Photo: EPA/STR
LAST MONTH we introduced Thailand’s royal sub-plot here at Inside Story. We suggested that the monarchy has been increasingly caught up in the political turmoil that has convulsed Thailand over the past three years. With some unexpected new action, the royal sub-plot has now thickened.
Early on the morning of 17 April 2009 Thai media tycoon and Yellow Shirt protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul was commuting through the streets of Bangkok. The details of what happened next remain sketchy. A hail of gunfire left his van riddled with holes. Whether this was a comically incompetent assassination bid or a murkier effort to germinate a crisis, Sondhi escaped relatively unscathed but with some unwelcome shrapnel lodged in his skull.
Sondhi has spent recent weeks recuperating and has only just broken his silence on what happened. Ever since he was rushed to hospital there has been intense speculation about who ordered this “hit.”
The immediate targets of scrutiny were the deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Red Shirt lieutenants. In the colour-coded street protests that have defined Thailand’s recent history, Thaksin has been pitted against Sondhi’s Yellow Shirts. The two were once business associates but a falling out has left much bad blood between them. It was protests led by Sondhi that culminated in the September 2006 coup against Thaksin.
After the post-coup elections of December 2007, when Thaksin-aligned politicians were once again endorsed by the Thai electorate, Sondhi took his supporters back to the streets of Bangkok. His provocative attacks on the government throughout 2008 culminated in the siege of Bangkok’s international airport and the toppling of prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law. Sondhi has marshalled his significant financial, media and political influence in a rolling campaign to oppose Thaksin and his Red Shirts.
So, Thaksin certainly has a motive. But the credibility of the theory that he was behind the assassination bid was short-lived and within days other, far more provocative, hypothesises emerged.
Sondhi himself has denied that Thaksin was involved and has pointed the finger at “influential soldiers.” In his first press conference since the assassination attempt, Sondhi identified a post-Thaksin political vacuum that “somebody” hopes to fill. In this new stage of political strife, existing alliances are apparently being called into question. “If I was killed, then this means [prime minister] Abhisit [Vejjajiva] can also be the next target. In this country men with guns can do anything without thinking how Thailand will survive.”
Nobody assumes that these “men with guns” work independently. There is an insinuation that they have high-level backing. Sondhi has made his position clear: “I suspect a powerful figure might be involved as an accomplice.”
There is much speculative and hushed whispering about exactly who that could be. Incredibly, the palace itself has been caught up in the rumour mill. Last week it was widely reported in the Thai and English language media that a close confidante of Thailand’s Queen Sirikit, Viraya Javakul, had denied involvement in the attack on Sondhi. One newspaper described her as a “lady-in-waiting.” The publicity given to her denial will only serve to generate further gossip, especially now that she has suggested that another unnamed courtier may be the actual target of the whispering campaign. The palace has tried to extricate itself from the damaging publicity by insisting that Viraya has no position in the royal household.
Since the coup that toppled Thaksin’s government, other palace insiders have been caught up in Thailand’s increasingly fractious political strife. In the past month Generals Prem Tinsulanonda and Surayud Chulanont, both powerbrokers on the King’s Privy Council, have been drawn into the public political fray. For a long time they have been aligned, in more than rumour, with Sondhi’s Yellow Shirt movement. Queen Sirikit has also been a prominent supporter of the Yellows, but it is now unclear whether they retain her favour.
The past successes of Sondhi Limthongkul and his Yellow Shirts have been widely attributed to the high-level backing provided to his political movement. The strength of that backing now has to be rethought in the light of Sondhi’s close shave. If diehard Yellow Shirts like Sondhi have found themselves vulnerable, and can no longer rely on their old friends, then the more dangerous plotting has probably only just begun. •
Nicholas Farrelly and Andrew Walker are Southeast Asia specialists in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. In 2006 they co-founded New Mandala, a website on mainland Southeast Asian affairs.
2 Comments
Very nice set of stories – but the fact remains, and no one ever seems to write or discuss the reality. The question is not which side is right, the good guys or the bad guys, or which color shirt stands for a “real Thai democracy”, or all the “inside” political power players and factions – the key question that the world and citizens of Thailand need to ask is “who is really in charge?” Unfortunately, the ending of the current riots and the restoration of some form of normalcy to Bangkok life won’t answer this question and will still be very far from assuring that things have stabilized. The Thai system of government and representation needs a radical makeover to be effective. Very deep divisions in the country illustrate clearly that any change of leadership will only augur well for more turmoil, disruption, systemic breakdown, and examples of lack of control. All Thai people need to be asking themselves in sane, mature dialog – what and who do we want to be as a unified country? Can we stand together for Thailand or for self interest, private hierarchical pecking order society, and agenda? Can we represent all the people in the whole country for economic and human development, freedom, transparency, and prosperity or narrow, out of touch named governments masquerading as real representation and false law and order? What is within our reach and reality? They need to develop a sense of will to start on a road map of change. They need to find leadership who can get them to focus on these critical questions and maintain control of the process of change and unification.
Thailand needs to come to a sense of reality that repeating the same failed process of dissolving governments, electing or appointing new ones, demonstrating in protest, selecting high profile targets and events to amplify their cause, will only be repeating the same failed exercises expecting the results to be different. The one result that is guaranteed by such action is a totally disintegrated Thai state, completely disenfranchised from the rest of the region and the world, and the continued question of “who is in charge”, until that question inevitably changes to the clear fact that “no one is in charge”, and it becomes inevitable that Thailand will have completed its evolution into a failed state.
Tom
Bangkok, Thailand
Highly speculative and almost like a “B” grade novel-like imaginative plotting with no a shred of solid evidence. No, it does not even have that novel quality, but it is sufficient to set doubt in the mind of the susceptible.