Prime Minister Abhisit Opposed To Amnesty For Thaksin

[webfact]

PM opposed to amnesty for Thaksin

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Friday expressed his opposition to a proposal to grant an amnesty to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future.

He said such an amnesty will set a bad precedent and any person with power and influence may follow an example to cause trouble to the country to force for an amnesty.

"And Thailand will always be held hostage by wrongdoers," Abhisit said.

-- The Nation 2010/1/1

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[Samuian]

...and he is right with it!

...all others who are incarcerated, don't they,then deserve the same treatment?

... or is this an exclusive right to a very exclusive public figure who turned into a stuntman holding this nation for ransom at will?

[pwills]

I totally agree there should be no amnesty for anyone in the world that uses and abuses political power for their own ends whether they be dictators in Africa, the America's or Europe, let us change in the new century what has been abused for hundreds if not thousands of years going back to the Greek, Egyptian and Chinese dynasties, but first we must change the mindset of the people and teach that having money is not an entry to court corruption and nepotism.

[Hardback]

"Thailand will always be held hostage by wrongdoers"......ummmmm?

[Thailand]

The prime ministers statement must come as a shock to many.

Simply keeps the thorn in the governments side in the news when they should be ignoring him.

[Artisi]

Trust Thaksin has been informed - seems a bit more face has been sliced off.

[animatic]

Trust Thaksin has been informed - seems a bit more face has been sliced off.

So many slices he must be almost back to the ears by now.

Soon enough he won't be able to hear a thing.

[ballache]

well what a pickle the government have got themselves in to, I have no doubt they have no real interest in him serving his term, that's why they let him leave the country in the first place. Of course they have to go through all the motions while Thaksin mocks them from afar with his affiliations to neighbouring countries, and at the the end of the day what he was sentenced for was minor and was politically motivated, when we see others not even get brought to trial for worse offences you have to ask yourself why Thaksin was sent for trial, it was to justify the coup.

The best thing this current mob can do is to dissolve parliament and call an election and let the people decide who they want, of course the dems are scared to do this as they know they will lose, if they were confident they would have called the election by now and be sitting pretty as an elected government for 4 years. they are toothless and not in control for Thailand.

the sad thing is even if an election is called and when Thaksins cohorts get back into power we will have his old adversary back on the street with his yellow shirted mob, followed by the red shirted mob (on this note why is nobody screaming for sondhi to be serving his jail term, he already has convictions now for defamation and further charges for his acts at Government House and the airports).

One thing is for sure, and yes he had his hand in the cookie jar, just as the current lot have, Thailand was more stable and better performing before the 2007 coup, all the coup has done is destabilise the country further.

In my opinion Thailand suffers from not having a big brother, what I mean by this is that it was never colonized so has no role model to slap them on the legs when they continually fuc_k up (I know, I will get all the comments about Burma not being stable etc and I will get accused of being pro Thaksin, I am not, I am pro democracy and believe that the government needs to be voted in, cue the talk now about vote buying as though only one party does it etc).

In my opinion they need to acknowledge privately the conviction is politically motivated, grant the amnesty, let the guy come back and if his party wins power again its because that's what the people want.

Simplistic I know, but the most sensible option to allow thailand to move forward.

ok, cue the yellow shirted farangs in 5.....4......3......2......1

[way2muchcoffee]

Not that anyone cares but here is my opinion.

From the Dem side:

1) Refund Thaksin's money, less appropriate taxes, fines for corrupt practice, reparations to gov't for lost monies due to his abuse of power. So return about half the money in total.

2) Commute existing sentence to a 10 year probation.

3) No amnesty on other charges. The charges must see the light of court in order to ascertain guilt or innocence. However a deal could be made for a blanket punishment including further fines and extension of probation period, increased consequences for probation violation, but no jail time.

From Thaksin

1) Complete and total separation from politics in Thailand or any other country, including donations, fundraisers, advisorships, the use of proxies, etc, for the duration of his life.

2) Thaksin surrenders all passports, as would any other convicted felon.

3) Probation agreement states that involvement in politics in any capacity whatsoever invalidates all probation conditions. He would then immediately serve full sentence on every conviction, in a military prison.

