A 6-year-old-girl, a
4-year-old boy and a woman of about 40 died when a bomb exploded at an
anti-government rally outside a shopping mall in the Ratchaprasong area
of Bangkok, the Erawan Emergenc
y Center reported. The children were
siblings.
The 22 wounded included a
preteen boy who was in critical condition, said Lt. Gen. Paradon
Patthanathabut, Thailand's national security chief.
On Saturday night, a
5-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet when attackers opened fire
on an anti-government demonstration in eastern Trat province, police
Col. Jirawut Tantasri said. Another 34 were wounded, he said.
Patthanathabut said police think the two incidents are connected.
"We believed that there is an element which is armed and prone to use violence mean to achieve their goal."
The deaths were the
latest to punctuate three months of protests against the government of
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. In a statement issued Sunday night,
Yingluck said her government "will not tolerate terrorism" and would
prosecute the killers "without exception."
"I would like to ask all
sides of the political divide that we may see things differently and
there are many ways to express those differences," Yingluck said. "But
the use of violence that lead to deaths are not the civilized way of the
living."
Both the Ratchaprasong
and Trat demonstrations were organized by the opposition People's
Democratic Reform Committee, which vowed to continue protests despite
the attacks. On its Facebook page, the movement called for supporters to
donate blood at hospitals that were treating the wounded from the
Ratchaprasong bombing.
"Although we have lost
several friends in these attacks, I would like to insist that we follow
our course of peaceful, unarmed, and nonviolent demonstrations," party
leader Suthep Thaugsuban said in a statement on the Facebook page. "We
are on the right course. We are fighting the good fight. Please carry on
as we have."
In Trat, about 300
kilometers (186 miles) east of Bangkok, Jirawut said the girl who died
was eating noodles with her grandmother when two cars passed the
demonstration of about 1,000 people. The attackers threw grenades from
the first car while the occupants of the second began shooting into the
crowd, he said.
United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement Sunday condemning the
violence and calling for it to end. He "urges the parties to respect
human rights and the rule of law, prevent any new attacks and engage in
meaningful dialogue toward ending the crisis and advancing reform," the
statement read.
He added that he is ready to "assist in any way possible."
The People's Democratic
Reform Committee has called for the democratically elected Yingluck to
be replaced with an unelected "people council," which would see through
electoral and political changes.
Yingluck is the brother
of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a
military coup in 2006 and now lives in exile. Yingluck's critics accuse
her of being a proxy for her brother, who was convicted of corruption
charges in 2008 and sentenced to prison in absentia.
Yingluck's government
was largely stable until her party attempted to pass a controversial
amnesty bill in November, sparking the current wave of protests. The
bill would have nullified Thaksin's corruption conviction and allowed
him to return to the country.
Also Sunday, a group of protesters called the Red Shirts joined in the protesting.
Between March and May
2010, thousands of opposition protesters known for the color of their
shirts occupied parts of the shopping district in central Bangkok. For
the most part, the Red Shirts were supporters of Thaksin. They wanted
the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and a new general
election.
In 2011, up to 30,000 Red Shirts descended on the same area,
this time demanding a thorough investigation of a deadly government
crackdown that May, along with the release of protest leaders, some of
whom had been held in jail on terrorism charges for months.
The Red Shirts
encouraged the government to prepare in case it needed to set up an
exile office in the northern or northeastern parts of Thailand. The
leaders of the protest asked members in each province to set up and
train their own people in security techniques and be prepared for
prolonged protests.
