Tag Archive for 'Abhisit Vejjajiva'

Could the Thai military have done a better deal at ‘Toys R Us’?

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 24, 2010
in General News
. 13 Comments

This is a news blog only
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok
toys_r_us_logo_svgAction by the British Government to ban the bogus ADE651 explosives detectors which have been sold to Iraq will put the spotlight on the Thai government over the GT- 200, also sold by a British company. The GT-200 has been credited with little more than attributing to the deaths of people in the Islamic separatist insurgency in South Thailand.
The scandal of the bogus British bomb detectors, which have apparently also led to countless deaths in Iraq, is likely to gather momentum. Police in Somerset have arrested and bailed the owner of ATSC, a former Merseyside policeman, with little knowledge of science, and a lot of knowledge on how to make a fast buck.(but perhaps not as much knowledge as the buyers)   At the moment police are only investigating suspected fraud.  That appears to be an open and shut case as the British government has declared officially that the ADE651s is unable to detect explosives.

Could the boss, 53-yr-old Jim McCormick, not be done on more serious charges? And when will these machines be removed from the streets of Bagdad?  And indeed when will the GT-200s be removed from the southern provinces of Thailand? 
In the case of the GT 200, the centre of the controversy in Thailand, are claims that the British government actually approved the  GT- 200 before it was sold to Thailand, where it is now being blamed for deaths of innocent civilians and police.
Meanwhile the Asian Human Rights Association and the Working Group for Justice and Peace are claiming the Thai military and Interior Ministry who bought the weapons are resisting the banning of these machines, while innocent people continue to die,  flying in the face of the old adage ‘If in doubt – leave out!’

Maybe,just maybe, all you have to do is take these cards apart and find the non-existent microchip. Will the card that detects humans work in my local bar?

Maybe,just maybe, all you have to do is take these cards apart and find the non-existent microchip. Will the card that detects humans work in my local bar?

Yesterday a Thai Prime Minister’s office spokesman told me that an enquiry was under way, but people had come back with conflicting reports about the GT-200. And there we have it.  The wheels are grinding with a lot of creaks and squeals.
Angkana Neelapaijit,  Chairman of the WGJP said yet again: “We have all sorts of these machines. The British GT 200 is the most notorious (Thai forces are also using the Sniffex Plus and the Interior Ministry has bought the Alpha 6 and given it to regional police in a fanfare of press conferences).They are falsely reporting explosives at the top of coconut trees.  And they have failed to detect explosives in cars and motorbikes which have subsequently exploded and killed people.
“The Generals like the machines, but the soldiers who have to operate them hate them.  They would be as well off using an Ouija board.”
She added: “ We believe Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is aware of the situation and hope he will now act quickly. The news from Britain is encouraging. The ADE651 is a different machine, but similar.”
Then the subject turned to ‘The Committee of the South’ ,  a ‘symposium’,  and letters still to be written to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The GT-200 does not need a symposium. Apparently one person with a sharp knife or pair of scissors can solve its riddle.
The GT200 is made and marketed by Global Technical Co. Ltd, of Ashford, Kent or more precisely of  Unit 7, The Glenmore Centre Moat Way, Sevington, Ashford, Kent TN24 0TL. Tel:+44 0 8701 694017. 

