AP:

Anti-government protesters said Sunday they would not negotiate an end to violence in the Thai capital after savage clashes between activists and soldiers that killed at least 18 people and injured hundreds.

Thousands of “Red Shirt” protesters swarmed back into an area that had briefly been taken by government forces Saturday night. Bullet casings, rocks and pools of blood littered the streets as protesters showed off a pile of weapons captured from the troops, including rifles and heavy caliber machine-gun rounds.

“There is no more negotiation. Red Shirts will never negotiate with murderers,” a key protest leader, Jatuporn Prompan, announced from a makeshift stage. “Although the road is rough and full of obstacles, it’s our duty to honor the dead by bringing democracy to this country.”

Hopes had been expressed that the two sides would come to the negotiating table after the worst violence in Bangkok since four dozen people were killed in a 1992 antimilitary protest.

Late Saturday, army troops pulled back and asked protesters to do the same, resulting in an unofficial truce.

Five soldiers and 13 civilians, including a Japanese cameraman for the Thomson Reuters news agency, were killed, according to the government’s Erawan emergency center.

Thai television showed Red Shirts parading some soldiers they said were captured by the protesters. It wasn’t clear how many soldiers they held, or what their status was on Sunday morning. The government did not disclose how many protesters had been detained.

Arrest warrants previously were issued for 27 Red Shirt leaders, but none is known to be in custody.

Editorials in Bangkok newspapers Sunday called for urgent talks between the government and so-called “Red Shirts,” noting some protest leaders were ready for negotiations.

The violence erupted after security forces tried to push out demonstrators who have camped in parts of the capital for a month and staged disruptive protests demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The demonstrations are part of a long-running battle between the mostly poor and rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the ruling elite they say orchestrated the 2006 military coup that removed him from power amid corruption allegations.

The protesters, called “Red Shirts” for their garb, see the Oxford-educated Abhisit as a symbol of an elite impervious to the plight of Thailand’s poor and claim he took office illegitimately in December 2008 after the military pressured Parliament to vote for him.

Saturday’s violence and failure to dislodge the protesters are likely to make it harder to end the political deadlock. Previously, both sides had exercised considerable restraint.

Abhisit “failed miserably,” said Michael Nelson, a German scholar of Southeast Asian studies working in Bangkok.

Tanet Charoengmuang, a political scientist at Chiang Mai University sympathetic to the Red Shirt’s cause, said he expects the fighting will resume because the protesters are unafraid and the government refused to listen to them.

Abhisit went on national television shortly before midnight to pay condolences to the families of victims and indirectly assert that he would not bow to the protesters’ demands.

“The government and I are still responsible for easing the situation and trying to bring peace and order to the country,” Abhisit said.

Nelson said he had been hopeful the situation would calm down after the troops pulled back but that Abhisit’s TV appearance raised doubts because he seemed “totally defiant.”

The army had vowed to clear the protesters out of one of their two bases in Bangkok by nightfall, but the push instead set off street fighting. There was a continuous sound of gunfire and explosions, mostly from Molotov cocktails, for more than two hours.

Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd went on television to ask the protesters to retreat as well. He also accused them of firing live rounds and throwing grenades. An APTN cameraman saw two Red Shirt security guards carrying assault rifles.

At least 825 people were injured, according to the Erawan emergency center. The deaths included Japanese cameraman Hiro Muramoto, who worked for Thomson Reuters. In a statement, Reuters said he was shot in the chest and the circumstances of his death were under review.

Most of the fighting took place around Democracy Monument, but spread to the Khao San Road area, a favorite of foreign backpackers.

Soldiers made repeated charges to clear the Red Shirts, while some tourists watched. Two protesters and a Buddhist monk with them were badly beaten by soldiers and taken away by ambulance.

A Japanese tourist who was wearing a red shirt was also clubbed by soldiers until bystanders rescued him.

 

Reuters:

Khao San Road resembled a war zone, a Reuters photographer said. Shop windows were shattered. Cars were smashed. Many people lay wounded on the street. Police told reporters some protesters had ignited cooking gas cylinders and rolled them into troops.
…
He [army spokesman] said soldiers had been pelted with petrol bombs and M79 grenades, and that some of the protesters were armed with guns.
…

An afternoon offensive ended in a standoff with many wounded. After dark, troops opened fire again with rubber bullets about 500 meters (1,600 feet) away at an intersection leading to Khao San Road. Some fired live rounds. Helicopters dropped tear gas.

BBC:

Local media reported that both sides were firing weapons and detonating explosive devices. Images broadcast on television showed chaotic scenes, with clouds of tear gas enveloping the streets.

Paul, a British teacher who lives in Thailand, told the BBC he had been in a crowd of protesters across the road from the Khao San intersection – where later the clashes spread – when one man was shot in the chest. It is not known if he was one of the dead.

“There were shots, but I thought they were rubber bullets until I saw what happened to the man. He was around 50 years old, and waving a flag from a pick-up truck. His head was 5ft above from the highest point of the truck.”

“He looked normal and then fell to the ground,” he added. “The army were firing live rounds on civilians. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

BP: BBC have uploaded Paul’s footage here – hard to tell what happened as it is so dark and we can’t see where the gunfire is coming from, but there is someone lying on the ground who appears to be injured about 2 metres from him.

FT:

Troops used live rounds, tear gas and baton charges in their unsuccessful attempt to shift the red-shirted demonstrators from the streets surrounding Phan Fah Bridge. The protesters responded with a hail of petrol bombs, rocks, water bottles, and – according to the security forces – gunshots.

AFP:

Protesters hauled the dead bodies of two protesters draped in Thai flags onto their rally stage in the historic district.

The Red Shirts hurled rocks as troops tried to clear them from one of their two protest sites in the capital, firing warning shots and tear gas. Twenty soldiers were hurt in a blast.
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“Soldiers will have to withdraw. There is no place to shelter. We cannot do anything,” army chief General Anupong Paojinda told AFP.

WSJ:

Around 8 p.m. local time, protesters were seen throwing bottles at the security forces positioned near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, a major landmark downtown, and the sound of gunfire and explosions was heard.

People in the area started running, with sporadic clashes continuing for an hour or more. Television footage broadcast later showed Red Shirt protesters chasing soldiers and beating them with long sticks, while others fired slingshots.
…
One problem going forward for Mr. Abhisit is that it isn’t clear how many Bangkok residents sympathize with the Red Shirts, most of whom come from rural areas but count many local taxi drivers, construction workers and other lower-income city residents among their supporters. If clashes intensify in the coming days, some analysts fear, it could encourage more Red Shirts to come out of the woodwork in Bangkok, resulting in even wider-scale street warfare.

The National with some comments from one red shirt leader:

We’re not scared, we’ll stand up to them,” one of the main protest leaders, Jaran Ditapichai, said at their command centre in downtown Bangkok.

“Even if they are armed, we’ll fight them with our bare hands,” he vowed.

LA Times:

“The situation at the moment is so confused,” said Pranee Thiparat, a political science professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “Anarchy rules Bangkok!”
…
Some analysts, meanwhile, said the unrest could prompt the military to step in, as it has several times before.

“There might be a coup,” Chulalongkorn University’s Thiparat said. “There’s a real split both in the military and police forces, a serious one. That partly explains why the Abhisit government hasn’t really been able to enforce law and order during the past three weeks.”

BP: At the moment, it is hard to know precisely who killed who. Things may became clearer later today as videos and photos emerge which could help to clarify the various claims made by both sides.