RA’s Thailand News Blast – May 13, 2012
Ampon Tangnoppakul, also known as Ar Kong and ‘Uncle SMS’, the 62-year-old grandfather given a 20 year sentence after being convicted under lèse majesté, has died in prison. His funeral was held yesterday. Supporters and mourners gathered last week outside the Ratchada Criminal Court to mark his passing.
Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm denies that Pheu Thai MPs have been meeting with Thaksin Shinawatra in China to negotiate the configuration of the cabinet, and says that any decision on the cabinet is up to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose attention is currently focused on the problem of inflation. A spokesperson for the Pheu Thai party says that short-term government plans to ease inflation include stabilising the price of goods and encouraging grocery stores to lower their prices. Yingluck has complained that journalists are not correctly quoting her on inflation, (in reference to an earlier report that she had said perceived price rises were linked to the start of the school semester) and blames inflation on the flood and the global increase of gas prices. Democrat spokesperson Mulika has attacked Yingluck for failing to understanding the real causes of price increases. A spokesperson for the Pheu Thai party suggested that the opposition were making up stories about rising prices as part of a ‘political game’. Former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva says the government needs to face facts.
Abhisit’s Final Insult to Ah Kong
Opposition leader Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva has responded to the tragic death of lese majeste victim Mr. Amphol Tangnoppakul (“Ah Kong”) with one of his trademark Orwellian statements. Before warning mourners not to “exploit” Mr. Amphon’s death by “turning it into a political issue,” Mark Abhisit asked that the government, in the interest of “justice,” provide a full explanation of what led to Mr. Amphol’s sudden passing. We do not speak for the government, but the facts that might allow Mark Abhisit to reconstruct Mr. Amphol’s death are in the public domain.
“Ah Kong,” a sixty-one-year old cancer-stricken man, was arrested in the summer of 2010 as part of the lese majeste witch-hunt initiated by Mark Abhisit’s government. According to experts, the year 2010 saw a three-fold increase in the number of lese majeste cases reaching the lower courts from the previous year, which had itself shattered earlier records. The criminal complaint against Ah Kong was initiated by none other than Mark Abhisit’s personal secretary, who reported the content of four SMS messages he received on his mobile phone. Naturally, Mark Abhisit claims to have known nothing about it, but his history of lies and distortions calls his credibility into serious question.
Following his arrest, Mr. Amphol was subjected to a horrifying array of violations to his basic human rights: two months in detention without charge, repeated rejections of bail requests while awaiting trial, denial of proper medical treatment, and finally a grotesque twenty-year prison sentence handed down in late 2011, at the conclusion of a process that required the defendant to prove his innocence, instead of placing the burden on the prosecutor to establish his guilt. Even the presiding judge admitted the evidence was not conclusive, but that did not stop him from sentencing Ah Kong to die in prison.
Given the appalling prison conditions for which Thailand is infamous, it is no surprise that Mr. Amphol’s cancer was allowed to spread without proper monitoring or treatment. Detainees generally, and political prisoners in particular, are frequently denied the medical care they need while in custody. As recently as February 2012, the Appeals Court reasoned that Mr. Amphol’s health condition was not serious enough to warrant bail.
The death of Mr. Amphol is a continuation of the policy of terror against the Thai people enacted by Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva’s previous Democrat Party regime that began with 1000s of troops on the street of Bangkok in 2009, the use of army snipers against unarmed civilians in 2010 and the abuse of Article 112 for political gain. The use of 112 was systematically ramped up by the Democrat’s and Mark Abhisit and this has included demagoguing the issue to prevent the law from being reformed in any way. If Mark Abhisit wants to find out who is responsible for Mr. Amphol’s death, he ought to start with himself and his patrons in the military.
Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva may not appreciate it, but confronting the Thai public with evidence of the barbarity of his own actions is not an “exploitation” of Mr. Amphol’s death. It is rather the only way to make sure that Ah Kong did not die for nothing, and to help save the lives of others who have been victimized by Article 112. Ah Kong’s tragic death does not need to be “turned into a political issue.” Ah Kong’s death is a political issue—a symbol of everything that is rotten and backward and inhuman about the political establishment to which Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva has sold his soul.
Korn’s Insult to Kok Wua Victims
The Democrat Party’s sole claim to political power is that the Thai people are too stupid to choose their own leaders. Even worse than being reduced to this pathetic stance is the fact that Democrat Party officials actually believe their own rhetoric, judging by the lengths to which they are willing to go to insult the public’s intelligence.
In the final days of last year’s election campaign, the desperate Democrats held a rally at Rachaprasong. Before the rally, the Butcher of Bangkok, Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva, had the audacity to invite relatives of the six people who had died at Wat Pathumwanaram on May 19, 2010 to listen to his version of “the truth” in order to gain a “better understanding of the situation”. While Abhisit revealed no new information on the killings, his Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban went on to blame the victims for their own deaths, repeating the discredited claim that gun powder residue was found on the hands of four of the victims. As the election results demonstrated a few days later, the Thai people did not buy any of Abhisit’s or Suthep’s lies.
To Save One Man
“The Democrats have run out of hope, run out of time and most evidently they have run out of ideas,” writes columnist Songkran Grachangnetara in this weekend’s Bangkok Post. There is one thing I would like to add to that – the Democrats’ leader, Mark Vejjajiva, is now running out of places to hide.
From the moment he took power in 2008, Mark Vejjajiva has been on borrowed time. His one trick pony party – which seems to be based entirely on the daily “5 minutes of hate” found in George Orwell’s famous opus on totalitarianism,1984 – remain unelectable and unrepresentative, failing time and time again to secure any meaningful mandate from their fellow Thai citizens.