On its website it claims it is ‘registered and supported’ by the British government and adds:  ”Contrary to recent misinformation, our equipment trial reports and references provided by the Government are all original documents”. They also claim: “When the need arises, we are also able to call on the services of the Ministry of Defence to assist with various training courses”.
“This all despite the fact that last year last year Quenton Davies, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, told the company to remove a suggested MoD  endorsement  for the GT-200 from its website and literature.
A British Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “The GT 200 has not been considered to satisfy any of the capabilities we need”.
I spoke to Adam Thomas of UK Trade and Investment’s Defence and Security Organisation and he admitted that an EST (Export Support Team) had ‘looked at’ the GT200 in Chatham in 1999 but had not subjected it to a ‘formal test’.  I detected a few moments of awkwardness in our conversation.
gt2002-thailand1The report the EST team made had since been mislaid, he admitted, in a ministry shake up. But the company seems to have that report from the MoD anyway endorsing their product.
“The company cannot market this machine today, which we saw in 1999, saying the MoD has confirmed its capabilities”.  Reading between the lines I sense that something happened in 1999 which the MoD may be regretting.
“If the Thai government asks us to test the GT200 now we will do so”, insisted Mr. Thomas.
The GT200 works on the same supposed principal as the ADE651 and also has no powered parts and allegedly works on the energy of its operator.  Similar too is the  Alpha 6, 799 units of which have been sold to the Thai Ministry of the Interior for UK11,000 pounds each.
The machines allegedly work on ‘molecular magnetic resonance’ and the wand points to the suspected substance, just like a water diviner. Yes the parts in these machines can’t cost much more than a fiver, once the moulds have been made.
The machines come with ‘substance detection cards’ which are ‘designed to tune into the frequency of the targeted explosives or substance’. (worth about 5p or 3 baht in the case of the ADE651)
But when Dr, Markus Khun of Cambridge University, examined one of the cards used in the British company ATSC’s  ADE651, which was sold to Iraq at US$40,000 a piece,  he told Newsnight: “There is nothing to programme in these cards.  There is no memory. They are the cheapest form of electronics you can get to look like electronics. They are worth 2p or 3p.”…. quod erat demonstrandum.
If the GT-200 cards are the same, and I have no reason to believe otherwise,  perhaps the Thai military could have spent US$15 at ‘Toys R Us’ and still have got a better deal.
Thai military are also using another ‘magic wand’ known as the ‘Sniffex’ , marketed from Germany, which was tested by the US Navy in 2005 and found that it could not detect 1000 lbs of explosives at 20 ft. 

Has Thailand fallen for ‘all’ the scammers? Or is it in connivance?

Gary Bolton, CEO, of Global Technical Co. Ltd., of Ashford, refused to give any financial figures in fact he declined to comment in December other than saying in an email: “I am updating the website. ” The website has not been updated as of today, and Gary does not want to talk on the phone it seems. On his site he  has a ‘get out’ clause stating the GT-200s are best used in conjunction with sniffer dogs.  But I bet he did not tell the Thai authorities that they should buy a couple of thousand sniffer dogs as well.

American professional magician James Randi has claimed that GT200, ADE 165, Alpha 6, are all frauds and has offered $1m if he could be proved wrong.

But actually what is most alarming about the whole ‘magic wand’ saga is the ‘Who Cares?’ factor.

 This story has been out there for quite some time. Just google ‘GT-200′, ‘Alpha 6′, ’Sniffex’ and five other brands and you will find it all.
In fact it’s really one of the biggest ‘military scandals’ around, because not many corrupt deals can be held directly responsible for the cause of deaths…as they can here.
The first story I believe was on ‘National Public Radio’ in the US in September last year. Then it was forgotten about until November when the New York Times half heartedly took up the case but did not pursue it. The NYT was followed later by the ‘Times’ in London,  Yesterday an old colleague on the Daily Mail, Kim Sengupta now long since writing for the Independent in the UK gave the story close to its due worth, even though it was mainly a clip and paste (copied today in the Spectrum section of the Bangkok Post).
But it actually took the BBC’s Newsnight to actually go out and test the machines in question, something the newspapers should have done a long time ago.

The ‘Times’  so called  ’investigation’ was less scientific but it had me chuckling. It was done I presume by the author, another former and amiable younger colleague from my Observer days, Simon de Bruxelles.  The Times man put the machine on a desk, sent someone out to buy a load of fireworks (nah, probably had to go himself)  and placed them in front of the machine and when the wand did not move,  concluded the experiment!  That’s what happens when you are reporting from the office and working to today’s newspaper budgets. Television runs away with the story. Well not quite. The newspaper thundered ‘Bomb detectors banned after Times expose!’  So thank you, NPR, Newsnight,  ’The Times’ or rather New York Times,  comic magician James Randi, and especially the author of  www.sniffexquestions.blogspot.com , of whom the latter two have beaten all us journalists hands down!

