Red Shirts in Khon Kaen release train carrying military equipment

KHON KAEN, April 22  - The anti-government Red Shirt protesters  in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen on Thursday agreed to free the freight train laden with military vehicles and equipment after blocking its departure on Wednesday, but said ten Red Shirts will board the train to make sure it would really goes to the southern provinces.

Khon Kaen deputy governor Payat Charnprasert and Region 4 Police deputy commissioner Pol Maj-Gen Sakda Techakriangkrai have negotiated with Red Shirt key leader Nattawut Saikua who agreed that the protesters will allow the train to leave Khon Kaen Train Station for the restive southern province of Pattani.

Seventy-seven soldiers 'detained' by Red Shirt protesters will also be allowed to board with the train to carry out their mission in the Deep South.

Ten Red Shirts of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) will board the train with the army personnel to monitor the shipment and ensure that the military equipment is not off-loaded to be used and join the army operation in Bangkok.

As the talks between the authorities and the local activists resolved the standoff, some 300 Red Shirt protesters dispersed from the train station and returned to join the protest in the city hall.

The Red Shirts in Khon Kaen on Wednesday blocked the railway tracks preventing the departure of the train laden with military vehicles and equipment amid speculation that they are destined for use in dispersing crowd at Bangkok's Ratchaprasong intersection.

Concerned security officials however told the demonstrators that the train's 20 railway carriages which carried 24 Humvy military vehicles, military trucks and water cannon cars, as well as other military equipment was bound for the three restive southern provinces, not the capital. But the protesters refused to release the train.

Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd, as spokesman of the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), said on Thursday the reaction of the Red Shirts violated the law and obstructed the security operation in the insurgency-torn provinces, saying three companies of army personnel and a company of police officers were on standby to solve the situation if the negotiation to release the train remained inconclusive.
By: mcot.net