Thaksin on the Privy Council and judiciary / Abhisit on plots
The Bangkok Post (23 March 2009: “Police get shooting practice before protest”) reports on some interesting developments in a story where the headline does not entirely match the content, but where the headline is quite disturbing.
The story goes on to report on the latest Thaksin Shinawatra’s phone-in, where he apparently claimed that “a serving judge of the Constitution Court [Jaran Pakdithanakuland] two members of the Privy Council [Prem Tinsulanonda and Surayud Chulanont] were aligned with the junta that removed him from power in the September 2006 coup…”. He added that army chief General Anupong Paojinda was also involved. Thaksin claimed that he was given this information by former Internal Security Operations Command deputy chief Panlop Pinmanee.
Not unexpectedly, these claims were quickly dismissed as ”nonsense” and ”ill-informed.” General Surayud, who resigned from the Privy Copuncil to become the junta’s appointed prime minister, responded that “Thaksin was ill-informed. He was no involved in the coup. Gen Surayud said he believed in the law of karma and that any action had its consequences. Thaksin’s claim was clearly false, he said.”
[Chris Baker has posted a translation of Thaksin's main points at New Mandala.]
Meanwhile, Jaran “dismissed Thaksin’s claims as nonsense and said he would seek advice before deciding whether to respond further.”
The Bangkok Post reported that “Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva warned Thaksin not to try to implicate the Privy Council in politics.” Then it adds that “The prime minister also said he had actually ‘seen’ a copy of the Taksin plan, which the military says is a conspiracy aimed at bringing down the coalition government led by the Democrat party.” It was originally the Democrats that came up with this conspiracy theory, but now Abhisit says the military sees a conspiracy. General Anupong commented on it later. Pravit Rojanaphruk in The Nation (25 March 2009: “Red shirts will be harshly judged if they descend into violence”) has more on the red shirts and the supposed Taksin plot.
Abhisit said that the “government would be able to handle the situation should the plan be implemented,…” adding that, “It was the responsibility of the security forces to deal with the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship’s planned protest in front of Government House.”
A scrambled but interesting report.
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