Thailand’s problem at the moment is not so much its usual inability to get things done quickly, but more the reasons why? There are people who want nothing done.
Sure let the Thai scientists probe the GT 200, but give it to the British government to test too, or maybe even BBC Newsnight, who took it to a Cambridge University professor. Actually if some-one sends any of us a GT 200 ’substance detection card’ thanks to Dr. Markus, we could detect within a few minutes if it’s not going to work!

And if the GT-200s are proved to be equally duff, heads should of course roll. But that’s not the most important thing.  The GT 200s  should be taken off the streets now. Should they not?
But then again I guess the buzz has gotten around and no soldier will be staking his life on these machines in the future, rather they will adopt the Thai attitude and just salute and wave happily,  do  a thumbs up when the generals pass, and then  put the GT-200s back in the lockers. 

The Spongebob Squarepants model - only US$14.95 with working parts

The Spongebob Squarepants model - only US$14.95 with working parts

Meanwhile of course once they have dealt with the GT-200, the military will have to deal with the Sniffex Pluses, and the Ministry of Interior and Police will have to deal with the Alpha 6’s.  The only thing that can save the day for them is a typical Thai court ‘flat earth’ judgment…not possible if this gets too much publicity outside Thailand.

The Provincial Governors of Thailand have been holding press conferences boasting of the Alpha’s prowess in drugs detection. Minister of Interior Chavarat Charnvirakul is promoting the machines in his ‘Clean and Seal for the Nation’ campaign to eradicate drugs ( I thought they could have fitted in a rhyming ’heal’ into their slogan as well). Anyway the Interior Ministry got their Alphas at a snip - Bt550,000 each while the Ministry of Defence bought the GT-200 for Bt 770,000 each.

If  one of these machines  points at me and policeman says ‘Se-top!, my hands are going to go up like a flash, because no doubt I will have been identifed as a ‘crack’ or ‘ice’ hood,  and Thai police have yet to be disarmed and they can shoot quicker than they can, well, read an Alpha 6…well at least thats what the relatives of victims of a previous PM’s drug war will say.

Finally a message for those operating ‘magic wands’: ‘It’ll be your fault!’.  In every known case where these machines  have been blamed for deaths and injuries, the manufacturers and military put it down to to ‘operator failure’.

 
PS: For those who did not see the BBC Newsnight test on the ADE651 card here is the link

Edited: Additional info Grant Peck/AP

So Richard,Why can’t British public schoolboys rule Thailand?

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on November 10, 2009
in Others
. 40 Comments

This is a blog

I have been watching with interest the web reaction to ‘The Times’ interview with Thaksin on some of the local forums, and am amazed that few people actually get it……. and that, perhaps,  includes the author.
The interview by Richard Lloyd Parry was indeed a

Thaksin reminisces about his days in London

Thaksin reminisces about his days in London

scoop. It was the first time Thaksin laid his cards on the table to such an extent to the foreign press, and even though nobody else from the foreign press seemed to want to chase this particular scoop, Parry got full access and then a tape recorded interview - the transcripts which were apparently provided by Thaksin’s staff themselves.

So Thaksin went into this interview eyes wide open and obviously expecting some political capital out of it.
Now take a look at the news story and look at the actual transcript of the interview.
Well actually you can’t check the news story now if you are in Thailand, unless its posted somewhere else, because that has been blocked, well, so says the man you cannot gag in ‘The Times’.
Actually the interview has not been blocked which is quite surprising, or it it?  No not really, because it is the news story more than the interview, which has caused the offence.

Enter the conquering hero
Actually the author has missed the bottom line on this story and that it is quite simply: Thailand is going to the dogs but Thaksin says will come back to power in Thailand by hook or by crook with Puea Thai after the next election, his sins will be wiped, he will be found not guilty, and he then can put the country together again and save us all.
If he wants to march in, he will march in from the north, but he wants to avoid bloodshed, he says, thankfully for once.
Richard Lloyd Parry, in the interview labours a lot on, and questions, the role of the Monarchy and or institution thereof.  That is all perfectly valid. But Thaksin Shinawatra is very careful in his answers, whether we believe him or not. He has said nothing against the monarchy, but criticised advisors to the monarchy and even suggested they tried to ‘assasinate him’.  In fact the Times claims that Thaksin wants the monarchy reformed, but that comes from a question by RLP  and Thaksin is answering ‘Yes, Yes’  to reforms of institution around the monarchy.

