Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is free to return
from exile as soon as he wants to challenge graft allegations
against him, as well as the seizure of US$1.5 billion in assets,
his successor said yesterday.
Interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont gave a personal
guarantee of the safety of the former telecoms tycoon, who has been
in exile since a September military coup.
"He is eligible to return to account for his assets," Surayud
told reporters. "He has 60 days in which to do so."
Ever since the coup, the generals have said Thaksin would be
unwelcome until after a general election slated for December.
Earlier, Thaksin's lawyer vowed to fight back against the army
and its appointed government, which announced on Monday they were
freezing 21 domestic bank accounts belonging to Thaksin, his wife
and two children.
"We have been pushed into the corner. We can no longer retreat,
so we have to fight," Noppadon Pattama told reporters in
Bangkok.
"He has been unfairly treated, so he will return to Thailand
sooner than his original plan," Noppadon said, adding Thaksin would
decide when to come back in "two or three days".
An Asset Examination Committee (AEC) set up after the coup
ordered banks to freeze Thaksin's accounts, and help trace 20
billion baht (US$618 million) "missing" since his family's sale of
their stake in telecoms giant Shin Corp to Singapore in January
2006.
Even though the assets swoop appeared to be designed to stop
Thaksin bankrolling opposition to the army, analysts said it might
backfire as outraged supporters of his disbanded Thai Rak Thai
(TRT) party might take to the streets.
"Despite their explanations, the AEC cannot stop people from
thinking it was a political decision," political commentator Sukhum
Nualskul told a Bangkok radio station. "People will have sympathy
for Thaksin, who they feel has been bullied."
Even though no charges have been filed in court, the AEC
concluded that "Thaksin and his cronies had been corrupt and
committed wrongdoings."
"I disagree with the order," said Sakol Pakdisamai, 41, a taxi
driver from the TRT stronghold of the northeast. "There will be
chaos because a lot of people who love Thaksin and disagree with
the order will come out onto the streets."
A former policeman and telecoms tycoon, Thaksin came to power in
2001, promising to improve the lives of the rural poor with
universal public health care and cheap credit schemes.
He was very popular in the countryside, but critics and
opponents said he used his vast wealth to blind voters to "policy
corruption" that unfairly benefited his family's companies.
Despite numerous appeals from the interim government to accept a
court decision last month to disband Thai Rak Thai for electoral
fraud and bar 111 of its party executive from politics for five
years, pro-Thaksin demonstrations are growing.
The leader of one group who drew 10,000 protesters on Saturday
called the assets freeze "a ruling by a kangaroo court" that would
only serve to embolden opponents of the Council for National
Security (CNS), as the coup leaders call themselves.
(China Daily June 13, 2007)
