Chambers on Chambers

Dominic Faulder at NikkeiAsia has an interesting story about Dr Paul Chambers, recently harassed by the Royal Thai Army with a pathetically weak Article 112 accusation and charge, and now free.

It is behind a semi-paywall that asks for registration. That seems not too much to ask, so we only have bits of the story below.

We had guessed that Chambers had left Thailand after the charges were dropped, but he says “he fled the kingdom [Thailand] on U.S. embassy advice when it became apparent that he was in danger of facing further charges despite the first being dismissed by the attorney general’s office.”

Readers may recall that PPT had earlier speculated that the military thugs had lost face and would probably be vengeful.

He adds: “My lawyers and the U.S. Embassy people realized that there were certain elements — right-wing elements — that wanted this decision to be reversed somehow or wanted to bring up new charges against me…”. He says American diplomats warned him: “You need to get the hell out of here because all of a sudden you’re going to have to go back to square one…”.

Yet this is contradicted when it is stated: “The office of Thailand’s attorney general confirmed in the week Chambers was deported that there was no case to answer.” But perhaps this is explained when Chambers talks about who was after him: “Security officials wanted the charges to stand, and non-security officials wanted them dropped — that’s kind of an interesting tug of war…”.

And, he also points out: “It was important I left on the 29th, because on the 30th, there was going to be another [police-led] meeting about what my legal status might be in terms of my visa.”

The story also seems to confirm that “the State Department had been pressuring the Thai government for a resolution to the Chambers case if it wanted a place in the queue to negotiate the ‘reciprocal’ tariffs that President Donald Trump had imposed.”

As he was being deported, “American diplomats and immigration police traveled the nearly 400 kilometers to Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok with Chambers.” He only got his passport back at the boarding gate.

Faulder points out that Chambers’ situation was unique: “a first for a foreign academic, Chambers was charged in late April…”.

He concludes on the Army:

I think that the army has had it in for me for years…. They don’t like the way I write about them, criticizing their institution, their economic empire and some of their leaders. I think that on Oct. 1 last year, a new faction came to command the army… [that] is very conservative.