Edited January 1, 2010 by way2muchcoffee

[Ayutthaya69]

I Agree No Amnesty for Him the Law is the Law

[jayboy]

Oh wait, he came to power thanks to the military coup.

And the perpetrators of the coup awarded themselves a full amnesty immediately afterwards.

[jonclark]

The PM is correct that the sentence should be served. And as TV members have already pointed out Sondhi should also do likewise.

So come on Takki and Sondhi be men, and do your time. I'm fairly sure that if Takki had done his time, he would have been out by now.

[slapout]

Amnesty, pardon, return monies tor the whole family, drop all pending cases (awaiting his personal appearance), give pardon/amnesty to anyone connected/involved with the government (including business entities) from day 1 of TRT and subsequent parties, throw in any suspicious court decision during this same time, and we are good to go. Now when this is done they can change immigration laws to allow entry (long term) to all those upstanding citizens/boat people etc who are beating a path to Europe, North America, Australia, etc a place in the LOS. All of those affected by these actions would deserve each other.

[pammy123]

Really and all this from an unelected Prime Minister who is in power thanks to the PAD, is he going to ensure that all the criminal element from that orginisation pay for the damage they have done to Thailand.

[Brunus]

I don't support any political party in Thailand, but as others have pointed out the hypocrisy of this Abhisit's statement is evident

[animatic]

The courts are dealing with all the above issues used

as excuses why Thaksin should get a deal, none of those reasons,

is even slightly relevant to the issue of his conviction, and evasion.

Regardless if the hourts are slow in other cases,

that is not an excuse to let him off the hook.

Rule of Law if applied in any fashion is still

better than utterly abrogated for political expedience.

[animatic]

Propaganda 101 is in room 22B try over there now.

[Samuian]

well what a pickle the government have got themselves in to, I have no doubt they have no real interest in him serving his term, that's why they let him leave the country in the first place. Of course they have to go through all the motions while Thaksin mocks them from afar with his affiliations to neighbouring countries, and at the the end of the day what he was sentenced for was minor and was politically motivated, when we see others not even get brought to trial for worse offences you have to ask yourself why Thaksin was sent for trial, it was to justify the coup.

The best thing this current mob can do is to dissolve parliament and call an election and let the people decide who they want, of course the dems are scared to do this as they know they will lose, if they were confident they would have called the election by now and be sitting pretty as an elected government for 4 years. they are toothless and not in control for Thailand.

the sad thing is even if an election is called and when Thaksins cohorts get back into power we will have his old adversary back on the street with his yellow shirted mob, followed by the red shirted mob (on this note why is nobody screaming for sondhi to be serving his jail term, he already has convictions now for defamation and further charges for his acts at Government House and the airports).

One thing is for sure, and yes he had his hand in the cookie jar, just as the current lot have, Thailand was more stable and better performing before the 2007 coup, all the coup has done is destabilise the country further.

In my opinion Thailand suffers from not having a big brother, what I mean by this is that it was never colonized so has no role model to slap them on the legs when they continually fuc_k up (I know, I will get all the comments about Burma not being stable etc and I will get accused of being pro Thaksin, I am not, I am pro democracy and believe that the government needs to be voted in, cue the talk now about vote buying as though only one party does it etc).

In my opinion they need to acknowledge privately the conviction is politically motivated, grant the amnesty, let the guy come back and if his party wins power again its because that's what the people want.

Simplistic I know, but the most sensible option to allow thailand to move forward.

ok, cue the yellow shirted farangs in 5.....4......3......2......1

Sorry, but this post reads like it was produced with a mixer - all ingredients at random thrown into it and press the high speed button/...

"...send to trail to justify the coup.."

...so in the posters opinion he didn't do anything wrong?

[Artisi]

Really and all this from an unelected Prime Minister who is in power thanks to the PAD, is he going to ensure that all the criminal element from that orginisation pay for the damage they have done to Thailand.

Since when have Prime Ministers been elected in Thailand?

[BSJ]

As a branch of government one always hopes that the judiciary is not tainted by the same dirty water that sometimes effects the members of the people's house. In a way it would be unthinkable for the Supreme Justice to sit back and say nothing and not demand that the previous court rulings be upheld by the government of the day. It is wrong for the PM to overturn jurist decisions on a whim.

Others in this thread have written much the same. A country without a functioning parliament & strong judiciary is called a "Banana republic" is it not.

