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1 days and 10 hours ago
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width="1" height="1" //divpHopes for the hundreds of thousands of foreign travellers stranded in
Thailand were raised yesterday when the first international passenger flights left Bangkok's main
airport after anti-government protesters ended their eight-day siege./ppWithin hours of the lifting
of the blockade the first passenger service in a week arrived from the resort island of Phuket, and
a Thai Airways flight left for Sydney./ppThe end of the standoff - which left travellers frustrated
and Thailand's tourist industry hamstrung - resembled a victory parade peppered with hugs and
handshakes as the protesters declared they had won./ppThousands of the People's Alliance for
Democracy (PAD) demonstrators left Suvarnabhumi international airport yesterday morning, a day
after a court disbanded the governing party and barred the prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, from
office for electoral fraud. /ppBut as services resumed, the Thai airports' authority said the
arrival of the first three international flights would not happen until tomorrow - although the
hope was that normal services could resume soon after to take home the estimated 230,000 trapped
tourists. As PAD supporters, dressed in yellow as a mark of respect for the king, packed up their
tents and bedrolls, government MPs met to choose an interim leader. The rump of the six-party
coalition - led by the People Power party - plans to meet on Monday to select a new prime minister.
It will be Thailand's third prime minister in three months and may spark fresh tensions./ppAlthough
the end of the standoff has defused the immediate crisis, demonstrators warned they would return if
need be, raising the spectre of further violence in the bitterly divided country. "We will come
back when the nation needs us," said Somkiat Pongpaibul, a key PAD member, an alliance of Bangkok's
urban monarchist elite pitting itself against the rural poor who voted mainly for the
government./ppThere was a carnival mood yesterday as the remaining demonstrators sang and danced to
a band on the makeshift stage outside the airport's departure areas. Queues formed before a table
set up for PAD's co-founders, Chamlong Srimuang and Sondhi Limthongkul, who signed
autographs./ppThe international airport's manager, Serirat Prasutanond, predicted a speedy return
to normality after inspecting the terminal. As he spoke, 700 soldiers and specialist bomb squads
moved into the airport complex with sniffer dogs to search for explosive devices, while cleaners
cleared the rubbish and IT technicians started rebooting systems shut down a week ago./pdiv
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