Friday, 30 October 2009
By Richard S. Ehrlich
Scoop (New Zealand)
Thai and Cambodian politicians have been fleeing to each other's country for the past 50 years, seeking sanctuary from coups, arrest warrants, and other threats.
In 1957, when Thai dictator Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat unleashed a military coup against Prime Minister Phibun Songkram, the toppled leader fled Thailand for Cambodia in his Ford Thunderbird car.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand and Cambodia have descended into a loud political feud about Bangkok's 2006 coup, and Thailand's current threat to demand the extradition of its fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The rift between the two Buddhist-majority nations in the heart of Southeast Asia was expected to worsen if Mr. Thaksin accepts Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's surprise offer of a temporary house.
"There is an extradition process," warned Thailand's powerful Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Tuesday (October 27).
"The turmoil following Cambodian leader Hun Sen's remarks, about ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra being welcome in his country, has thrown the government into a spin," the Bangkok Post newspaper, which opposes Mr. Thaksin, reported on Tuesday (October 27).
Ratcheting up his rhetoric, Mr. Hun Sen compared Mr. Thaksin to Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has languished under house arrest in Rangoon for 14 years.
"Many people are talking about Mrs. Suu Kyi of Burma. Why can't I talk about the victim, Thaksin?" Mr. Hun Sen said on October 23.
"That cannot be regarded as interference by Cambodia into Thai internal affairs. Without the coup d'etat in 2006, such a thing would not have happened," Hun Sen said.
Soft-spoken Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lashed out Mr. Hun Sen's remarks.
"There are few people in the world who believe Thaksin is similar to that of Mr. Suu Kyi," Mr. Abhisit said later that day.
"I hope Prime Minister Hun Sen will receive the right information and change his mind on the matter."
Cambodia's government spokesman Phay Siphan said on October 23: "Cambodia has a right to offer Thaksin to visit Cambodia, and we have no obligation to send him back to Thailand."
If "former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra wishes to travel to Cambodia anytime...the Cambodian prime minister is ready to prepare a residence for [his] stay in Cambodia," reported Cambodia's government-run TVK television on October 22, according to Agence-France Presse.
Mr. Thaksin has been an international fugitive, based mostly in Dubai, dodging a two-year prison sentence for a conflict of interest.
That conviction involved a Bangkok real estate deal -- for his now divorced wife -- which was arranged when he was prime minister.
Mr. Thaksin became prime minister in 2001 when most voters elected the billionaire telecommunications tycoon, hoping he would boost the economy and modernize Thailand.
Mr. Thaksin was removed in September 2006 by Thailand's U.S.-trained military in a bloodless coup when they used tanks, armored personnel carriers, Humvees and other weapons to seize power.
He has unsuccessfully tried to return to power with the help of allied politicians, and get back his two billion U.S. dollars worth of assets which the coup leaders froze.
International human rights groups, however, want Mr. Thaksin investigated for his role in the alleged extrajudicial murder of more than 2,000 people during his government's "war on drugs."
Mr. Thaksin remains politically active in self-exile.
He helps lead a mass movement of so-called "Red Shirts" who claim to represent Thailand's majority lower classes, especially in the countryside.
Together they demand an immediate election, expecting Mr. Thaksin's allies to win.
They are opposed by the "Yellow Shirts" who claim to support Thailand's urban middle class and constitutional monarchy.
Led by Sondhi Limthongkul, the Yellow Shirts blockaded Bangkok's international and domestic airports in November 2008 for eight days, stranding more than 300,000 people worldwide.
Their blockade helped weaken a government allied to Mr. Thaksin, and paved the way for Parliament to elect Mr. Abhisit.
Mr. Abhisit's fragile coalition government enjoys the military's support, and much of his personal security is handled by the military.
Thailand's wealthy elite have mostly thrown their weight behind Mr. Abhisit as well, and appear nervous about Mr. Thaksin and the Red Shirts plotting to destabilize Bangkok.
Cambodia's prime minister has thrown a wild card into this dangerous mix, apparently hoping to attract big investments by Mr. Thaksin and weaken Bangkok's strategy over a smoldering border dispute, according to some analysts.
"It is true that I would invite former Prime Minister Thaksin to visit Cambodia anytime, and to be my economic advisor," Mr. Hun Sen said on October 22.