So actually the interview does not stand up the story but perhaps could have done had he asked the appropriate questions and we have to assume the ‘ Times’ has not censored the interview.

Actually anyone reading the interview might gather that the interviewee thinks he is one step short of canonisation. So blood has already been drawn there intentionally or otherwise.

But in fact what ‘The Times’ has done is to use the interview to convey a certain set of circumstances, and relationships, which have been widely talked about in  journalistic and diplomatic circles in Bangkok, and London, and get them into a news story.
It would be inappropriate  for me to spell out what that conspiracy, real or imagined, is.

That ‘Times’ agenda seems to be confirmed by a follow-up story by Richard Lloyd Parry headed: ‘The interview that dared to break Thai Royal taboo’.

I have always seen, rightly or wrongly,  Richard Lloyd Parry, as a closet supporter of Thaksin, even though he once described him as unsavoury he has painted, the current Prime Minister, as much more of an ogre.  I took ‘The Times’ to task about it about earlier in this year. See this for example ‘The charmer making a mess of his country’.

Richard,  who lives in Tokyo, as a journalist has never had to live under Thaksin and things like the ’War on Drugs’ and media suppression and men with baseball bats at the FCCT.

The possibility that Thaksin could actually be guilty of the crimes brought against him have been given half hearted acceptance in ‘The Times’ if any at all.

The fact that he was democratically elected it seems is enough. This is about a threat to democracy. Of course democratically elected leaders can have their own agenda as Adolf did.

The newspaper was silent about his critics when Thaksin took over Manchester City. If you wanted to see criticism of Thaksin you had to look to the sports pages of the Daily Mail and Guardian.

Anyway I voluntarily  parted company with ‘The Times’ earlier this year to return to my old friends at the ‘Evening Standard’ (or rather  ’Eenie Stannit’ according to comedian Eric Morecombe).

By that time  I was concerned about ‘The Times’ and went public about why, and after 10 years, they were suddenly equally concerned about my byline appearing in ‘numerous other newspapers’.

Though I have since written for them, I do not want to represent them. They would be foolish to disagree.
Anyway, who am I to say Thaksin is not a democract and a man of the people which he described himself in the interview, agreeing he had some similarities to Aung San Suu Gyi?   Well they were both democratically elected and removed from power for example.

Needless to say Thaksin is a lot friendlier with Burma’s ruthless military junta, with whom he does business, so you wont see him chanting in support of democracy and Aung San Suu Kyi. 

(And ‘Man of the people’ ? Well he was not exactly brought up in the fields of Issan. He comes from a long line of Thai Chinese Royal tax collectors (ironically) and muleteers doing something along the Thai Burma border and dealing with whatever used to cross there)

On November 9th Richard also wrote this.”Mr Thaksin is a paradox. While in office, he was feared and loathed by many Thais, especially the educated middle-class, as an opportunist and authoritarian who trampled on human rights, the media and independent institutions in the pursuit of power. For the rest of the population he was — and remains — Thailand’s most adored leader, re-elected repeatedly and forced out by a naked military coup.

“After the generals returned power to elected politicians Thais voted for Mr Thaksin’s supporters and proxies who were subsequently forced out of power not at the ballot box, but through a series of questionable court decisions.”

That’s one way of looking it (though I am not sure what a naked coup is) and clearly Richard thinks the courts were rigged in all the Thaksin cases.  So lets not talk about what his new buddy Hun Sen in Cambodia  is doing to his people and their land and homes, which he is  bulldozing selling to foreigners, Thaksin included.  Thaksin will not be talking about it, as he is now economic advisor to the Cambodian government.

What it means though is that, if and when Thaksin comes back into town on his white charger, and Thai courts become honest again and find him innocent, I’ll be following British public schoolboy Abhisit and paddling my own canoe out of town and heading for retirement like that other ex-British public schoolboy and former excellent but unelected Thai PM, Anand Panyarachun.

So why can’t former British public schoolboys rule Thailand?

I guess we are of touch with the common man.

