PM Lee almost forced to leave by “small boats” in Pattaya

From George Yeo’s blog entry:

Up on the 12th floor, I could see the red shirts milling around the conference centre, moving hither thither. Soldiers and policemen stood in groups not really engaging them. Not long afterwards, I could hear helicopters whirring overhead picking up people from the rooftop. Out at sea, naval ships on patrol moved closer to shore and small boats also picked up passengers. 

PM was told by the Thai Government that he and the Singapore delegation should evacuate by sea, to be ferried by small boats to a nearby LST which would take us to Sattahip naval base. From there we could drive to U-Tapao. It all seemed quite unseemly to me that leaders and ministers had to leave in this way. But anyway we packed our belongings and waited for instructions since the Thais were responsible for our security. Happily we were informed around 3.30pm that the demonstrators had dispersed and we could travel by road to U-Tapao with full dignity.

Read the rest of the article here.