The erstwhile Democrat-led government of Abhisit Vejjajiva made "catching the fugitive" the heart of its foreign policy. Mr Abhisit's Foreign Ministry team _ including Kasit Piromya as foreign minister, vice-minister Panich Vikitsreth and the minister's secretary Chavanond Intarakomalyasut _ spent a vast amount of time and resources on this unsuccessful venture.
The costs and negative consequences from such a one-track policy are high and have now become a burden on the present government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The intense political conflict since the coup d'etat of Sept 19, 2006 derailed the foreign policy initiatives put in place during the administration of Thaksin Shinawatra. His vision was carried out by Surakiart Sathirathai and, subsequently, by Kanthati Suphamongkhon. As foreign ministers, both were at the forefront in putting Thailand on the international radar screen. Recognition was not limited to the regional Association of Southeast Asian Nations and neighbouring countries, but expanded into many formal and informal multilateral forums such as the Asian Cooperation Dialogue. The expanded network was designed to put Thailand as the centre of the various ongoing discussions and dialogues. In our globalised world it is essential to be in the midst of things and, of course, to be recognised and consulted.
Her government is now in full operation. For now, Yingluck will need to deliver on her election promises, ranging from implementing an effective economic policy and mending the country's ties with Cambodia. There is, however, one top priority that Yingluck has not made her position clear on - removing the anti-Pheu Thai Army chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha.
True, Yingluck desperately seeks to build a working relationship with the military. When her brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, wanted to weaken the military by interfering in its internal affairs, he was toppled in a coup. But the situation has changed and Yingluck is now playing a different political game. Her overwhelming popular support in this post-coup period signifies the public discontent with the military's political intervention. Yingluck is therefore urged to invent a new culture under which elected civilians control the military.
Yingluck will certainly meet her match. General Prayuth is not just a typical royalist soldier. A self-proclaimed anti-Thaksin figure, he blatantly interferes in politics. Yingluck may find it almost impossible to work with a man who openly disapproves of her own brother, the Pheu Thai political platform and the red-shirt movement.
Bangkok/Phnom Penh - In the absence of credible information on why Thai and Cambodian forces started fighting along a disputed stretch of the border last week, the rumour mills are working overtime, but the message seems aimed at domestic audiences.
Since Friday, at least 14 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in on-and-off clashes near several disputed temples.
One question is the timing. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva plans to dissolve parliament in early May and call an election, fuelling speculation that some political faction might try to gain from the conflict. Another is that the military wants to control the poll's outcome and the fighting is their way to be in charge. And those are just the least outlandish takes on the situation from Bangkok.
Lawmaker and political observer Kraisak Chohoven said he believes motives other than election considerations had to be behind the conflict. But as so often in recent years, Thai domestic politics muddy any examination of the border strife.
The close relationship between former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, for example, has been a thorn in the side of the current government in Bangkok.
The latest border skirmish between Thailand and Cambodia at Ta Mouan Thom temple is solid proof that Abhisit Vejjajiva's foreign policy and diplomatic skill towards Cambodia are absolutely wrong and have failed to help bring peace with its neighbour.
Many soldiers and civilians have lost their lives in recent years since Thailand opposed Cambodia's plan to get World Heritage listing for the Preah Vihear temple in 2008.
The latest clash at Ta Mouan and Ta Kwai (known in Cambodia as Ta Krabei), some 150km west of Preah Vihear, is just an extension of the conflict in February, which was caused by Cambodian disappointment at Abhisit's policy.
The issue became complicated and very difficult to resolve as the current Thai government mixed everything up. Thailand and Cambodia's conflict these days are a combination of boundary issues, military arrangements at the border, management of the World Heritage plan, as well as local and international politics.
Fighting over the disputed territory surrounding the Preah Vihear Temple along the Thai-Cambodia border resumed last Friday, with both sides trading artillery fire and accusations of targeting civilian villages throughout the weekend. The Associated Press reports 12 soldiers confirmed dead.
The world may never know which side started the latest clash, since Thailand continues to resist allowing international observers to monitor the area. And both countries deserve some blame for stirring the pot at various times. Nevertheless, it has become increasingly clear that the Thai military is doing nothing to ease the tension.
That much we know from the way that the military, and then Bangkok, vetoed initiatives to get the two sides talking. After the last major bout of fighting in February, Cambodia succeeded in bringing the matter to the United Nations Security Council, which promptly kicked it back to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Indonesia, the chair of Asean this year, has played shuttle diplomacy trying to bring the two sides together, but Bangkok continues to balk. That has allowed Cambodia to play the aggrieved and more reasonable party.
