Homesick Thaksin Bitter In Exile

Thaksin talks. Bitterly. Reuters calls it former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s “first interview since August 11th, when Thaksin and his wife issued a statement confirming they were in England after skipping bail on graft charges.”

Reuters spoke to him by telephone, reaching Thaksin at his home in the upscale commuter belt of Surrey, southwest of London – as he seemed to have time again after all those phone calls from London to Bangkok. He has lots of other worries though than Thai politics.

“I need to concentrate on making a living overseas for my children and my wife,” he said. How?! No word about a new job – but this on the PAD: “They can say whatever they want. From now on, anything on earth you want to do, you will have to get permission from the PAD before you can do it.”

By Nopporn Wong-Anan, Reuters

“I will return to Thailand only when the time is right,” Thaksin told Reuters on the eve of the second anniversary of the military coup that removed him on September 19th, 2006.

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.”

Thaksin said he was living a comfortable life in the leafy housing estate where his youngest daughter, Pinthongta, 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.

Thaksin also did not talk about negotiations to sell his Manchester City football club to an Abu Dhabi-based company for a reported 200 million pounds ($365 million), considerably higher than the 81 million pounds he paid for the club in 2007.

But the former telecoms tycoon said he was closely watching the unfolding financial crisis in the United States. “There are a lot of opportunities in America now, but since my money has been frozen, I won’t have a chance to get to those opportunities,” he said.

Self-inflicted loss of opportunities or victim of a conspiracy by political opponents?

Thaksin: “Politically motivated cases must be resolved by political means. I have been politically framed.”

“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 the eve of the second coup anniversary.

Via Reuters

BangkokDan: Wouldn’t he if he’d trust the courts. The recent jurisdiction we’ve seen though – just to mention the PAD’s quasi-legal occupation of Government House by means of appeal or the Samak’s rushed through “default by cooking” – makes even hardened enemies of Thaksin think.