As prelude to a mass rally in Bangkok on a date yet to be fixed, the pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) will stage a protest today against ex-premier and Privy Councillor Surayud Chulanont.
They will be marching up Khao Yai Thiang mountain in Sikhieu district of Nakhon Ratchasima, atop which the privy councillor has a vacation lodge, sited on a plot of allegedly encroached land.
The protest is meant as a ''show of force'' by the red shirts against what they claim is a double standard practised by the government, for failing to take legal action against the privy councillor for ''illegally'' acquiring the land plot in question.
The protest is also intended as a warm-up exercise for the red shirt army in preparation for its ''big push'' in Bangkok to overthrow the Abhisit Vejjajiva government.
The protesters have been told by one of their leaders, Khernpetch Ponrum, to bring with them food, spades and other hand tools reportedly to follow in Gen Surayud's footsteps in ''claiming'' land at Khao Yai Thiang.
The red shirts' aggressive approach has caused widespread concern among many villagers living near Gen Surayud's vacation home, as many of them are supposedly land encroachers, too.
As a precaution against possible confrontation between the protesters and the locals which could turn ugly, police have been despatched to the scene to scour the area, with more reinforcements to be deployed.
Troops from the Second Army Region have been ordered on standby to assist the police should it be deemed necessary.
As a matter of fact, the Khao Yai Thiang controversy is not new.
The scandal blew up more than three years ago, when the Thai Rak Thai Party exposed the controversy in order to demonstrate to the public the alleged double-standard treatment of this case in comparison to the Ratchadaphisek land case against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife, Khunying Potjaman.
In following up the case, red shirt members in Nakhon Ratchasima, led by ex-MP Suporn Atthawong, filed a land encroachment charge against the privy councillor and his wife with the provincial court.
But the case was not accepted on grounds that the plaintiffs were not the directly ''injured'' party.
The revival of the controversy at this juncture coincides with the recent decision by the public prosecution not to press charges of land encroachment against Gen Surayud, as the land ownership had gone through two prior owners; but that the Forestry Department needed to retake the land plot.
In defending the privy councillor, Senator Kamnuan Sitthisamarn said that the former did not illegally encroach on the land but had bought it from the second owner without knowing that the land in question had been illegally acquired in the first place.
To borrow Thaksin's famous phrase after he was found not guilty of concealing assets by the Constitution Court, this was an ''honest mistake'': Gen Surayud had not breached the law; his only mistake was that he had not been careful enough to check out the background of the land plot he was purchasing.
Nevertheless, the red shirts remain adamant about chastening the privy councillor, whom they hold accountable along with Prem Tinsulanonda, the presi dent of the Privy Council, for the overthrow of the Thaksin regime in a military coup three years ago.
The protest appears to be part of the red shirts' hate campaign against what they contemptuously call the amartya, a small circle of privy councillors and court officials whom they accuse of pulling the strings behind all the political plots and intrigues against Thaksin and his party.
For the red shirts, the amartya clique are their No.1 enemy which they want to get rid of although the Abhisit government remains their target to be toppled, with the ultimate aim to bring back Thaksin to clear him of all charges and to return to him all the frozen assets.
As for Gen Surayud, he will have to weather the red shirts' wrath all by himself _ as was the case with Gen Prem, who has withstood the red shirts' verbal abuses in stride without any moral support even from his so-called ''sons''. Gen Surayud's only option at this critical juncture is to return the land to the state and keep a low profile.
Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.
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1 comment:
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! :)
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