General strike

State enterprise workers will walk off the job nationwide next Monday and stay out until Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and the government resign, the head of their union warned on Friday.

Sawit Kaewwan, secretary-general of the umbrella State Enterprise Relations Confederation (SERC) said bluntly: "If the Government remains on Nov 25 (next Tuesday), we will strike."

He said the strike will be nationwide by about 200,000 workers of 43 state firms. SERC claims to represent workers from many sectors, including the water and electrical workers, national airline and railway, and the communications duopoly

Mr Sawit said he will call workers out on Monday afternoon for a rally with the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Tuesday mornng, they will begin an indefinite strike until the government resigns, he said.

A similar threat last September fizzled when workers generally ignored the SERC call for a strike. Some railway services were shut down for two weeks, however, and largely paralysed local trade in the South.

Friday's SERC statement was defiant. "We will evict all government officials from every state enterprise and every union will mobilise their members to join the protest on (Monday) from 10am onward," it said.

"If the government does not comply with the demands (to resign) or uses violence against the protesters, every one of us will strike nationwide" beginning on Tuesday.

The decision to strike was triggered by the grenade attack on PAD protesters occupying Government House on Thursday, Mr Sawit said. Someone fired an M-79 grenade into the protest, killing one person and wounding about 20.

The PAD blamed the government for the violence, and SERC backs that claim, said Mr Sawit.

State enterprise employees throughout the country should rally behind the PAD and go on strike indefinitely beginning on Tuesday until the government steps down.

According to Mr Sawit, SERC has concluded that the government repeatedly used violence and brutality to suppress demonstrators, with the most recent example being Thursday's grenade attack. He apparently did not consult other SERC leaders before his statement, and there was no formal poll of workers.

The SERC threat comes as the PAD has called for a street rally on Sunday, probably to try to besiege parliament and prevent the government from attending to business, including amendemnts to the constitution.

Also on Sunday, PAD opponents will stage their own rally in support of the government and fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra at a temple in Nonthaburi in the northern Bangkok suburbs.

In another development on Friday, deputy national police chief Pol Gen Jongrak Juthanont refuted PAD charges that the attack on the protesters on Thursday was a sophisticated government plot from the fourth floor of the Office of the Civil Service Commission.

He showed the media an M-79 grenade launcher, which police say was the weapon type used in the attack. Police noted the grenade launcher has been in widespread use since the Vietnam war and requires no special expertise to use.

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By Bangkok Post Agencies