Thailand and Cambodia are former war-time enemies -- and current investment partners -- so the stakes are high for all sides to quell their public sniping.
Occasional killings on both sides have continued in and around the ancient stone ruins of Preah Vihear, a Hindu temple on the Thai-Cambodian border.
That dispute dates back to the 1950s, and continued even after the International Court in the Hague, Netherlands, confirmed Cambodia's ownership in 1962.
The conflict flared again after the ruins were declared a World Heritage Site in July 2008 by the World Heritage Committee, based on Cambodia's proposal to cash in on its tourism potential.
Thailand and Cambodia have suffered much worse relations in the past.
After Richard Nixon became president of the United States in 1969, he used Thailand as one of several military staging areas for heavy aerial bombing raids against communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, until America's wars ended in 1975 -- one year after Nixon's presidency -- with the U.S. defeated in all three countries.
Washington and Bangkok later indirectly backed Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, when his jungle-based guerrillas were in a loose alliance with other Cambodian rebels fighting against Vietnam's 1979-1989 occupation of Cambodia.
Thai and Cambodian politicians have been fleeing to each other's country for the past 50 years, seeking sanctuary from coups, arrest warrants, and other threats.
In 1957, when Thai dictator Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat unleashed a military coup against Prime Minister Phibun Songkram, the toppled leader fled Thailand for Cambodia in his Ford Thunderbird car.
*************
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com
Thailand and Cambodia Argue About Thaksin & the Coup
Friday, October 30, 2009Abhisit's tit-for-tat against his Cambodian counterpart was uncalled for, as Thailand was the host of the meeting
Thai Rath columnist Mae Lookjan
30/10/2009
Bangkok Post
Despite gushing official statements, the Abhisit government's performance at the recent Asean Summit was disappointing.
The so-called achievements in Hua Hin and Cha-am were too little compared with the huge budget spent in organising the three-day event.
The 15th summit got off on an inauspicious start, as four heads of state and government failed to show up at the official opening.
The Thai-Cambodian spat over deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra did not contribute in any way to the grouping's quest for unity, friendship and cooperation.
Prime Minister Abhisit's tit-for-tat against his Cambodian counterpart was uncalled for, as Thailand was the host of the meeting. He should have reserved his criticism for some other occasion.
Many issues have been left unsolved after the meeting, including the lifting of import tax among the 10 member countries, the Thai-Philippine rice tariff, free investment regulations, and the fate of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.
Asean's dream of becoming a unified community remains just that - a distant dream. If Thailand and Cambodia are still at each other's throats, how can the group become unified?
'Jungle woman' hospitalised
Rochom P'ngieng
October 30, 2009
From correspondents in Cambodia
Agence France-Presse
CAMBODIA'S "jungle woman", whose case gripped the country after she apparently spent 18 years living in a forest, has been hospitalised after refusing food, her father and a doctor said today.
Rochom P'ngieng, now 28, went missing as a little girl in 1989 while herding water buffalo in Ratanakkiri province around 600km northeast of the capital Phnom Penh.
The woman was brought from the jungle, naked and dirty, in early 2007 after being caught trying to steal food from a farmer.
She was hunched over like a monkey, scavenging the ground for pieces of dried rice in the forest.
She could not utter a word of any intelligible language, instead making what Sal Lou, the man who says he is her father, calls "animal noises".
Cambodians described her as "jungle woman" and "half-animal girl".
Sal Lou said Rochom P'ngieng was admitted to the provincial hospital on Monday and had not adjusted to village life.
"She has refused to eat rice for about one month. She is skinny now.... She still cannot speak. She acts totally like a monkey. Last night, she took off her clothes, and went to hide in the bathroom," Sal Lou said.
"Her condition looks worse than the time we brought her from the jungle. She always wants to take off her clothes and crawl back to the jungle," he added.
Doctor Hing Phan Sokunthea, director of Ratanakkiri provincial hospital, said the woman was "in a state of nerves".
"Doctors have injected her with medicine twice a day to treat nervous illness but she still cannot control herself," he said.
Sal Lou said his family found it difficult to house the woman and he would appeal to charities to take over her care.
The jungles of Ratanakkiri - some of the most isolated and wild in Cambodia - are known to have held hidden groups of hill tribes in the recent past.
In November 2004, 34 people from four hill tribe families emerged from the dense forest where they had fled in 1979 after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which they supported.