Go Thaksin Go
Our Foreign Minister George Yeo said at the APEC meeting: “creeping protectionism must be addressed …”
Who cares?
Thaksin is in Cambodia, for goodness sake. Please pass the popcorn and the beer. The show has just begun. In fact, at this moment, both countries have sent each other’s First Secretaries packing. There were threats to close the border which Abhisit quickly withdrew. Hun Sen laughed and blasted the incumbent Thai government. Then a Thai journalist calls Koh Kong (a Cambodian border town Thaksin had started to develop while in office) a land of “Corrupt Immigration Officials, Visa Scams, Crooked Cops, Prostitutes, Gambling”. One Farang reader remarked: “Are you talking about Thailand?”
Angry Cambodians replied: “Aren’t such things far more common in Thailand than in Cambodia?”
What is regional politics going to be like without people like Thaksin? Who wants to watch a beauty queen who gives boring answers when there’s someone who boomz? Who wants to listen to all that politically correct nonsense when Thaksin is back in town to stir things up? Thaksin-generated news is certainly more deserving of popcorn and beer. All right. A few angry people have remarked that Thaksin shouldn’t have accepted Hun Sen’s offer and cause a rift between both countries, but let’s not forget who started all this.
Rewind to the time when Cambodia applied for Phra Vihear temple to be listed as a UNESCO heritage site. Back then, the pro-Thaksin government did not show any objection to it. And rightly so because as far back as 1961, The Hague had ruled that the temple belonged to Cambodia. The latter graciously allowed Thais free access to the temple as if it were their own.
For decades, the residents at the border have lived in harmony. All of a sudden, Abhisit and his “loyalists” revived the territorial dispute, all with the very obvious aim of trying to make the pro-Thaksin government look unpatriotic. And at what price to the well-being of the Thai people. Yellow-shirted Bangkians who were unoccupied after dinner travelled thousands of km to the Cambodian border to stage demonstrations, disrupting cross-border traffic and causing business losses to the local residents. That’s why they were attacked by the angry local residents who should be the ones complaining if there were any real territorial disputes. Ironically, it was the people from faraway Bangkok, unoccupied after dinner, who were there to stir trouble all in the name of patriotism.
Why was Hun Sen labelled as a pawn in Thaksin’s big gambit? He and his country have lots to gain by engaging Thaksin. What about the Yellow-shirted fools who caused trouble in Cambodia in the name of “patriotism”? Aren’t they the real pawns in a big game plan to destroy Thaksin without giving a damn about the future of Thailand?
Hun Sen has done his Math (probably with some help from his shrewd adviser). If Abhisit decided to close the border, Thai businessmen will lose US$2 billion in export income annually. In contrast, Cambodia will only lose a few million. The cancellations of MOUs between both countries will likewise have little effect on Cambodia because with this Thai government in power, none of the proposed projects will ever take shape anyway. Hun Sen also said: “If Thailand does not respect international law, how can you expect us to respect Thai law?”
And Hun Sen was not just talking about Phra Vihear. Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, suspected of selling weapons to Al Qaeda, was arrested in Thailand. The Thai judge threw out the request to have him extradited to the US because he was arrested for dealing with US agents posing as Columbian guerillas who were not listed as terrorists! Goodness. If Mas Selamat were arrested for a traffic offence in Thailand, he probably can walk free after paying a fine.
