Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Deposed PM Thaksin returns to Thailand in 2 days

The pro-Thaksin website Hi Thakin has urged Thais to greet former Prime minister Thaksin at Suvanabhumi airport at 9 a.m. Thursday. The 2006 coup outsted Thaksin, and in December 2007 a Thaksin allied party, the PPP, formed a Thaksin-friendly coallition government. Thaksin feels the country is now in the hands of his friends.

Thaksin faces corruption charges. The IHT quotes the chief of Thaksin's legal defense team, Pichit Chuenban: "Thaksin will surrender to police when he arrives and seek his release on bail."

My initial thoughts about this:

  • The new airport is not equipped to cope with large crowds greeting arrivals. Some foreign tourists are not going to think so highly of Thaksin on Thursday.
  • For Thailand this event will be the equivellent of the late former Pakistani President Bhutto's return to Pakistan in late 2007. Let's hope it has a happier ending. (See this post)


UPDATE: I am live-blogging the return of Thaksin from the airport. Here.

1 comment:

  1. I hope no one is suggesting a similarity between Thaksin and Bhutto.

    Thaksin does not only have to answer for economic and political shenanigans but murder.

    Please google "Thaksin + tak bai massacre"

    his policy of executing low level drug dealers rather than going after the drug tycoons is also an insult to human rights and basic due process.

    It never surprised me that his puppet Samak Sundaravej claims only one person died in the 5 October massacre student protesters.

    The Thai media is a whole lot more liberal than westerners would give them credit for---but no surprise westerners go to the bilingual Hi Thaksin site for info.

    Brilliant!

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