BANGKOK, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- About 500 farmers on Monday called on the Democrat Party, one of the coalition government parties, for help with their overdue debts owed to a state-run bank.
The farmers peacefully gathered outside the Democrat Party's headquarters in Samsen area of Bangkok, urging Deputy Prime Minister and Democrat Party Leader Jurin Laksanawisit to take their demands into account during a meeting of the Office of the Farmers Restoration and Development Fund, scheduled for Tuesday.
The farmers from varied provinces have staged a peaceful protest against the government's alleged failures to help them with their debts owed to the state-run Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) outside the Ministry of Finance's headquarters just across a canal from the Democrat Party's head office since the last three weeks.
They openly criticized Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister and Democrat Party Secretary General Chalermchai Sri-on for having not visited them to make inquiry into their woes since.
Neither did Jurin nor Chalermchai happen to be at the party's headquarters to meet with the protesting farmers on Monday. The deputy prime minister concurrently acts as vice chairman of the Office of the Farmers Restoration and Development Fund.
The farmers have called for the government-run Farmers Restoration and Development Fund to pay for the overdue debts which varied agricultural cooperatives, under which they have been registered, or they themselves may have owed to the BAAC, said leading protester Chumphorn Chintanavasarn.
Remarkably, the protesters have earlier called for the BAAC to provide a moratorium for all the indebted farmers or freeze the litigation process against them, according to Chumphorn.