[Publicus]

"Thailand will always be held hostage by wrongdoers"......ummmmm?

"Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future."

What like getting into power by illegally occupying an airport? By having some unelected military Generals overthrow the Government? How was the law upheld on these occasions,Oxford boy?

You guys who keep pursuing this line make it sound as if Abhisit engineered everything that happened from Sondhi's demonstrations to the coup, so he could get the parliament whose election he also designed to vote him PM, that Abhisit brilliantly designed and directed a complex chain of events, to include deposing the hapless and innocents Samak and Somchai, to culminate in his becoming PM.

Let's talk instead of Thaksin the engineer of the debacle in Pattaya and of Thaksin the engineer of treasonous riots during the national Songkran holiday, among other egotistical and treasonous acts. In fact, let's have Thaksin do tourist promos globally for Thailand!  

FYI, the food market in the mall where we shop in the PRC continuously runs Thai government sponsored promos of LOS on its closed circuit tv's positioned around the market, ads that are slick and attractive but which everyone (save two shoppers in particular) ignores. Just yesterday the Chinese owner of the languages school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why (the Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her. 

Edited January 1, 2010 by Publicus

[lazygourmet]

Propaganda 101 is in room 22B try over there now.

[jayboy]

[ Just yesterday the owner of the language school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why the (Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her.

I hope you told her this was just one view and that there was plenty of evidence most Thais thought otherwise.That would require a degree of honesty which I don't know if you possess or not.

Don't be silly about Abhisit's path to power by the way.Of course he didn't organise it but the argument I assume you're alluding to goes that a safe candidate acceptable to the elite was railroaded to power through an ilegal coup, a rigged constitution, a directed judiciary and cynical back door deals.Above all the Thai people were denied a final voice in those who govern them - for the time being.

[jontom]

"Thailand will always be held hostage by wrongdoers"......ummmmm?

"Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future."

What like getting into power by illegally occupying an airport? By having some unelected military Generals overthrow the Government? How was the law upheld on these occasions,Oxford boy?

You guys who keep pursuing this line make it sound as if Abhisit engineered everything that happened from Sondhi's demonstrations to the coup, so he could get the parliament whose election he also designed to vote him PM, that Abhisit brilliantly designed and directed a complex chain of events, to include deposing the hapless and innocents Samak and Somchai, to culminate in his becoming PM.

Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future.

Let's talk instead of Thaksin the engineer of the debacle in Pattaya and of Thaksin the engineer of treasonous riots during the national Songkran holiday, among other egotistical and treasonous acts. In fact, let's have Thaksin do tourist promos globally for Thailand!

FYI, the food market in the mall where we shop in the PRC runs Thai government sponsored promos of LOS on its closed circuit tv's positioned around the market, continually running the slick and attractive ads which everyone ignores. Just yesterday the Chinese owner of the languages school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why (the Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her.

Are you talking about Thaksin Shinawata , the only democratically elected prime minister to get reelected in Thailand in recent years. The guy who got rid of a load of drug dealers, built the airport and gave poor people affordable healthcare. The guy who upset the rich in Thailand (check out the latest Forbes listings to see who they are) by helping the poor. OK he didnt do everything well but he was only got rid of because Thailand is not a democracy.

[justnbangkok]

well what a pickle the government have got themselves in to, I have no doubt they have no real interest in him serving his term, that's why they let him leave the country in the first place. Of course they have to go through all the motions while Thaksin mocks them from afar with his affiliations to neighbouring countries, and at the the end of the day what he was sentenced for was minor and was politically motivated, when we see others not even get brought to trial for worse offences you have to ask yourself why Thaksin was sent for trial, it was to justify the coup.

The best thing this current mob can do is to dissolve parliament and call an election and let the people decide who they want, of course the dems are scared to do this as they know they will lose, if they were confident they would have called the election by now and be sitting pretty as an elected government for 4 years. they are toothless and not in control for Thailand.

the sad thing is even if an election is called and when Thaksins cohorts get back into power we will have his old adversary back on the street with his yellow shirted mob, followed by the red shirted mob (on this note why is nobody screaming for sondhi to be serving his jail term, he already has convictions now for defamation and further charges for his acts at Government House and the airports).

