Reconciliation Thai Style: One Showdown After Another

[webfact]

THAI TALK

Reconciliation Thai style: One showdown after another

Suthichai Yoon

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Thaksin Shinawatra, in his phone-in from abroad last month, called on all his supporters to forget and forgive so that the country can embark on a genuine reconciliation path. Last week, in another call-in, he changed his tune again, declaring that he had been "robbed" of Bt46 billion by a court order - and that he was determined to fight on.

That came two days after the debacle in Parliament when House Speaker Somsak Kiatsuranond was trying to ram through the "reconciliation bill", drawing out the yellow shirts, who blocked MPs from entering the House the following day. The ruling party beat a retreat. Now, deliberations on the bill have been postponed indefinitely.

But that, at best, is only a tactical move. Thaksin's return to his abrasive tone indicates that the possibility of a renewed inflammatory confrontation between his supporters and opponents is still very much in the air.

The opposition Democrats apparently decided to go for broke when they allowed their MPs to resort to disruptive action against the House speaker. Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, in an unusually stubborn and unrepentant mood, said he was ready to let the party's image suffer a severe dent because his party is determined to block the reconciliation bill, at all costs. That's why the top guns at the party were firing on all cylinders.

Both sides are ready for another showdown. And this time it could prove mutually disastrous. For the country, if "reconciliation" is nothing more than just empty rhetoric to win wars, it could turn into a calamity of unprecedented proportions.

The Democrats claim the real objective of the bill has nothing to do with national reconciliation, that instead it has everything to do with pardoning Thaksin and allowing him to return home as a free man, and possibly getting his frozen assets back.

But the ruling Pheu Thai Party, having forced through constitutional amendment, is now hoping to use its majority in the House to push through the reconciliation bill as well. It is proving harder than expected.

And right in the middle of the big fight over reconciliation, the Constitutional Court has decided to accept the opposition's request for a ruling on whether the proposed changes to the charter are constitutional. That has immediately touched off a "red storm".

Jatuporn Promphan, one of the core red-shirt leaders, challenged the Constitutional Court's right to rule on the constitutionality of the charter amendments. There is little doubt that Pheu Thai is convinced that the Constitutional Court is biased against the powers-that-be. "The next thing we know, they will disband the Pheu Thai Party," Jatuporn said.

He also made a public appeal to all red shirts to be on full alert against a possible military coup, apparently linking the yellow shirts' protest at Parliament - blocking MPs from entering the House last week - to possible collusion with the Army. He even painted the scenario of Premier Yingluck Shinawatra being kidnapped by Army officers and being held in military barracks.

It didn't seem to matter that the yellow shirts have all along been lambasting the Army chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha. Neither did it seem to matter that Thaksin, in his phone-in, praised the commander-in-chief. Thaksin said General Prayuth was "someone who understands the situation quite well".

Thaksin, of course, had been trying to patch things up with the so-called "elite" in the military and other high circles, under the cover of "reconciliation". But that didn't go down too well with some red-shirt faction leaders who suspected that the former premier was betraying them - and that Thaksin isn't seriously interested in digging into the truth behind the "massacre" of red-shirt supporters in the May 2010 showdown.

The decision to postpone deliberations on the reconciliation bill is obviously only a pause in Thaksin's strategy. Now that he has changed tack again, it will be interesting to find out just who has "duped" him into the new trap.

The next House session is due on August 1. If the speaker decides to close the current parliamentary session as demanded by the opposition, there will be a two-month "ceasefire" - 60 more days of anxious waiting and dirty plotting by both sides.

Thaksin says he has been "hoodwinked" into this unenviable position. Nattawut Saikua, another red-shirt leader, was heard warning Thaksin during last Saturday's rally "not to be so kind-hearted or you will be duped again".

Who could possibly have fooled Thaksin into this new dilemma? He can't move ahead. Neither can he retreat. He may harp on "reconciliation" but he is using his majority in the House to impose his conditions. He says reconciliation isn't about himself, but he again insists that he has been "robbed".

You can sense a tangle of plot lines on all sides, none of which contains any plan to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of the general good.

-- The Nation 2012-06-07

[bangkokrick]

Changing the laws to bring back a fugitive is reconciliation?

[Skywalker69]

Changing the laws to bring back a fugitive is reconciliation?

And his ill gotten money.

[animatic]

All code words for violence until they get what they want.

[Moruya]

All this shows how easy it is to pull the wool over the people's eyes.

And I'm afraid it also shows how inept the Dems are at shining a torch on the whole thing.

[JohnAllan]

I do wish Jatuporn would refrain from verbalising his ludicrous ideas, thus frustrating any ambitions Yingluck [Thaksin] might have for keepng an ex-MP out of mischief.

And Thaksin having no interest in digging into the truth behind the so-say redshirt 'massacre', might just be because he thinks it better left interred.

Edited June 7, 2012 by JohnAllan

[bigbamboo]

'sacrifice self interest for the sake of the general good'.

When was the last time a Thai MP ever did that?