Key Dates In Saga Of Thailand's Thaksin

[george]

Key dates in saga of Thailand's Thaksin

BANGKOK, February 26, 2010 (AFP) -- The Supreme Court of Thailand Friday stripped more than half of the 2.3-billion-dollar fortune from ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, finding he earned the wealth by abusing his power.

Here is a timeline of events since Thaksin's first election victory in 2001:

-- 2001 --

January: Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, formed three years earlier, wins most seats in a general election. The party's platform includes a focus on healthcare and debt relief for the rural poor.

-- 2003 --

January: Thaksin launches controversial "war on drugs," which rights groups say leads to more than 2,200 extrajudicial killings.

-- 2004 --

January: Start of insurgency in Thailand's restive Muslim-majority south, on which Thaksin takes a tough line.

-- 2005 --

Feb 6: Thaksin is re-elected, becoming the first prime minister to complete a full term in office.

-- 2006 --

Jan 23: Thaksin's family announces the tax-free sale of their 49 percent stake in telecoms giant Shin Corp to Singapore's state-owned investment unit Temasek for more than 73 billion baht. The move sparks months of protests by the royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), known as the Yellow Shirts.

Sept 19: The army seizes power in a bloodless coup as Thaksin attends a session of the UN General Assembly in New York. More than a year of military rule follows and Thaksin remains in exile.

-- 2007 --

June: Anti-graft panel freezes Thaksin's assets.

December: The People Power Party, comprising Thaksin's allies, wins elections and forms a coalition government in February 2008.

-- 2008 --

May: The PAD relaunches street protests.

August: Thaksin and his wife, Pojaman -- who had returned to Thailand in February -- flee again, saying they will not get a fair trial on corruption charges.

October: Clashes between police and demonstrators kill two people and wound nearly 500. A court sentences Thaksin in absentia to two years in jail for conflict of interest.

November-December: Thousands of PAD supporters blockade Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports.

December: The Constitutional Court dissolves the People Power Party, forcing out Thaksin's brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat as Prime Minister. British-born Abhisit Vejjajiva of the rival Democrat Party becomes premier.

-- 2009 --

January-March: "Red Shirts" loyal to Thaksin hold protests against Abhisit's government.

April: Red Shirts storm the venue of an Asian summit in the beach resort of Pattaya. Riots and a state of emergency in Bangkok ensue, leaving two people dead.

November: Cambodia appoints Thaksin as a government economic adviser, angering Thailand. Thaksin visits Phnom Penh and Cambodian leader Hun Sen refuses to extradite him.

-- 2010 --

February 26: Thailand's Supreme Court rules that 1.4-billion-dollars of Thaksin's wealth, more than half his frozen fortune, to be seized by the state.

Nine judges ruled he could hold on to the remainder of the money they say he earned before becoming prime minister

-- ©Copyright AFP 2010-02-26

Published with written approval from AFP.

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[george]

Thaksin: tycoon and defiant former Thai PM - Profile

by Danny Kemp

BANGKOKL -- (AFP) - Thaksin Shinawatra was a flamboyant but divisive prime minister of Thailand, backed by vast riches that paved his path to power and then contributed to his downfall.

The fugitive 60-year-old tycoon was ousted in a military coup in 2006 after months of protests sparked by his family's sale of more than two billion dollars' worth of shares in his telecommunications firm.

That sale triggered a case that ended in Thailand's Supreme Court Friday, with judges ruling that the state should seize more than half of the earnings, on the grounds that Thaksin boosted his fortune through abuse of power.

Though judges offered an apparent compromise in leaving the tycoon nearly 40 percent of his assets, the verdict could spark protests by his supporters as he remains a huge populist hero on the kingdom's turbulent political scene.

"One could try to reduce Thaksin to his... baht, but no," Jacques Ivanoff, an anthropologist at the Research Institute on Contemporary South-East Asia, told AFP, referring to the Thai currency.

"He has reserved a place in the collective political imagination of Thailand which he could retain with or without his money," he said.

Thaksin's fans, mainly from the poor rural north where he hails from, still love him for finally giving them a political voice and for introducing policies for the masses such as cheap healthcare and microcredit schemes.

But he is hated by Bangkok's powerful elites in the palace, military and bureaucracy who saw him as corrupt, authoritarian, a destabilising influence on the social order, and a threat to Thailand's revered monarchy.

Thaksin was born on July 26, 1949, into one of the most prominent ethnic Chinese families in northern Chiang Mai province.

He joined the police in 1973 and he and his then wife, Pojaman, soon dabbled in several businesses, with varying success, but when he left the police in the early 1980s his business career took off leasing computers.

Thaksin later founded a series of data networking and mobile telephone firms that would eventually be grouped together as telecoms giant Shin Corp.

In 1998 he moved into politics when he formed his own political party, Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) and was elected as prime minister in 2001, becoming the country's first premier to serve a full term.

He was re-elected in 2005 to create Thailand's first single party government in seven decades.

But his habit of installing relatives in key posts angered opponents, while a "war on drugs" outraged rights activists who said more than 2,200 people died in extrajudicial killings.

By 2006 the embers of discontent erupted into flame after the tax-free sale by his family of 49.6 percent of shares in his Shin Corp telecoms giant to Singapore's Temasek group.

Months of mass protests by the royalist "Yellow Shirt" movement culminated in the nullifying of elections, and in September 2006 the army finally stepped in, toppling Thaksin while he was at the United Nations in New York.

All of Thaksin's assets in Thailand were frozen in 2007.

Thaksin showed off his remaining riches by purchasing Manchester City football club, while his allies stormed in victory in the first post-coup elections in December 2007.

Later he was divorced by his wife, saw his Thai passport cancelled and sold the football club, but he has continued to roam the globe, obtaining passports from Nicaragua and Montenegro and pursuing business interests including mines in Africa.

In 2008 he returned briefly from exile but in August he failed to return from the Olympic Games in Beijing ahead of a court ruling that gave him a two-year jail term over the illegal purchase of land by his wife.

His allies were toppled by another court ruling in that December and pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts" have since held repeated protests against the current government.

From abroad, Thaksin has continued to rile his foes in Bangkok, triggering a diplomatic spat with Cambodia in December when Phnom Penh appointed him as a government economic adviser and refused to extradite him.

And both Thaksin and his supporters have vowed to continue their campaign until he is allowed to return home.

-- ©Copyright AFP 2010-02-26

Published with written approval from AFP.

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[brahmburgers]

Nine months elapsed between the coup and the freezing of his assets.

That's a lot of time to shuttle money and valuables out of Thailand - particularly for a family who is above being checked at the airport for such things. I recall hearing news reports of family members, particularly his then wife, taking loads of large suitcases out of the country - inspection-free, or course, during those weeks after the coup. What they transferred (illegally) by wire is only known by them and possibly bank employees involved.

Thailand's highest court has determined, the Shinawats were swimming in ill-gotten gains. Airport authorities should have done their jobs. Thaksin was not PM after the coup (he was caretaker-PM when the coup happened), so the family should not have had immunity from being checked when traveling - even if they traveled by private jet, which they didn't always do.