Hundreds of Thai anti-government protesters have blocked the entrance to the venue for the East Asian Summit this weekend. The noisy but peaceful protest group managed to evade police blockades, and set up a confrontation with Thai police and military outside a conference centre at the beach resort in Pattaya.

Leaders of anti-government protests Friday invited all supporters of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to flock to the area around a regional summit in the resort city of Pattaya to push for the resignation of the current prime minister and three royal advisors. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said earlier the meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) with its dialogue partners, which include China and Japan, was ringed with security against protestors who were now too extreme to engage in negotiations.

However, a determined group of about 1,500 so-called Red Shirt protestors broke through lines of police, army and navy personnel, getting within a few paces of the hotel complex where the summit is being held in Pattaya, 100 kilometres south-east of Bangkok. The protestors later withdrew after handing over a petition to a member of the ASEAN secretariat listing their complaints against the government.

'They are going. Unfortunately I think they will be back,' said a senior policeman at the scene. Jatuporn Promphan, a protest leader, said the Red Shirts would wind down their protests in the capital for the Thai Songkran holiday, leaving a holding camp of about 10,000 demonstrators outside Government House. The demonstrators withdrew from the Victory Monument area which they had seized Thursday, causing disruption to Bangkok traffic.

'We have shown our power. We know the people are behind us, so we can get rid of this government after Songkran,' Jatuporn told protestors in Bangkok. He invited all other Red Shirts to descend on Pattaya. Buses were being laid on to transfer demonstrators from Bangkok, he added. Estimates of participants at the peak of the protest in Bangkok Thursday night range from 100,000 to 50,000.

Suthep told reporters in Pattaya the Red Shirts were either misled or mischievous. 'It is wrong of them to try. This is bad for Thailand. These people are only thinking of themselves and their corrupt leader.'

Red Shirts smashed the window of one French journalist's car on the road from Bangkok to Pattaya, and at least two other groups of journalists were roughed up by protestors on their way to the summit. One army officer complained to the German Press Agency dpa that the police appeared supine in the face of determined but not overwhelming numbers of protestors. 'Do they really care to stop Thaksin's people?' he asked. 'I'm not sure.' The security forces seemed to find government orders to handle protests with kid gloves difficult to interpret.

Prime Minister Abhist Vejjajiva declared Friday a national holiday to give the authorities room to deal with the spreading protest. Suthep told reporters it was 'groundless' to think the government could negotiate with a rival who has gone beyond acceptable behaviour and appeared determined to destroy normal society.

Thaksin, in a video broadcast from an undisclosed location to protestors Thursday evening, called for 'every patriot' to come forward to force the resignations of Abhisit and three advisers to the Thai king, whom Thaksin said were behind the 2006 military coup that toppled him. Thaksin was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail for corruption in a land deal during his 2001-6 premiership. He jumped bail and has been living in exile in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

A Red Shirt leader, Veera Musikapong, said every action taken by the protestors was legitimate because they were acting for the good of the people against an illegitimate government. Abhisit has repeatedly rebuffed calls for his resignation, calling on protestors to understand that the calls for 'democracy' were a blind to further the corrupt interests of an irresponsible former leader.

ASEAN leaders are meeting in Pattaya this weekend along with their dialogue partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand with regional financial initiates high on the agenda.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.