One thing is for sure, and yes he had his hand in the cookie jar, just as the current lot have, Thailand was more stable and better performing before the 2007 coup, all the coup has done is destabilise the country further.

In my opinion Thailand suffers from not having a big brother, what I mean by this is that it was never colonized so has no role model to slap them on the legs when they continually fuc_k up (I know, I will get all the comments about Burma not being stable etc and I will get accused of being pro Thaksin, I am not, I am pro democracy and believe that the government needs to be voted in, cue the talk now about vote buying as though only one party does it etc).

In my opinion they need to acknowledge privately the conviction is politically motivated, grant the amnesty, let the guy come back and if his party wins power again its because that's what the people want.

Simplistic I know, but the most sensible option to allow thailand to move forward.

ok, cue the yellow shirted farangs in 5.....4......3......2......1

Sonthi did serve his time. He was sentenced to 2 months and he did the time.

[Publicus]

[ Just yesterday the owner of the language school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why the (Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her.

I hope you told her this was just one view and that there was plenty of evidence most Thais thought otherwise.That would require a degree of honesty which I don't know if you possess or not.

Don't be silly about Abhisit's path to power by the way.Of course he didn't organise it but the argument I assume you're alluding to goes that a safe candidate acceptable to the elite was railroaded to power through an ilegal coup, a rigged constitution, a directed judiciary and cynical back door deals.Above all the Thai people were denied a final voice in those who govern them - for the time being.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my character and intellectual honesty . However, despite your cynicism towards me personally and individually, as I've stated many times previously, I do make an honest effort to explain to the many PRChinese sympathetic to Thaksin, which are 99% of those I meet, Thai society, culture, civilization and its present manifestations either briefly and succinctly or more extensively, depending on the interest of the PRChinese who's inquiring. I've also stated in previous posts that any Chinese will immediately dismiss, if not laff like a kid watching a cartoon, any statement that Thaksin was convicted for corruption in Thailand, which is absurd on the face of it to any Chinese for the obvious reasons.

Anyway and more specifically, I explain as I should the origin and nature of the yellows, the reds, the dichotomizing of Thai society (there are groups, but society is basically dichotomized) and in particular the historic and present role of the military in Thailand. (The PRChinese have difficulty comprehending how a coup d'etat can occur anywhere as the PRC military is in and is completely a part of the Communist Party of China which, as you and I know, has absolute control of the state. This goes to the point that the PRChinese sheeple are indoctrinated, not educated, to include being nearly completely ignorant of things foreign.)       

While it was clear from the dissolution of TRT during the coup's control of the government that the Dems would be well positioned in one way or another in respect to a post coup election and government, to try to tie or connect all of the chaos that led to the coup and to the election of December 2007, and to the madcap demise of two successive Thaksin proxy PMs to Abhisit's becoming PM is such a convoluted and monotonous line that I have to ridicule it and would happily continue to do so.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Publicus

[Steve2UK]

<snip.

The posts in this thread that keep hightlighting Abhasit's illegal attainment of political power is comforting.

How can he uphold the law from an illegal position of power ?

<snip>

There are plenty here who will again recite (usually with much groaning about having to do it yet again) the constitutional provisions and (at least some of) the sequence of events which led to Abhisit's taking office as a PM legally elected by a majority in parliament - and, again, they will be right in asserting the legality of it. There is a difference between what is "legal" and what is perceived as "legitimate" - it's that last part which is IMO more relevant..... and has itself been discussed many times here.

[Publicus]

"Thailand will always be held hostage by wrongdoers"......ummmmm?

"Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future."

What like getting into power by illegally occupying an airport? By having some unelected military Generals overthrow the Government? How was the law upheld on these occasions,Oxford boy?

You guys who keep pursuing this line make it sound as if Abhisit engineered everything that happened from Sondhi's demonstrations to the coup, so he could get the parliament whose election he also designed to vote him PM, that Abhisit brilliantly designed and directed a complex chain of events, to include deposing the hapless and innocents Samak and Somchai, to culminate in his becoming PM.

Abhisit sai the rule of the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future.

Let's talk instead of Thaksin the engineer of the debacle in Pattaya and of Thaksin the engineer of treasonous riots during the national Songkran holiday, among other egotistical and treasonous acts. In fact, let's have Thaksin do tourist promos globally for Thailand!

