Thailand's so-called Red Shirt protest leaders said they are formally ending their anti-government protest

BANGKOK—Thailand's so-called Red Shirt protest leaders said they are formally ending their anti-government protest and will surrender to authorities to prevent more deaths.

The announcement came after the army overran their heavily barricaded encampment in central Bangkok on Wednesday.

Seven Red Shirt leaders went on stage in the core protest zone to announce their decision, which was greeted with shouts of dismay from the men and women gathered around.

Protest leader Natawut Saikua said ``we have done our best.'' Weng Tojirakarn said ``we want to prevent further losses of our Red Shirt brothers and sisters.''

He said ``let us first prevent further losses of lives,'' and urged supporters to leave the area.
Barricade Down

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An armored vehicle broke through a barricade during an operation to evict anti-government "red shirt" protesters from their encampment in Bangkok Wednesday.

Hundreds of soldiers armed with semiautomatic rifles gathered on streets leading to the protesters' encampment, witnesses and television reports said. Demonstrators lit kerosene-soaked tires, shrouding parts of the city in thick plumes of smoke.

Troops occupied a highway overpass overlooking the camp and were seen firing sporadic shots into the camp. Others fired from the tracks of an elevated-rail network they used as a vantage point.

Thai Bankers' Association said Thailand's four biggest banks would close their branches in Bangkok and on its outskirts early Wednesday because of the growing unrest. Bangkok Bank PCL, Kasikornbank PCL, Siam Commercial Bank and Krung Thai Bank would all close at 1 p.m. local time, the association's chairman, Prasarn Trairatvorakul, said. Bond dealers said bond trading would also end early.

At the entrance to Silom Road, Thailand's equivalent of Wall Street, troops turned water cannons on protesters in a bid to disperse them and began tearing down a barricade constructed from tires and sharpened bamboo staves. An armored tank repeatedly rammed the barrier, breaching what the Red Shirts call their "liberated zone."

Many of the protesters defending the barricade retreated to the main Red Shirt camp less than a mile north, witnesses said. At least two people were shot and injured, Reuters reported.

Korbsak Sabhavasu, the main government negotiator and a secretary-general in the prime minister's office, confirmed that talks to end the standoff had collapsed.

People familiar with the negotiations between the two sides said the biggest problem was the main Red Shirt leaders' inability to control hard-core demonstrators on the edges of the rally site.

Fears are growing that the military's push could lead to an intensified conflict in coming days. In a televised address, government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the army operation is designed to tighten a security cordon around the demonstrators' main camp and would continue throughout the day.

"Brothers and sisters, wake up! The crackdown is beginning," yelled one speaker on the Red Shirt stage.

Gen. Lertrat Rattanavanich, a senator involved in trying to rescue negotiations between protesters and the government, said on Thai TV that efforts to re-start talks had failed. "I think this will be the final clash," he said. "If the protest leaders don't surrender, the losses could be huge."

At least 39 people have been killed and more than 300 injured since Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government on Thursday ordered army troops to end the monthslong antigovernment protest.

The Red Shirts, many of them followers of ousted populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra, were demanding immediate elections to recalibrate a political system that they say has been manipulated by powerful military officers and bureaucrats.

Their protest began peacefully on March 12, when tens of thousands of people flowed into Bangkok after Thai courts confiscated $1.4 billion of Mr. Thaksin's family fortune. The court ruled that much of the wealth had been amassed through corruption—a ruling Mr. Thaksin decried as evidence of a political conspiracy against him following the 2006 coup that removed him as prime minister.
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But in recent weeks, as the demonstrators set up camp in Bangkok's main shopping district, shutting down dozens of hotels and shopping malls, the protests took on a more violent tone. Around the periphery of the main camp, some demonstrators began throwing Molotov cocktails and other improvised-explosive devices at security forces sent in to seal off the protest.

The army used snipers to peg back the protesters in recent days. Witnesses reported and filmed marksmen using rifles with telescopic sights firing on unarmed demonstrators, in some cases shooting them in the head.

Since the government announced its plans to crack down on the protesters on Saturday, the demonstrators had actually expanded their territory, bringing them into regular conflict with security forces assigned to stop the protests from spreading.

Many hard-liners were also angered by the death on Monday of a rogue soldier who had defected to the Red Shirts' cause. Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol was shot in the head last Thursday night by unknown assailants, in an apparent assassination attempt.

Maj. Gen. Khattiya and many of his followers have been operating independently of the main protest leaders, who include lawmaker Jatuporn Prompan and activists Nattawut Saikua and Weng Tojirakarn.

Maj. Gen. Khattiya, in particular, had his own lines of communication to Mr. Thaksin, who now lives in Dubai in self-imposed exile to avoid imprisonment on a 2008 corruption conviction.

Before he died, Maj. Gen. Khattiya said in an interview that his goal was to turn the Red Shirt protests into a full-blown revolt against the Thai state.

People involved in negotiations to end the protests say Mr. Thaksin had encouraged more militant Red Shirt leaders to continually add fresh demands, effectively delaying talks and a final agreement after Prime Minister Abhisit offered to hold a new election on Nov. 14.

Last week, with scant sign of any progress, the Oxford-educated Mr. Abhisit withdrew his election offer and ordered troops to cordon off the demonstrations.

Mr. Thaksin has described suggestions he had deliberately sabotaged the peace talks in order to provoke a wider uprising that could enable him to return to Thailand as "fiction."
—Oranan Paweewun and Phisanu Phromchanya contributed to this article.