Thai PM flees Bangkok as unrest escalates/
BANGKOK—Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the target of antigovernment protesters who have blocked parts of Bangkok for weeks, has left the city and is staying 150 kilometers away, her office said on Monday, without specifying the location.
The protests, punctuated by occasional gunfire and bomb blasts, including one on Sunday that killed awoman and a young brother and sister, are aimed at unseating Yingluck and erasing the influence of her brother, former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra who is seen by many as the power behind the government.
Yingluck’s office told reporters she was not in Bangkok and asked media to follow a convoy outside the city to where they said Yingluck was “undertaking official duties.”
The office would not confirm how many days Yingluck had been working outside the capital. She was last seen in public in Bangkok nearly a week ago and was due to attend a corruption hearing there on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said Yingluck would hold a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “It is highly likely that we will hold the Cabinet meeting outside of Bangkok.”
But the Army, which toppled Thaksin in 2006 in the latest of 18 coups or attempted coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, said it would not intervene this time around.
“Somebody has to take responsibility but that doesn’t mean soldiers can intervene without working under the framework [of the law],” Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha said in a rare televised address.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for Sunday’s bomb blast in a busy central shopping district, but the polarization of Thai society raises the possibility of wider civil strife.
The 6-year-old sister of a boy killed in the attack died on Monday, doctors said, increasing the death toll to three.
Each side has accused the other of instigating violence.