Thai protesters vouch not to concede after twenty-one die in clashes

Sian Powell and Richard Lloyd Parry, Bangkok & ,}

Anti-government protesters in Thailand swore currently that they would never compromise with the Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the day after transport battles left twenty-one people dead, together with demonstrators, soldiers and a Japanese journalist.

At slightest 870 people were harmed yesterday, when soldiers in armoured vehicles attempted to mangle up a entertainment of tens of thousands of Red Shirts who are demanding that Mr Abhisit call elections immediately.

Sixteen protesters were killed, majority of them shot in the head, as well as Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman with the Reuters headlines agency.

But the Red Shirts who await the banished budding minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was driven out 4 years ago in a infantry manoeuvre additionally caused fantastic repairs of their own.

Related LinksProtesters daring after lethal Bangkok clashesThai Red Shirts charge TV stationNine passed as Thai infantry strife with Red ShirtsMultimediaPICTURES: Thailand protests

Four soldiers, together with a colonel, died during the battles, and the demonstrators seized 6 armoured crew carriers whose crushed frames lie deserted close to the Democracy Monument.

"There is no some-more negotiation, Jatuporn Prompan, a Red Shirt leader, told a throng from a circuitously stage, that was piled with involuntary rifles, machine guns and ammunition belts seized from the soldiers, 4 of whom were quickly taken prisoner.

Red Shirts will never come to terms with murderers. Although the highway is severe and full of obstacles, it"s the avocation to honour the passed by bringing democracy to this country.

Sixteen red-painted boxes, symbolising the coffins of the victims, were laid out on the Democracy Monument, whose drastic friezes were pocked with bullet holes from the day before.

At a dozen spots sparse around the stage of the battle, Red Shirt sympathisers left incense, flowering plants and offerings of rice in front of gummy pools of congealed blood, where the casualties of Saturdays assault are said to have died.

But how they were killed, and by whom, is still far from clear, and each side blames the other.

In a televised press conference, Mr Abhisits spokesman, Panitan Wattanayagorn, insisted that the soldiers used usually rubber bullets and blanks, with orders to glow live rounds usually in to the air and in self-defence.

But photographs and videos posted on the internet show confused scenes in which at slightest one with unclothed hands immature Red Shirt has the tip of his head blown off during a detonate of shooting, as if by a high-velocity bullet.

The soldiers starting sharpened appurtenance guns at about 2 or 3pm, the UDD leader Weng Tajirakarn told The Times.

They attempted to contend that may be the Red Shirts proposed it and the soldiers were striking behind that is a lie. Abhisit Vejjajiva has supposed they used genuine bullets, but the Government attempted to forgive it, observant it was simply protection opposite threats. They are sharpened people who have usually unclothed hands.

The week finish assault erupted at the heart of ancestral Bangkok and spilled in to the piece of the city majority busy by foreigners, the important Khao San Road backpacker enclave.

Tourists described how the transport of poor guest houses and Internet cafs was transformed in to a bridgehead of security forces and protesters.

We listened a lot of gunfire, pronounced Tom Reynolds, 21, of Tring in Hertfordshire. For about 3 hours everyone was perplexing to get up here. There was a line of demonstration troops holding them behind afterwards the troops usually privileged out. It was a fight zone.

The protests, that began a month ago, have additionally hermetic off the heart of Bangkoks selling district, and sealed down or disrupted a little of the majority expensive hotels and selling malls.

Some governments have cautions travellers to equivocate transport to Bangkok. The Foreign and Commonwealth advises British tourists to sojourn indoors and to monitor the media in box of violence.

Mr Abhisit came to energy last year as the outcome of a bloc shaped in the wake of the infantry manoeuvre that deposed Mr Thaksin in 2006. His Democrat Party has never won an choosing underneath his care the Red Shirts are challenging him to disintegrate council and face Mr Thaksins supporters at the list box.

Under the constitution Mr Abhisit contingency call an choosing by the finish of subsequent year, but he insists that he will go to the nation early usually if it will benefit the nation as a whole.