Man 2: Sure, here you go. You're from the red stage?
Man 1: Yes, and you must be PAD.
Man 2: Officially, yes. But ideologically I'm terribly confused. All these secret deals and switching of alliances are killing me.
Man 1: Tell me about it.
Man 2: Who are we fighting? Who are our enemies?
Man 1: I'm supposed to fight you and you're supposed to fight me.
Man 2: But both of us want Abhisit to go, so we must be allies.
Man 1: You hate Abhisit, Thaksin and Hun Sen. I like Thaksin and hate Abhisit. Hun Sen accommodated Thaksin, so I like him too. And to be honest, I can't bring myself to like your boss Sondhi yet.
Man 2: So you hate Abhisit and Sondhi. I hate Abhisit, Thaksin and Hun Sen. Abhisit is the common ground, but as Abhisit is fighting border battles with Hun Sen, I'm not sure why I'm hating them both at the same time. To add to that, bringing Abhisit down may bring back a pro-Thaksin government.
Man 1: What a bloody mess. And as much as I hate Abhisit, I don't want to see him ousted in a coup. I'm part of an anti-coup movement, to begin with. This means if you promote the idea of a coup, you and I are enemies.
Man 2: Maybe you're right. But before we decide what we are, let's go have a drink.
Prime Minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, left, and Democrat chief adviser and former prime minister Chuan Leekpai smile after hearing the Constitution Court dismiss the case against the party. APICHIT JINAKUL
30/11/2010
King-Oua Laohong and Manop Thip-Osod
Bangkok Post
Speculation is rife that the Democrat Party will also win the case against it of an alleged illegal donation after the Constitution Court spared it from dissolution by dismissing a charge of misuse of an election grant.
Six Constitution Court judges yesterday voted 4:2 to drop the case in which the party was accused by the Election Commission of misusing a 29 million baht grant from the EC during its campaigning for the April 2, 2005, general election.
The two-month, sometimes violent standoff in Bangkok is over now, with the Thai military having forcibly dispersed the country's red-shirted protestors.
The government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva managed to stamp out the Red Shirts bold display of resistance, in which they occupied the city's posh commercial centre and fended off initial military movements against their sizeable encampment.
But the dramatic, days-long conclusion to the standoff brought no resolution to the underlying divisions between the Red Shirts and their supporters, who are typically characterized as representing rural and new-money interests, and their yellow-shirted opponents, who are associated with the traditional Bangkok-led establishment.
Even as the Red Shirt leaders were being rounded-up by authorities, the opposition movement continued to have mass support in most rural areas, and the violence in Bangkok that left at least 88 dead and more than 2,000 injured appears to have only hardened their resolve.
"Before, political conflicts were just between elites, and small groups would sit down to fight it out or to compromise," observes Puangthong Pawakapan, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
This time, she said, "it's dividing all people and compromise is over."
Awakening
In Thailand's revolving door of democracies, coups and dictatorships, regimes have risen and fallen frequently. But the country's Bangkok-dominated political establishment has largely remained intact.
The past 77 years of constitutional monarchy have seen 18 coups, while raucous protests have regularly rocked the capital since the beginning of the country's democracy movement in 1973.
However, the incoming and outgoing factions have generally hailed from the same insular social strata, a factor that has severely limited every new government's approach to fundamental reform, many observers say.
If, in the past, the demands of the electorate were often undermined by tradeoffs among the ruling and business elites, the sheer number of those who are today so passionately engaged in political life has complicated those kinds of solutions.
"The old magic and way of holding things together have become obsolete," says Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"Thai society has become more complicated. Unspoken arrangements within a limited elite no longer suffice to hold the country together."
Broad-based anger
Indeed, Montesano says, a new resistance movement with a deep grassroots foundation has emerged, uniting rural Thais — whose improved access to information and travel — with a growing urban working- and lower-middle class with whom they share common cause.
During the protests in Bangkok, many of these rural communities, which had previously seen little room for themselves in national politics, were up in arms, holding town rallies and fundraising for the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, the anti-government pressure group more commonly known as the Red Shirts.
Discontent in the countryside had been simmering for more than three years, since a military coup overthrew Thaksin Shinawatra, the last elected prime minister, who is now in hiding.
Despite being a billionaire telecom tycoon, Thaksin was seen as the first politician to have substantively dealt with the concerns of the poor.
His populism, of course, has been viewed with a large degree of cynicism. But rural communities in particular gratefully received his rhetorical overtures as well as his development funds and low-cost health care.
More importantly, in the current context, his patronage network remains a significant force behind the protests.
