Thailand's "red shirts" revel after summit shutdown

By Martin Petty

PATTAYA, Thailand (Reuters) - Barrelling through a thin line of troops, hundreds of red-shirted anti-government protesters in Thailand hurtled through a plate glass window -- and tumbled into the venue of the East Asia summit.

"We've won -- the summit is over," shouted Aey, one of "red shirts" who support ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"We'll return to Bangkok now, to rejoin the protest there," she added. "We'll finally get Abhisit out."

The protesters say Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who came to office four months ago through parliamentary defections engineered by the army, is "illegitimate."

Abhisit cancelled the summit after it was stormed and imposed a state of emergency to allow leaders to depart safely.

They were never in any real danger. The protesters had smashed their way into the media centre, while most of the leaders were having lunch at the adjacent Royal Cliff hotel.

Five leaders never even made it to the venue.

Once in the media centre, the protesters paraded around with flags, blew whistles and horns, helped themselves to the snack buffet laid on for the journalists, and held impromptu press conferences with newsmen who were only too happy to get some decent soundbites.