Thaksin’s ‘red army’ capitulates in Thailand

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on April 14, 2009
in The Times
. 1 Comment

 Link to Evening Standard    Link to Evening Times

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok

A leader of the red-shirted army of embittered Thai ex-Premier Thaksin Shinawatra today announced an end to the protest which brought holiday chaos to the Thai capital.

With the red-shirted army in complete disarray in Bangkok today and cornered around government house, Veera Musikapong, one of its five leaders announced: “The protest is over”.

He added: “But that does not mean we have surrendered.  We do not want any more of our supporters injured.”

Buses were laid on by the government to take the protesters home. Musikapong urged supporters to head for the northern bus terminal and be careful.  

Then together with other protest leaders he surrendered himself to Police Commissioner-General Pol Gen Phatcharawat Wongsuwan, Thailand’s police chief.

With the exception of Thaksin Shinawatra all the leaders were all in the bag.

The announcement came after the number of supporters of the so-called ‘Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorshop’ which last week topped 100,000 had dwindled to just two or three thousand.

Overnight they had disappeared in droves. Many looked anxious as they left the barricades, abandoning their red shirts, hats and scarves.

As thousands began their return  to the North Eastern provinces, the current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, a school chum of Boris Johnson, can claim a major political victory.

Almost miraculously there have been only two deaths in two days of fighting in the streets of Bangkok, and neither of them was inflicted by government forces.

The two fatalities came when red-shirts clashed with market traders at the city’s Nang Lerng market.  And one of them a 53-yr-old man was shot dead by a Thaksin supporter.

Overnight two soldiers were also injured in drive-by gun attacks.

Today is a black day for Thaksin Shinawatra , who commanded tremendous support from the poor people of north east Thailand , whose voting power alone can pull down a government.

For over a week he had urged his ‘red-shirts’ to converge on Bangkok and bring the government of Eton and Oxford educated Prime Minister to its knees.  For a day it looked like they were winning as they stormed a conference of ASEAN ministers in the resort of Pattaya, causing them to flee back to their home countries.

Egged on by their success, the red-shirts then marched again on Bangkok gathering over 100,000. As tourists were urged to leave, and the British Government advised travellers not to come to Bangkok, the situation looked grim.

But 43-yr-old Prime Minister  Abhisit Vejjajiva , who himself was hit with by a flying brick, hastily called police and army chiefs together. Yesterday the army moved in destroying barricades and sending protesters fleeing  by firing volleys of predominantly blank shots.

Today, despite complaints by Thaksin, best known in Britain as the one time owner of Manchester City Football Club and known to fans as ‘Frankie, that the Army had fired real bullets and that the army had ‘hidden’ the bodies, there appeared little evidence to back his claims.

He had described the crackdown as brutal. But many found irony in the remarks made by a former Prime Minister who has been widely condemned by Human Rights organisations, not only over the disappearance of human rights activists but for the injudicial killing of over 2,500 in his self initiated ‘War on Drugs.”

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said: “Thaskin Shinawatra does not believe in democracy and never did. It is not in his nature.”

As for the remaining protesters he said: “They can continue to protest if they wish, but they must do it peacefully.”

Surrounded and without food and water supplies in the hottest week of the year they are not expected to stay long.

Mr. Vejjajiva said he would continue to try and unite the country and would listen to complaints from poor farmers from North Eastern Thailand.

army-joins-inA  black pall of smoke from burning tyres rose over Bangkok. But there was little else to show the weeks days of chaos.  Revellers celebrating Songkran, the Thai New Year, carried on with the tradition of dousing themselves with water, a custom which has turned riotous, but all in good nature.  And the army and police joined in.