At the same time, though, the protest movement gained much of its strength from farmers, manual laborers and factory workers who were demonstrating a new assertiveness.
In the early, more peaceful stages of the protests in Bangkok, surprising numbers of local residents commiserated with the tens of thousands of rural Thais who flooded the capital — undermining the government's characterization of the Red Shirts as merely hired agitators.
Even more troubling for the government and army, though, was the apparent support, both direct and tacit, for the Red Shirts by monks and even some government security personnel.
Monks carry considerable moral authority in Thai society, while the police, in numerous instances, appeared unwilling to suppress the protestors, who mostly derive from the same humble roots.
A new society?
This social awakening, says Federico Ferrara, an academic at the National University of Singapore and author of Thailand Unhinged: Unravelling the Myth of Thai-style Democracy, is leading to an inexorable disintegration of the existing social contract.
Powerful unelected people and institutions "can no longer continue to use such power to subvert the people's will without encountering some serious resistance or inviting an angry backlash," he says.
But how much change will be consolidated from this backlash is still not clear.
Jakrapob Penkair, a spokesman for Thaksin during his time in office and now an adviser to the fugitive former prime minister, says that the Red Shirt movement, at its purest, is not pushing simply for regime change but for "new guidelines for society."
Jakrapob may not be the best representative of the movement, given that his vehement anti-royalist stance is not shared by most rural Thais. But he does speak to their common belief in the need for an overhaul of the country's political life.
The Red Shirts have mobilized around a gospel of injustice. But while they have enfranchised — at least rhetorically — large segments of the population that were previously subdued, the movement has yet to show clearly how they would transform the political landscape itself.
Only that it can't be done when the cards are stacked against them.
Brendan Brady is a journalist currently based in Cambodia, where his main subjects of interest include the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, human rights abuses, diplomatic disputes and religious tensions. His writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and World Politics Review, among other publications.
Friday, May 28, 2010 By Brendan Brady, special to CBC News Analysis
(The Nation) - Hundreds of red shirts protesters block the Parliament on Wednesday, forcing some ministers and MPs to climb up over fences of the Parliament to escape from the protesters.
A television channel showed Tourism Minister Chumpol Silapa-archa, 70, used a ladder to climb over the fences (pictured).
Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban and some Democrat MPs were seen trapping inside the Parliament compound. It was reported that a helicopter would be sent in to lift him.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who chaired the Cabinet meeting abruptly left the Parliament reportedly after learning that the protesters would march to his residence.
The Parliament was used as a venue of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The MPs also met in parliamentary session there when the protesters who moved from Pan Fah Bridge to the Parliament, blocked the entrances.
MPs scale ladders to flee the parliament as protesters breach the gates and enter the parliament grounds on Wednesday afternoon, as the government moves against the red-shirts' People Channel TV station.
(Bangkok Post) - Red-shirt supporters of the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) entered the parliament compound on Wednesday afternoon to press Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a general election.
More than 1,000 protesters led by core member Arisman Pongruangrong broke into the parliament compound after another red-shirt group led by co-leaders Payap Panket and Suporn Attawong began withdrawing from the area to guard the pro-UDD satellite-based People Channel on Lat Phrao road.
A group of protesters converged on Imperial World shopping mall on Lat Phrao road to prevent the People Channel from being shut down by the government.
Parliament President Chai Chidchob adjourned the parliament after the protesters surrounded the parliament compound on Wednesday morning.
The red-shirts moved to the parliament compound from their rally site near Phan Fa bridge after receiving reports that Prime Minister Abhisit and his deputy overseeing security Suthep Thaugsuban would hold the weekly cabinet meeting there.
Mr Chai earlier said he was not worried about the demonstrators rallying in front of the parliament and he would welcome them to the meeting if they entered the building.
Ladders were prepared for MPs to escape from the other side of the parliament, while security officials asked the protesters to make way for the lawmakers to leave.
Comedian and UDD key supporter Jeng Dogjik urged the protesters not to let Democrat Party MPs leave the parliament.
"The government must dissolve the House immediately. If the government doesn't comply we'll rally here [the parliament] for four days straight," Mr Jeng said.
There were about 200 government and opposition MPS inside the parliament building, including Deputy Prime Minister Suthep and Prime Minister's Office Minister Sathit Wongnongtoey.
Earlier, red-shirt members Payap and Suporn demanded that House Speaker and Parliament President Chai come out and meet them.
"If Mr Chai's not out here, we'll enter the parliament immediately," they announced.
