Army chief says Thai PM should step down

A tight-lipped Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat left Bangkok for the ancient capital of Ayutthaya on Friday, the day after the army chief said he should step down.

The comments from General Anupong Paochinda in a live television interview on Thursday alongside the heads of the Navy, Air Force and police, prompted frenzied speculation of a coup, although Anupong insisted he was not about to take over.

Dozens of reporters camped outside Somchai's house in a northern Bangkok suburb on Friday morning, waiting for him to emerge. He eventually did so, but his motorcade headed straight to Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok.

Somchai, a brother-in-law of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra, is due to fly later on Friday to eastern Thailand to visit soldiers involved in this week's border clash with Cambodia.

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Anupong's remarks were the strongest indication that the armed forces think the time is up for the elected administration.

However, government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar said he did not think the military would dare intervene only two years after its removal of Thaksin, a coup that failed to purge him from the political system due to his sustained rural support.

"The army chief has consistently assured us that it will not happen, which is a blessing for the country," Nattawut told Channel 3 television. "Otherwise this cannot end. Another group of people will rise to fight the power behind the coup."

Thailand has been riven by political conflict for the three years since the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) started its street campaign against Thaksin and his allies, accusing them of corruption, cronyism and threatening the monarchy.

The dispute between the Thaksin camp and the military and royalist elite who despise him has seen a coup, elections and more street protests, but appears to be no nearer a conclusion.
Meanwhile, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen called for an increase in military spending on Friday, the first since the collapse of the Khmer Rouge in 1998, two days after fighting erupted on the border with Thailand.

"We must look to increase the military budget," he said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting in Phnom Penh. His comments were recorded by a local newspaper reporter.
The wily former Khmer Rouge soldier, who won an election landslide in July to extend his two decades in power, called for a minute's silence at the start of the meeting for three Cambodian soldiers killed in Wednesday's clash.

News Published: October 17, 2008

Former Thai PM Thaksin

BANGKOK –– Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who skipped bail last month and went into exile in London, said on Thursday that corruption charges against him were part of a conspiracy by political opponents.

The billionaire insisted he would not return to Thailand to fight the charges, a day after the Supreme Court issued a third arrest warrant for him and postponed a ruling on corruption charges against the couple.

“Politically motivated cases must be resolved by political means. I have been politically framed,” Thaksin, 59, told Reuters in a telephone interview from his home in the upscale commuter belt of Surrey, southwest of London.

“I will return to Thailand only when the time is right,” Thaksin said on the eve of the second anniversary of the military coup that removed him on Sept. 19, 2006.
“I need to concentrate on making a living overseas for my children and my wife,” he said. It was his first interview since Aug. 11, when the couple issued a statement confirming they were in England after skipping bail on graft charges.

Thaksin, who won two landslide election victories but was ousted after being accused of corruption and abuse of power, faces a spate of criminal cases prepared by anti graft investigators appointed by the coup leaders.

They have asked the courts to seize nearly $2 billion of his money frozen in Thai bank accounts, arguing Thaksin had illegally accumulated it while in office, a charge he denies. The Supreme Court issued another arrest warrant for Thaksin and his wife Potjaman on Wednesday after they failed to appear for a ruling in the main graft case against them.

“If he believes he is innocent, he must return to clear those charges,” Air Chief Marshall Chalit Phukpasuk, one of the 2006 coup leaders, told reporters on Thursday.
Thaksin declined to comment on his brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat, elected prime minister by parliament this week after Samak Sundaravej was ousted by the courts for hosting a TV cooking show while in office.

But Thaksin took a swipe at the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the coalition of businessmen, activists and academics whose 2005 street campaign led to his ouster by the military.
The PAD, which accused Samak of being a Thaksin puppet, has labelled Somchai “just a new leader of a group of bandits” and vowed to continue its three-week occupation of the prime minister’s official compound.

“They can say whatever they want,” Thaksin said. “From now on, anything on earth you want to do, you will have to get permission from the PAD before you can do it.”
Somchai has called for national reconciliation to end Thailand’s three-year old political crisis, a deeply entrenched conflict between Thaksin and his supporters among the rural poor and his rivals in the royalist and military establishment.

Thaksin said he was living a comfortable life in the leafy housing estate where his youngest daughter, Paethongtan, attends graduate classes at the University of Surrey. His daily routine included exercise and visiting friends.

“I am physically fine, but mentally unhappy. Those who aren’t in the same situation as me won’t understand how I am feeling,” he said, declining to elaborate.

Thai PM seeks direct talks over Cambodia border row

KANTARALAK, Thailand (Reuters) – Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said on Saturday he would seek face-to-face talks with Cambodian leader Hun Sen after a border clash near a 900-year-old temple this week.
"I am looking for the right time to talk with him. We should have an opportunity to talk," Somchai told reporters after visiting Thai troops facing Cambodian forces along the border.
The Thai leader echoed Hun Sen's comments on Friday that outside mediation was not needed to resolve the dispute.
"This is an issue between Thailand and Cambodia. We should not let other countries get involved," Somchai said.
Both sides have sought to ease tensions since three Cambodian soldiers were killed in Wednesday's 40-minute firefight. Two Cambodians and seven Thais were wounded.
On Saturday, a Thai soldier died after slipping while on patrol and accidentally shooting himself, an army spokesman said.

The armies have agreed to conduct joint border patrols and to hold more talks on reducing their forces around the Hindu temple, a source of border tension for generations.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who has ruled Cambodia for more than two decades, said on Friday the stand-off would not escalate into a wider and more serious conflict.
Some analysts link the eruption of fighting on the border to the political instability that has roiled Thailand for the past three years, and reached another climax this week when Somchai faced calls from his own generals to quit.

Army chief Anupong Paochinda's televised interview on Thursday, in which he said Somchai should step down after bloody clashes between police and anti-government protesters last week, ignited fresh coup rumors two years after former premier Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a bloodless putsch.
But Somchai refused on Friday to resign or call a snap election, saying Anupong was expressing "one opinion."

Somchai said an investigation of the October 7 street clash, which killed two protesters and injured nearly 500, would be completed in 15 days and decide who was responsible.
Analysts read Anupong's remarks as an attempt by the army, which is under pressure from the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), to undermine Somchai so much that he jumps without the need for a full-blown coup.

"As expected, (Somchai's) response puts the ball straight back in the military's court," the Nation newspaper said in an editorial on Saturday.
Somchai, Thaksin's brother-in-law and a political novice, came to power in September after a court removed his predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, for hosting a cooking show on commercial television while in office.

The political crisis dates back to 2005 when the PAD, which has the explicit backing of Queen Sirikit, launched street protests against Thaksin. It has meandered through a coup to elections and back to protests and shows no signs of resolution.
Even if Somchai did call a snap election, lingering rural support for Thaksin would be likely to return a broadly pro-Thaksin government, putting it on a collision course once again with the royalist and military elite in Bangkok.
(Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)