Generals fail to sideline ThaksinPublished:
Thursday, 18 January, 2007, 08:29 AM Doha Time
By Ed Cropley
BANGKOK: It hasnt turned out quite as Thailands generals intended.
Four months after they launched their coup against Thaksin Shinawatra and forced on him the life of a globe-trotting exile, the billionaire former prime minister continues to exercise a Svengali-like grip over his country.
Try as it might, the Council for National Security (CNS), as the coup commanders now call themselves, appears unable to purge him from the public eye.
Within days of the September 19 putsch, the CNS formed teams of auditors to track down the "rampant corruption" cited as the basis for Thailands 18th coup in 75 years of on-off democracy.
As yet, no concrete evidence has come to light. One senior graft investigator refused to talk on the record for fear of repercussions from a politician whose influence is still perceived as stretching to every corner of the land.
"Thaksin is still a very powerful man, you know," he said.
The CNS also implicated the Thaksin camp in a series of New Years Eve bombs that killed three people in Bangkok by blaming "politicians who have lost power".
Again, neither the police nor army have presented any hard evidence.
In response to each accusation, Thaksin has managed to hit back on the front pages and the airwaves with denials of any wrong-doing issued through his smooth-talking, Oxford-educated lawyer, Noppadol Pattama.
After the bombs sent shockwaves though the country, Thaksin faxed a hand-written, three-page letter from Beijing, explaining himself to Thailands 65mn people 19mn of whom voted for him in a 2005 landslide.
Last week, the generals patience ran out.
After almost daily appearances by Thaksin in the media and accusations that they were being soft, the generals revoked his diplomatic passport and told radio and TV stations to keep him off the air.
But the measures have done little but increase the Thai medias view of the CNS as an old-style military junta, rather than a benign dictatorship nursing democracy back to health after five years of what was seen widely as Thaksin plutocracy.
They certainly didnt keep him out of the limelight. Reuters
จากคุณ :
Dragon Stone 
- [
18 ม.ค. 50 22:45:06
A:58.8.174.83 X:
]
ฝรั่งเริ่มมองเกมออก ตีข่าวนายพลไทยหาเลศใส่ร้ายทักษิณ..?
