BANGKOK, THAILAND — A bloody clash at an ancient Hindu temple on the Cambodian border. Security forces deployed in the capital to quell a huge anti-government protest. A popular former prime minister calling his country a "dictatorship." And a beloved 81-year-old monarch hospitalized for the second time in less than a week.
These are some of the scenes from a tumultuous weekend in Thailand, prompting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call for peace and lament his nation's image in the world.
"We can express different opinions, but please don't hurt each other," Abhisit said Sunday in an address to the nation.
Abhisit, a 45-year-old British-born economist, heads a fragile coalition government that came to power last year after two of his predecessors were ousted. His Democrat Party came in third in the last elections but is expected to ride encouraging economic numbers in a strong run to national polls in 2010.
But divisions in the country run deep.
Authorities sent more than 9,000 police and military personnel into the streets to protect government offices from more than 20,000 mostly red-shirted protesters who gathered in Bangkok this weekend in support of their leader and benefactor, exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
"Our country has deteriorated and risks being a failed state," Thaksin told supporters Saturday in a video call from an undisclosed country. "The whole world thought Thailand was already developed, or almost developed, but it has gone backward to dictatorship."
Earlier this year, Thaksin's "red shirts," who call themselves the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or UDD, broke into a meeting of regional heads of state and fought street battles with troops that left at least two people dead and hundreds injured.
Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon and fugitive from Thai justice, was ousted in a bloodless military coup three years ago. He faces corruption charges stemming from his time as prime minister, but retains wide support in Thailand's rural northeast for his populist policies.
"The longer this government stays, the bigger the disaster is for the country. Give me just six months as prime minister, and I will bring this country back," he told his supporters, who have vowed to continue their protests.