FYI, the food market in the mall where we shop in the PRC runs Thai government sponsored promos of LOS on its closed circuit tv's positioned around the market, continually running the slick and attractive ads which everyone ignores. Just yesterday the Chinese owner of the languages school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why (the Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her.

Are you talking about Thaksin Shinawata , the only democratically elected prime minister to get reelected in Thailand in recent years. The guy who got rid of a load of drug dealers, built the airport and gave poor people affordable healthcare. The guy who upset the rich in Thailand (check out the latest Forbes listings to see who they are) by helping the poor. OK he didnt do everything well but he was only got rid of because Thailand is not a democracy.

Yes, I'm talking about Dr. Thaksin. You're talking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Also, in your post containing a quote of a previous post I made, a sentence appears that I did not write. The violating sentence is: "Abhsist sai the law must be upheld or else it will cause more problems in the future." This sentence was written by the forumist 'jontom' in his post contained in his box. As I did not write this sentence in my post, which is Post #25, but that it appears in your above citing of my post, kindly explain how it was placed in my post or remove it or, in accordance with forum rules prohibiting altering the posts of a member, I shall report it.  

Edited January 1, 2010 by Publicus

[brahmburgers]

I do make an honest effort to explain to the many PRChinese sympathetic to Thaksin, which are 99% of those I meet, Thai society, culture, civilization and its present manifestations either briefly and succinctly or more extensively, depending on the interest of the PRChinese who's inquiring. I've also stated in previous posts that any Chinese will immediately dismiss, if not laff like a kid watching a cartoon, any statement that Thaksin was convicted for corruption in Thailand, which is absurd on the face of it to any Chinese for the obvious reasons.

What the Chinese think holds little significance for me. They think in lockstep almost as rigidly as their buddies in N.Korea. Any country which militarily invades and takes over another weaker country (Tibet), and keeps insisting that an independant island is their territory (Taiwan) and courts confrontation with India on land that's been Indian for centuries (parts of south slope of Himalayas), can't be trusted for good judgment. Any Chinese person in China will have to agree with their one party government, what other options do they have? Do they even know other sides to the issues?

The biggest irony, is the Chinese politburo espouses an official policy of non-interference as regards other countries, yet it is fiercely interfering in Tibet as well as other places. Kosovo getting independence was one of the spookiest recent int'l events from Chinese gov't perspective, as it showed that a small region can break away from a large controlling conglomerate (former Yugoslavia).

The Chinese say they love Thaksin, yet they also love ground-up dried tiger penis. Go figure.

[animatic]

All this regurgitated anti-Dem Government hysteria,

all coming out again right on cue for a Thaksin push for power.

The pro-Thaksin arguments are predicated on this VAST CONSPIRACY

one including :

Army: railroaded to power through an illegal coup.

All 50+ politicians assigned to create a constitution.

Said 'rigged constitution'

that the country voted yeah on.

all the Thai courts acting as a directed judiciary

Even during PPP Thaksin's puppet government running the country...

The absolutely typical quotidian cynical back door deals.

An amazing number of people all working from central master controllers

to railroad Thaksin and install Abhisit. As if all these cogs fitting

seamlessly together is possible in Thailand, of all places.

And no one talks about it and lets the cat out of the bag.

No one is bribed and shows signed papers showing this vast conspiracy.

No evidence comes out to show this VAST CONSPIRACY.

And yet so many are prepared to trumpet ' The Elites' and a "higher hand"

as 'absolutely in control' of this VAST CONSPIRACY to eradicate ONE LONE MAN!

The poor, put upon, and sadly lonesome visionary and man of the people Thaksin Shinawatra.

who has never done anything, but aide the poor and down trodden of Issan, and visit astrologers.

Such a VAST CONSIRACY and it leaves no visible trail of evidence???

Yet Thaksin has left a trail of evidence truckloads long of his financial transactions alone.

And Win-Mark and other banking faux pas, that he has not been able to adequately hide.

I think most thinking people know from which side the real conspiracies are coming.

Certainly old ways are fading out, not without protest,

and the future is coming towards Thailand at break neck speed.

But all this grand conspiracy talk is not much more than that, TALK.

And talk to back 'one conclusion', for the gullible's consumption.

Edited January 1, 2010 by animatic