Abhisit and Korn Were Registered to Vote in UK as Citizens
Abhisit, as well as former Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij, were registered as electors (voters) at St Johns College, University of Oxford on 10th October 1983, giving them both eligibility to vote from 16th Feb 1984 to 15th Feb 1985, and again in the 1986 register, and again in 1987.
The Oxford City Council, who organize the “electoral roll” or “register of electors” have informed us that the colleges forward the names of students who are eligible to vote to them. You gain eligibility to vote if you are a British, Irish or Commonwealth (ex-Empire) student. The council also informed us that they double check with the college if they are unsure of the eligibility to vote of someone the college puts forward, and if there is any doubt regarding the citizenship of the voter, they are able to show their birth certificate to be included on the voter register. This means that Abhisit (and Korn) enrolled at Oxford using their British nationalities and that Abhisit’s name was then added to the register of electors by St Johns College, his official address.
St Johns College also confirmed this process telling us that at the start of each academic year (late September of any year) they are asked by the Oxford City Council to forward the names of students eligible to vote. The college deduces voter registration eligibility by the nationality put on the enrollment form by the student. Proof of nationality for all British, Irish and Commonwealth students would be required and would need to be provided by the student at the time of enrollment. This means that Abhisit actively and knowingly pronounced himself as a British citizen when he enrolled at St Johns College, Oxford University in 1983.
It is clear, beyond all doubt, Abhisit was “active” as a British citizen. He has known about this for almost 30 years and has lied about it consistently since.
The former Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vejjajiva appears listed as a UK citizen in the 1984-1985 Oxford Register of Electors
Former Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva registered as an eligible voter in the UK in 1984.
Thailand’s Politics of Reconciliation
Representatives of the Democrat Party have resigned en bloc from the parliamentary committee on national reconciliation, chaired by Ret. Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin. The dramatic move was motivated by opposition to the reconciliation proposals made in a report presented to the committee by the King Prajadhipok Institute (KPI), which have received the support of Gen. Sonthi in addition to a comfortable majority of the committee. For a week the Democrats pressured KPI to withdraw the report and revise its conclusions to their satisfaction. Having failed to do so, the party ordered its representatives to resign, declining to participate further in the committee’s search for a solution to the crisis. In the short term at least, this decision strikes a blow against efforts to achieve national reconciliation.
The King Prajadhipok Institute is not a hotbed of radicalism. It is staffed for the most part by conservative and moderate researchers and academics, many of whom have never had much sympathy for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. As KPI’s own spokespersons have pointed out in response to the outcry among Democrat politicians, the report contains suggestions demanding that both sides make painful concessions. This is based on KPI’s recognition that reconciliation requires each of the parties involved to make the compromises necessary to create a framework within which they can co-exist peacefully. It is the nature of the game that all sides would attempt to secure a compromise most favorable to their interests, and more consistent with their political agenda, but it is inexcusable for one side to try to undermine the process simply because it refuses to make any compromises at all.
Portrait of a Divider
Back in late November 2008 as the Yellowshirt protests at Bangkok’s Government House dwindled to a forlorn rump of a couple thousand persons, it all seemed to be over for media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul (AKA Sondhi Lim). As the self-styled leader of the Peoples’ Alliance for Democracy, an extreme far-right protest movement whose political platform eschewed any form of democracy and which proudly proclaimed its preference for military coups rather than elections, Lim’s popular appeal had now dwindled to a handful of hardcore fanatics.
Yet Lim was determined to have his way and to remove, once again, a democratically elected government. Without any kind of meaningful support amongst Thailand’s population Lim knew he could rely on the backing of powerful figures in both the Thai aristocracy and the military. Their aims were intertwined – to hold back Thailand’s burgeoning representative democracy and to prevent those popularly elected to office from keeping power.
On November 25th 2008 Lim launched “Operation Hiroshima” – the ultimate showdown between his PAD supporters and the elected People’s Power Party government. In the days leading up to “Hiroshima” the PAD’s apocalyptic rhetoric ramped up with Lim taking the lead calling the protest the “Final War.”
Who Divides Thailand?
Almost two years after ordering a massacre of his own citizens, former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva remains the leader of the Democrat Party. General Prayuth Chan-ocha, whose troops carried out the killings, is still the Commander in Chief of the Thai army, while many of the officers who assisted in the crackdown’s planning and execution were rewarded with promotions. Even the retired General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who staged a military coup in 2006 against a government elected three times, is now a member of parliament; improbably, he was given the chairmanship of a parliamentary committee on “national reconciliation.”
These men did not just escape legal accountability for their actions, which is the historical norm in Thailand, but got to keep their positions and titles. Few in the domestic and international press have seriously questioned their fitness to serve.
RA’s Thailand News Blast – March 3, 2012
PM Yingluck Shinawatra says that any decision on amending the constitution must remain with the drafting assembly. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s office defended the constitution law amendment as being in everyone’s interests; coalition party Chat Thai Pattana agrees. Former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva called on Deputy PM Chalerm to forbid changes to laws concerning the monarchy and judicial system; Chalerm responded by urging Abhisit to hold off on making any conclusions, as nothing concrete has yet been decided. Democrat spokesperson Chavanond is against the amendment, as is the Ombudsman’s office. Sodsri, the Election Commissioner, is calling for the amendment of article 237 in the constitution law, on grounds that the penalty is too severe. The Law Development Commissioner, Prasop, says that the emergency decree should be abolished, as it allows the army to attack civilians at protests.