 

‘

 

 

Ousted Premier fails to take back power in Thailand. Brits trapped in riots

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on April 14, 2009
in General News
. 1 Comment

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok

 Link to Daily Express  Link to The Times

Link to Herald  Link to Daily Record

Ousted Thai PM fails to to seize back power. Britons trapped in Bangkok riots
April 13 2009

Pictures: Andrew Chant
A last ditch attempt by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to seize back power in Thailand seemed doomed tonight as tens of thousands of his red-shirted followers changed their clothes and headed home.
After a day in which the Thai army, under the orders of Eton and Oxford educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, cleared barricades set up by the red-shirts and finally cornered them in a one square kilometre area of the capital, Shinawatra’s ambitions seemed destined to fail.
Thaksin Shinawatra, a onetime owner of Manchester City Football Club where he was known as ‘Frankie’ protested from exile in the Middle East to both BBC and CNN that his followers were being ‘brutally suppressed’.
He claimed the army had fired live rounds at his supporters.  Army officers insisted they had fired only blanks.  Hospitals in Bangkok who admitted 94 people for injuries during the day, denied there had been any fatality.  But there did appear to be gun shot wounds in two cases.
redshirt01Two people were however killed in clashes between red-shirts and members of the public in a market area of Bangkok.
For over a week Thaksin Shinawatra, already banned from Britain, had been urging his protesters, mainly from the poorer regions of North East Thailand to ‘seize the moment’.   This was ‘the golden time’ to take over the government, he urged from Dubai.
He had cultivated their support while in power by providing them easy loans and an innovative and cheap medical scheme.
Red shirted supporters  last week succeeded in disrupting a planned meeting of  ASEAN (The Association of South East Asian Nations) and then moved on to the capital encouraged by their success. They seized city intersections, hijacked buses, and armed themselves with Molotov cocktails
Protesters,  once numbering 100,000 supporters , had dwindled to 20,000, and that number was decreasing further by the hour . Many protesters could be seen leaving the area, having changed their colours.
And Bangkok’s silent population began taking a toll of the pro-Thaksin protesters as they fled the scene.
The city’s taxi drivers, the majority of whom are Thaksin reporters, were the subject of bottle and stone attacks, and Muslim’s from the Petchaburi Road area of the capital took the law into their own hands after a Mosque was damaged, allegedly but red-shirted members of the ‘Democratic Alliance Against Democracy’.
While the battle is not yet over, the protest has now been contained.  The protesters have been confined in an area where supplies of food and water have been blocked on what is one of the hottest weeks of the year.
But for Thaksin however it seems that a triumphant return is now off the cards. The only place he has in Thailand is a jail cell. He fled the country on bail after being convicted of corruption charges.
His immediate family took a similar route last week.
Tourists have been advised by the British Embassy to avoid Bangkok but the warning could not help British travellers stuck in a hotel in the midst of the rioting.
A Scots family trapped in their hotel in Bangkok told last night how they felt in fear for their lives as the Thai army clashes with red-shirted protesters in the Thai capital.
Tommy Adams, 46, his wife Melanie, daughter Rebekah, (correct) 14, and Tommy’s mother-in-law Jessie Reid were trapped on the 18th floor of the city’s Century Park Hotel, smack in the no-man’s land between the two factions, when ‘all hell let loose’.
The Adams familySaid Tommy, a commercial fitter from Paisley:   “I was awoken at 2 am by the sound of gunfire right outside.  I looked out of the window and it was pandemonium.  The soldiers were advancing in an orderly way and firing into the air.  The red-shirts were fleeing.
“I was scared that they would try and flee into the hotel. 
“ There was a break for a while, I did not want to wake up my wife and scare her, but then again early in the morning it started up all over again.  We were high up in the hotel and we could see the protesters try to drive a bus straight off a fly-over bridge.
“Down below the red-shirts were singing and being urged on by their leaders standing on the back of a truck. Then suddenly they made a move to ram the army with a bus they had commandeered.
“The army fought back with a volley of shots.  The mob rammed their bus into an army bus and set it alight.  Again there were shots. I saw  people go down.  But I was later told they were only injured not dead. It was total chaos. But at the same time the army seemed to be in control. 
“They did not be shooting into the crowd, or if so they were selective as to whom they shot.
“The hotel staff here are very nervous.  They have asked us not to leave the hotel.  I have been to Thailand before,  the last time we went to Hong, Kong, Singapore and Cha-am in Thailand, but this time we decided to stay in Bangkok.
“Essentially we are trapped and we hope the situation clears so we can have some sort of holiday before we return home at the weekend.  All we know is the Thais cannot agree on who should be there Prime Minister. It’s been really scary.  I have been out to the hotel gates but the family have stuck to their room or the rooftop swimming pool.  We are barricaded in.”
Added Melanie Adams: “We just hope the red-shirted protesters do not try to get in to the hotel. We understand most of Bangkok is peaceful and other people are enjoying the holiday and partying in other parts of town.  But here there are just soldiers with guns and armoured vehicles.”

