Thailand’s exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra told tens of thousands of supporters in his homeland that he could not return as long as he had a jail sentence hanging over him.
Thaksin, who served as the country’s elected leader from 2001 until he was ousted by a military coup in September 2006, was this year convicted in absentia to two years in prison on conflict of interest charges. He spoke in a phone call broadcast to his supporters attending a rally on Saturday at a Bangkok stadium.
RIVALS
The event represented the biggest response yet of Thaksin’s followers to a rival movement that has been seeking to demolish his political legacy. Thaksin’s opponents in the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) accused him of corruption and demonstrated for his ouster in 2006. The PAD has occupied the prime minister’s office since late August and is seeking the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom they call Thaksin’s proxy.
It was Thaksin’s first opportunity to address the Thai public since he fled the country in August.
“I want to return but I can’t, although I miss you all,” he said to a crowd that appeared to total about three-fourths of the stadium’s 65,000-seat capacity.
Thaksin said he had been persecuted by his political enemies, and that there was nothing that could allow him to return “except for the king’s mercy or the power of the people.”
Thaksin has several arrest warrants against him and prosecutors have said they would seek his extradition from Britain, where he has made his home in exile.
INFLUENTIAL
He remains the most influential politician in Thailand, where he is adored by the rural poor who benefited from his populist policies. But the educated urban elite largely revile him, judging him corrupt and power-hungry.
The anti-government protesters have demanded a change to the Western-style electoral system, which they said Thaksin exploited to buy votes. They instead favor a system in which some representatives are chosen by certain professions and social groups.
Thaksin touched on this in a video played to the rally after his phone call.
“If we can’t uphold democracy and rid the country of dictatorship, the chances of our country returning to a peaceful state are slim,” he said.
PEACEFUL
The rally on Saturday was a peaceful event, but the pro and anti-Thaksin factions have come to blows in recent months.
On Thursday, a grenade attack wounded 10 PAD members near the prime minister’s office compound.
A street clash between government supporters and opponents in September left one person dead and several more hurt.
On Oct. 7, the alliance tried to blockade parliament and police efforts to disperse them with tear gas led to running street battles.
Two people died and more than 400 were injured.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS