Flights were canceled at Thailand's main airport on Tuesday after anti-government protesters stormed the building, leaving thousands of travelers stranded and threatening the country's tourism industry.
"The departure hall has been closed," Sereerat Prasutanont, director of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport, the main gateway for 14.5 million visitors to Thailand each year, told TPBS TV. "Flights that are ready to depart can leave, but those that are not ready must cancel their flights," he said.
The move came after members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) broke through police lines and roamed through the sprawling $4 billion terminal, southeast of Bangkok, as startled tourists looked on.
The airport invasion capped a dramatic day that also saw PAD protesters firing on pro-government supporters on a major road leading to the old airport to the north of the city.
Footage aired by public broadcaster TPBS showed at least two PAD security guards firing half a dozen rounds from handguns. The PAD said they were attacked first with planks and stones.
At least 11 people were hurt, a city emergency services official said.
There were chaotic scenes at Suvarnabhumi, a major regional air hub that handles 76 flights an hour and 125,000 passengers a day, after protesters broke through lines of riot police.
"There are lot of people with sticks and baseball bats. They looked ready for a fight. We don't what's going on," Belgian tourist Ben Creemers told Reuters.
Outside the terminal, thousands of PAD members waved plastic hand-clappers, flags and portraits of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, while others slung razor wire across the four-lane access road.
"Our goal is to shut down Suvarnabhumi airport until Somchai quits," PAD spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan said of the protest, aimed at Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who returns on Wednesday from an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru.
He would not be landing at Suvarnabhumi, a spokesman said.
The airport siege, one of the PAD's most disruptive acts in its six-month campaign, could undermine public support for a movement that appears to be going to ever greater extremes to provoke a violent government backlash.
"It is time to make a clear-cut choice between good and evil, between those who are loyal and traitors," PAD leader Somsak Kosaisuk told supporters at a rally earlier in the day.
PM stays put
Somchai has rejected repeated PAD demands that he resign because of allegations he is a puppet of his brother-in-law, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as leader in a 2006 coup.
Even though a nationwide strike failed to materialize, the airport unrest could deepen the economic impact of a crisis that has stymied government decision-making and raised fears about the export-driven economy's ability to cope with a global slump.
The government forecast this week that the economy would grow just 4.5 percent this year, its slowest rate in seven years.
However, Thai shares and the baht shrugged off the protests, with the main stock index up 1.5 percent as Asian bourses rose after the U.S. bailout of Citigroup.
Opinion polls show waning public support for the PAD, an unelected coalition of royalist businessmen, academics and activists.
Some analysts say its powerful backers in the Bangkok establishment, including Queen Sirikit, are getting cold feet about the damage the political strife is inflicting on the economy.
"The people who've been backing PAD in the background have got frightened that it's getting out of control. It's a threat to public order and even the structure of the state itself," historian and political analyst Chris Baker said.
Despite his ties to Thaksin, Somchai's bland, inoffensive personality has proved a hard target, and police are determined to avoid a repeat of October 7, when two protesters were killed and hundreds injured in street battles, the worst unrest in 16 years.
Bloodshed could trigger another coup only two years after the army removed Thaksin, but army chief Anupong Paochinda reiterated on Tuesday that a putsch would do nothing to resolve the fundamental political rifts.
The PAD enjoys the backing of Bangkok's urban middle classes and elite, while Thaksin and the government largely claim their support from the rural voters and urban poor who returned them in a December election.
