sunday. He said the decision was made after “looking at the overall picture” and was not a direct response to the attack on Sondhi.

Vehicles carrying Abhisit were attacked twice by red-shirt protesters before and during this past week’s riots. The prime minister returned to his offices Thursday for the first time in three weeks.

The red shirts are angry that several of their leaders have been arrested over the past week, while prosecution of Sondhi and his allies over last year’s airport seizures proceeds at a glacial pace.

Sondhi’s group charged the shooting was meant to further inflame Thailand.

“It is quite clear that it was political,” said Panthep Paopongpan, a spokesman for the group, who stopped short of blaming any specific factions.