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Many
political observers think the former PM was indicted to spark an amnesty deal
Thailand’s former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy
officially denied murder charges on Dec. 13 in Bangkok, saying they weren’t
responsible for troops who allegedly shot dead a taxi driver during a May
2010 protest against Abhisit's widely despised administration.
The murder charges, first announced a week ago, carry a maximum penalty of
death and were brought against the two politicians by the DSI, Thailand's
version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Abhisit and his former
deputy prime minister for security affairs, Suthep Thaugsuban, were not
detained after being questioned.
The charges against the two have been branded unprecedented in Thai law by
legal scholars, who point out that no charges have ever been filed in
previous attacks on protesters in the so-called Black May crackdown in 1992
led by Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, in which 52 people were gunned down and an
unknown number were disappeared before King Bhumibol Adulyadej stepped in to
stop the bloodletting. In another, ordered in 1976, resulted in the deaths of
46 students at Thammasat University demonstrating against the return to power
of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn.
In fact, the arrests of the two are widely viewed by political observers in
Thailand as extremely unlikely to result in conviction or execution, however.
They appear to be a political gambit by the ruling Pheu Thai Party to put
Abhisit’s Democrat Party on the back foot, analysts say. Pheu Thai for months
has been seeking ways to pressure the opposition into accepting broad amnesty
that would include allowing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s exiled
brother, Thaksin, to return to Thailand from his bolt-hole in Dubai.
“It’s a political game and a way for Pheu Thai to gain the upper hand by
forcing their opposition to accept some sort of amnesty deal,” Kan Yuenyong,
director of Siam Intelligence Unit, a think tank in Bangkok, told Reuters
last week.
For one thing, the charges leave far too many others out of the affair,
including Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the current commanding chief of the armed forces
and the man who ran the military operation against the protesters, of whom
more than 90 were shot and killed. Prayuth today remains in power with no
charges contemplated against him, or against any other senior military
officials for their role in firing on the frequently violent protestors.
“Personally, I do not believe that (Abhisit) will be convicted,” said Pavin
Chachavalpongpun, a frequent contributor to Asia Sentinel and a veteran
observer of Thai politics. “There are too many powerful people involved in
the operation.”
In any case, the two apparently will try to shield themselves by pointing to
a "state of emergency" decree they issued during the 2010
insurrection which granted themselves and other officials immunity from prosecution.
The cases are the first major charges against Abhisit and his deputy for
presiding over the military's deadly crackdown against the nine-week-long
insurrection in Bangkok staged by so-called Red Shirts who were demanding an
immediate election.
Troops shot dead taxi driver Phan Kamkong shortly after the protests began, a
court ruled in September.
"What happened was that a van was trying to crash through the barrier
set up by the military," Abhisit told the British Broadcasting Corp
(BBC) earlier this month. "There were shots being fired. This person ran
out to see what happened and unfortunately got caught.”
"We did authorize the use of live ammunition" to quell the
insurrection, Abhisit said in the BBC interview, which has been widely criticized
in Bangkok for its tone in downplaying the magnitude of the deaths.
The Reds -- officially known as the United Front for Democracy Against
Dictatorship -- dubbed Abhisit as "The Butcher of Bangkok" and a
"puppet" of the U.S.-trained military.
Asked in a recent interview if the military and Yingluck had agreed not to
put military leaders on trial for their role in the crackdown, and instead to
blame Abhisit Suthep, a senior army officer who asked not to be identified
replied that no such conspiracy existed, but could inadvertently occur.
About two dozen suspected protestors face terrorism and other charges for
their roles in the insurrection, as a result of cases filed against them
during Abhisit's final year in power. Those individuals are either still in
jail or out on bail, raising the hackles of the Red Shirt forces that played
a major role in the Pheu Thai electoral victory that brought Yingluck to
power.
Abhisit, an urbane, Oxford-educated politician, repeatedly said law and order
needed to be established because thousands of Red Shirts occupied Bangkok's
wealthiest commercial intersection by erecting barriers of sharpened bamboo
spears and rolls of barbed wire, to keep security forces away during clashes
in the streets.
Troops obliterated the nine-week insurrection on May 19, 2010. Their final
urban assault included armored personnel carriers ramming the barricades
while ground forces and sharpshooters opened fire amid five-star hotels,
lavish shopping malls, expensive condominiums and office buildings.
Today, a Red-supported, massively popular coalition government rules this
Buddhist-majority, pro-U.S. Southeast Asian nation, led by Yingluck Pueu Thai
– or “For Thais" – party.
Abhisit and the Democrats had opposed Thaksin Shinawatra, when he won three
consecutive elections starting in 2001. After the Thaksin-allied forces were
driven from power by a court ruling, Abhisit was named prime minister after
the military put heavy pressure on parliamentarians to switch sides to amass
the votes to put him into office.
Thaksin is currently an international fugitive dodging a two-year jail
sentence for a conflict of interest real estate deal involving his ex-wife
while he was in power. He has been campaigning ever since the election that
brought Pheu Thai to power to return to Thailand without being jailed. Those
attempts have been met with implacable opposition by an admixture of
royalists and the Yellow Shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy and many of
the Thai urban middle class.
He now wants to return to Thailand without being jailed, and get back his
$1.8 billion in assets which was seized after a separate corruption
conviction linked to his personal investments.
By Richard S. Ehrlich a Bangkok-based journalist.
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