The cabinet on Wednesday assigned Information and Communication Techninology Minister Ranongruk Suwunchwee to hold talks with Thaicom Plc and ask it to take action against a satellite television station which has presented "distorted information" to the people, deputy government spokesman Supachai Jaisamut said after the cabinet meeting.
The spokesman said Deputy Prime Minister Suthep, in his capacity as director of the Centre for Administration of Peace and Order (CAPO), informed the cabinet about the television station.
He said the distorted information caused more people to join the UDD rally.
Although Mr Supachai did not mention the station by name it was understood to be the People Channel, which has broadcast live and nationwide the activities of the red-shirts in Bangkok.
Mr Supachai said Mr Suthep wanted Mrs Ranongruk to talk to Thaicom Plc about this matter.
"The cabinet wants Thaicom to say by noon today what action it would take against this station, which has broken the law, otherwise CAPO will action according to the law," Mr Supachai said.
This morning, UDD leader Weng Tojirakan asked the red-shirts to go to Imperial World to guard against any move to shut the station down.
(Bangkok Post) -Red-shirt protesters led by the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) on Wednesday morning surrounded parliament building to press Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a general election.
At the red-shirt's protest venue near Phan Fa bridge, UDD core member Suporn Attawong exhorted the demonstrators to go to the parliament building after receiving reports that Prime Minister Abhisit and his deputy overseeing security Suthep Thaugsuban would hold the weekly cabinet meeting there.
However, the cabinet meeting has adjourned and Mr Abhisit and other cabinet ministers have already left the parliament building.
Parliament President Chai Chidchob expressed no concern about the red-shirts rallying in front of the parliament.
"No, we haven't prepared for the rally. If they come into the compound they are invited to attend the meeting because we are all Thais and have equal rights," Mr Chai said.
Commenting on the possibility of a House dissolution, Mr Chai said it would be up to the prime minister.
"I believe Mr Abhisit is not feeling pressured and still sleeps well," he said.
(Bangkok Post) - About 3,000 police and troops are guarding the Bangkok residence of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva in Sukhumvit Soi 31 and the nearby area, a police officer said on Wednesday.
He said police and soldiers were deployed after a report that red-shirt supporters of the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) would rally in front of Mr Abhisit’s home later today.
He affirmed that police will not allow the red-shirts to gather at the premier’s home and will ask them to rally only at the entrance to the side-road.
(The Australian) - AUSTRALIANS have been urged to stay away from the Thai capital, Bangkok, as political tensions rise ahead of a court ruling that could see $2 billion in assets confiscated from former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The warning came yesterday from the Tourism Council of Thailand amid coup jitters after two attempted bombings and the threat of a million-strong march by Thaksin loyalists.
Council secretary Pornthip Hirunkape was quoted by ABC radio as warning Australians to stay away from Bangkok for the next fortnight.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has threatened to declare martial law to deal with any trouble by pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy supporters.
The fugitive billionaire ex-PM, forced out of office in a 2006 military coup, is living in neighbouring Cambodia but he retains a strong following in Thailand's rural northeast.
The English-language Bangkok Post newspaper says 3000 police and more than 2000 troops have been put on notice to ensure security in the capital.
The Australian National University's Thai expert, Andrew Walker, said there was reason for "considerable concern" about the situation in Thailand.
"Talking with people in Thailand who have connections with some of the players in politics, there's certainly an undercurrent of concern and anxiety that things could turn ugly," Dr Walker said. "The upcoming verdict on the Thaksin assets case is potentially a flashpoint.
"I think tensions are just so high now that it would very easy for things to spin out of control."
A court decision to seize Thaksin's assets would severely limit his ability to continue to be a major political player, he said.
The loyalties of the 300,000-strong Thai army are unknown but they would be likely to back Mr Abhisit, Dr Walker said.
"They certainly moved very firmly on the red-shirt Thaksin supporters last April," he said.
The army, whose traditional role has been to protect the monarchy, has been involved in 10 coups or coup attempts since 1971.
(AFP) - Cambodian PM accuses Thailand of plotting invasion during tour of disputed Preah Vihear
PREAH VIHEAR - CAMBODIAN Premier Hun Sen visited a disputed border area with Thailand yesterday, angering the neighbouring nation amid an ongoing diplomatic spat.
Mr Hun Sen and his wife Bun Rany briefly toured the ancient Preah Vihear temple at the centre of the land dispute and met members of the Thai military guarding the area.
He asked the Thais 'to avoid fighting because we are neighbours', but his presence in the area attracted more than 100 protesters on the Thai side of the border.
Thai soldiers had set up a barbed-wire fence at the entrance to the temple national park to prevent people from trespassing on the disputed area, the Bangkok Post said.