Old Etonian takes Thailand on a ticket of ethics and principals

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on December 15, 2008
in The Times
. 0 Comments

Old Etonian takes Thailand on a ticket of ethics and principals

Link to Evening Standard

Link to Daily Mail  Oxford Grad and former classmate of Boris Johnson is new Thai PM

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok, December 15 2008

A former Eton scholar and Oxford University graduate was today elected Prime Minister of Thailand by a slim majority of 37 votes.

MPs elected Abhisit Vejjajiva, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, putting an end to rule, by telephone, of ousted Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, and the successive governments he attempted to control in his exile.

His opponent was a former Thai police chief Pracha Promnok of the Puea Pandin Party, a small party which at the last minute offered to accept the nomination for P.M.

Promnok accepted the nomination on behalf of supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, after the ruling Peoples Power Party was dissolved for vote-buying.

A special session of the Thai Parliament was held for the vote. But the country will in any case soon have to go to the polls and put the issue to the people.

Vejjajiva became Thailand’s 27th Prime Minister with 238 votes, over Pracha’s 198.

But to achieve victory, the soft spoken, good-looking, classmate of Boris Johnson,  had to do a deal ‘with the devil’ and form a coalition with factions run by old ‘Godfathers’ in Thai politics.

It was hoped that the election would bring an end to Thailand’s woes, which has seen the country split in two, by yellow-shirted followers of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, who recently occupied Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, and the red-shirted followers of Thaksin Shinawatra.

But immediately after the result was announced angry red-shirted protesters picked up railings outside Parliament House and began throwing them. They also threw stones at cars leaving Parliament House.

Members of the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship believe Vejjajiva is a supporter of the PAD because of his anti-Thaksin stance.  They also believe that as Abhisit Vejjajiva is a member of Thailand’s old influential families, he will side with the country’s elite.

In fact he was against the military coup which ousted Thaksin and kept clear of politicking about the recent demonstrations. Traditionally he has always leaned to the left.

However the PAD put their support behind Vejjajiva, a class mate of Lord Mayor Boris Johnson both at  Eton and Oxford and a year above David Cameron,  because they regarded him as ‘clean’.

Born in Newcastle, Vejjajiva, 45, married with two children, entered Thai politics in the nineties, and became better known for his good looks rather than his policies, and became something of a pin-up in Thai women’s magazines.

His strong British connections, rather than help, may have actually hindered his path to power, in a political system which has been so riddled with corruption that it has ended in the recent demonstrations.

He has campaigned on a ticket of ethics rather than authoritarianism, better education, an increased minimum wage,  and will now almost certainly have to adopt and progress some of Thaksin Shinawatra’s policies to support the poor people in north eastern Thailand, who brought Thaksin Shinawatra to power.

Meanwhile Thaksin Shinawatra has clearly not given up his ambition to return to the political throne.
Convicted of corruption, and banned from Britain, Thaksin has been broadcasting to the nation from abroad  effectively running the People’s Power Party by phone.  He has told his supporters to be patient and wait adding that Britain ‘would feel sorrow’ from banning him from the U.K.

Meanwhile, while Abhisit , known at school as ‘Mark Vejj ‘  has not been brought up in the political mould of his friend Boris.

During his formative years in the Britain, where he mastered in political science and economics he has admitted: “I took part in many demonstrations against Margaret Thatcher.”

Boris Johnson has been quoted as saying of him: “He was an exact contemporary of mine at school and is a seriously clever fellow. I’m probably the only person in Parliament at the moment who can spell Vejjajiva, but that won’t last as I’m sure he’s going to do great things in Thailand. I spent a blissful time with him and his family in Bangkok one summer in the mid-Eighties.”

 Pictures: Andrew Chant

Right: Abhisit the Newcastle United supporter

 

 

ends