Echoes of Saigon as choppers rescue Thai PM

By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - It could have been a scene from the closing chapters of the Vietnam War -- U.S.-made "Huey" helicopters flying in across a steamy southeast Asian city to rescue people trapped inside a besieged compound.

But the city was Bangkok in 2008, not Saigon in 1975, and the people included Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, holed up inside the parliament building as thousands of protesters outside called for his resignation.

The air thick with teargas from earlier clashes between protesters and riot police, Somchai was forced to climb through a barbed wire fence at the back of parliament and onto the lawns of an adjoining palace before being flown to safety.

Left behind were hundreds of ruling party members of parliament who had gathered on Tuesday to hear Somchai's inaugural policy address -- an event the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) demonstrators were determined to prevent.

One man's leg was blown off and another lost his foot when riot police moved in just after dawn to clear a route to a side entrance of the parliament building, a modern concrete edifice in the leafy heart of Bangkok's old quarter.

Furious at what was seen as police brutality, thousands more PAD supporters joined the protest, eventually forcing riot officers to flee, abandoning their batons, shields and six trucks.

"We are going to block them inside for as long as possible," said a 45-year-old chartered surveyor, who declined to give his name, as MPs milled around inside the compound, speaking on mobile phones.

The protesters, who believe Somchai is a puppet of telecoms billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted as Prime Minister in a 2006 coup, then went to vent their rage at Bangkok's police headquarters.