1.
GV student march through bangkok street
8 ft

2.
GV top view of students marching
14 ft

3.
GV Students march through street with banner (3 shots)
24 ft

4.
GV top view of students marching
29 ft

5.
GV buses loaded with students demonstrators (3 shots)
45 ft

6.
CA police car
47 ft

7.
GV students with flag on motor-bike
52 ft

8.
GV police chanting slogans at rally
53 ft

9.
GV crowd seated
67 ft

10.
GV speaker
??? ft

11.
MV police in uniform applauding
73 ft

12.
MV police listening
80 ft

13.
MV police standby
83 ft

14.
GV crowd chanting (2 shots)
93 ft



Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Tension ran high in the Thai capital of Bangkok on Wednesday (20 August) as student clashes and striking policemen threatened the five-month old coalition government of Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj with its most serious domestic crisis.

About 3,000 technical school students marched through the streets of Bangkok to the near-deserted campus of Thamasat University.

The technical students, generally regarded as right-wing, have a tradition of hostility towards left-leaning university students, especially those at Thamasat, which provides the current leaders for the main left-orientated student activist groups.

The students marched to Thamasat University apparently in retaliation for the gunshot wounding of a technical student who intruded into a Thamasat rally earlier this month.

The rally start peacefully as bus loads of technical students arrived on the Thamasat campus. But violence broke out later when the students crashed through the University's gates, hurling fire-bombs and firing guns. One faculty building was reported to have set on fire.

Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj held an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday's but he later told reporters that no special government action will be taken to curb the street violence.

Earlier, demonstrators, some of them policemen, rampaged through the house of prime Minister kukrit, smashing furniture and windows.

The incident occurred about four hours after Thai policemen staged a peaceful rally neat the Prime Minister's residence in Bangkok's suburbs.

Several hundred policemen, some in uniforms, stand the rally neat the entrance gate, shouting protests against what they called "mon rule" in Thailand.

The demonstrators was touched off by a three-day protest movement that has been gathering momentum in the northern Thai town of Lamphun.

Thousand of police have been protesting against the release from Lamphun jail last week of eight activist farmers and a student before they had been brought to trial.

They accused the Thai government of bowing to pressure from militant students who had staged a 10-day demonstration to demand the release of the nine activists.