Four soldiers were killed in clashes in the temple area in 2008 and three more in a gun battle last April. Smaller flare-ups continue to be reported between troops in the area.
Mr Hun Sen earlier began a tour of the area by opening a school and giving supplies to villagers who had been caught in last April's violence. 'For me, it doesn't matter about compensation,' said Mr Hun Sen, referring to a Cambodian market that was destroyed during the gun battle. 'They (the Thais) have invaded us and look down on us.'
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday dismissed an opposition claim that an assassination plot had been hatched against Thaksin Shinawatra, insisting that the government would only use legal means to bring him back to serve his two-year jail sentence. Justify Full In his first comment on the leak of a classified document to the Puea Thai Party from a source at the Foreign Ministry, the prime minister, speaking from Copenhagen, said the government would strictly abide by the law in its efforts to bring back Thaksin.
"I have no idea where that document came from. But I can assure you that the government will not take any unlawful steps in seeking his return," he said.
Only extradition treaties the government has signed with other countries would be used to try to bring the convicted former prime minister back to serve his time, he said.
Thaksin was sentenced in October last year while he was out of the country to a two-year jail term in the Ratchadaphisek land case for helping his ex-wife acquire a prime piece of state land at a heavily discounted price.
Puea Thai representative Jatuporn Prompan, a leader of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, on Friday unveiled a secret document, dated Nov 16, that he claimed was prepared for the prime minister by Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.
The document, which mainly focused on how Thailand should handle its relations with Cambodia amid the diplomatic spats, described Thaksin as a "key factor" in the destabilisation of the government. The Thaksin threat needed to be tackled, it said.
Mr Jatuporn interpreted it as a life-threatening measure against Thaksin. After the document was disclosed, the ministry set up a panel to find out how it ended up in the hands of the opposition.
Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said only a few senior officials were aware of the existence of the classified paper.
Mr Jatuporn yesterday indicated that the opposition party and the UDD will not end its efforts to bring down the government and denied any wrongdoing in revealing the contents of the confidential document to the public.
The prime minister condemned the opposition party, saying it had gone too far by using dirty tricks which were damaging to the government and the country.
Thailand's prime minister announced Thursday that he had cancelled a visit to a northern stronghold of his rival, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, owing to security concerns.
Abhisit Vejjajiva was set to travel to the northern city of Chiang Mai for a commerce meeting on Sunday, but decided against the trip after receiving death threats, despite initially downplaying the security risk.
The cancellation highlights the political instability faced by Thailand, which has been wracked by rival street protests for months.
Chiang Mai is a stronghold for Thaksin loyalists, known as Red Shirts, who want to see the former leader return from his self-imposed exile as he dodges a jail term for corruption.
One of the leading Red Shirts reportedly used his radio show earlier this month to threaten Abhisit with a car bomb when he visited the city.
"The Thai Chamber of Commerce wanted me to go there to hear a report of their meetings but they were concerned about a clash and decided to give me the report here, which I have no problem with," Abhisit told reporters.
"I'm confident I would be safe if I went but there is a possibility of a clash. I will go at the next appropriate time," he said.
A Thai TV channel reported Thursday that police had found guns and thousands of small explosive devices in table-tennis balls in a Red Shirt's house in Chiang Mai, but police refused to comment on this when contacted by AFP.
Supporters of billionaire Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006, say Abhisit's government is illegitimate as it came to power after a controversial court ruling that forced Thaksin's allies from office.
Some 1,500 police were sent to guard Abhisit last weekend as he toured the three northern provinces of Sukhothai, Phitsanulok and Phichit, to inspect government works.
Red Shirts had been set to hold five days of rallies in Bangkok from Saturday, but they were cancelled after Thaksin said the protests were too close to the revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 82nd birthday on December 5.
In April, Thaksin's followers forced the cancellation of a major Asian summit in the coastal city of Pattaya and then rioted in Bangkok for two days, leaving two people dead.
Fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra said in his Twitter page early Friday morning that he would like to invite Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to taste camel meat in Dubai so he could gain more understanding about things.
Thaksin was responding to his supporters’ concern that he would face more difficulties after Mr Abhisit had recently visited Qatar and could have asked for cooperation to pressure other countries in the Middle East to extradite the fugitive politician to Thailand.
“The government should stop bothering other countries [about me]. Mr Abhisit should also find time to visit all other member countries of the Asean because it’s a tradition,” Thaksin said.
The former premier insisted that he did not have a foreign passport in the name Takki Shinegra as claimed by the Foreign Ministry.
Thaksin said he will disappear for a while as he has to visit several countries, but will try to talk to supporters through his Twitter page.
