Fiery Abhisit defends riot crackdown

Senate panel assails military response
A war of words yesterday erupted between members of a Senate panel and former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who was invited to testify about last year's political violence which left 92 people dead.

During the three-hour inquiry, most of the panel members asked leading questions based on their personal assumptions, prompting Mr Abhisit to oppose their questioning and ask them to be more logical.

Si Sa Ket Senator Jittipoj Wiriyarote, the panel chairman, said members agreed that although there were between 10 and 20 black-clad gunmen among the red-shirt protesters, this did not give state officials the authority to "spray bullets" at the crowd to disperse the protesters.

Mr Abhisit denied the allegation. He said he did not order the army to shoot at people, but casualties occured because soldiers who manned security checkpoints were attacked by unidentified gunmen and they had to act in self-defence.

He then asked Mr Jittipoj to mention a specific shooting incident so he could show that officers did not use excessive force.

Mr Abhisit said the panel should not give ambiguous information or make groundless allegations against anyone.

Mr Jittipoj asked Mr Abhisit whether the decision to use lethal weapons to crack down on protesters was a reasonable judgement and whether security officers implemented riot control measures accepted by the international community, as British police had done during recent riots there.

Mr Abhisit immediately retorted that the situation was different because the English rioters did not use any weapons.

"How can you end a protest if you use water cannons to disperse protesters who return fire with a series of M79 grenades?" he said.

Pol Lt Gen Yuthana Thaipakdee, a panel member, said he received information that about 200,000 rounds of assault rifle ammunition and 2,000 rounds for sniper rifles had been taken from an army depot. The large amount of ammunition showed the extreme and intense level of violence that the armed forces used against the red shirts.

Mr Abhisit urged Pol Lt Gen Yuthana to examine the information given to him.

He also noted that the protesters seized a number of weapons and ammunition from security officers during the unrest.

At the end of the inquiry, Mr Abhisit threw several questions to the panel members, none of which were answered.

For example, he asked the panel how they would handle the situation if there were gunmen mingling with protesters in the middle of the capital.

He also questioned what the goverment and army would gain from shooting dead six protesters inside Wat Pathum Wanaram and called for the panel to look at the motives of the culprits.

In a related development, Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha said he was ready to accept responsibility if found guilty in connection with last year's political violence.

Gen Prayuth said the matter must go through the judicial process in order to bring offenders to justice.

Gen Prayuth was deputy army chief when the military carried out operations on May 19, 2010 to retake Ratchaprasong intersection from the red shirts who had been occupying the area for nearly two months.