CSCE postpones meeting; Thaksin continues to gather information on human rights violations

Published : December 13, 2010 :: 12:12:28 [ 1,721 views ]

CSCE postpones meeting; Thaksin continues to gather information on human rights violations

BANGKOK, Dec 12 – Thailand’s ousted and fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has postponed his visit to the United States to testify to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), earlier scheduled in Washington this Thursday, on alleged human rights violations in Thailand after the agency postponed its session until next month, Noppadon Pattama, Thaksin’s legal advisor, said Sunday.

Mr Noppadon told a press conference that he spoke with Mr Thaksin by telephone last night that the CSCE, also known as the US Helsinki Commission, had postponed its meeting for a few weeks as the US Congress had elected new members which might cause changes of some commission members.

Mr Thaksin is said to have said that postponement of the hearing would allow him ample time to seek a visa to the US and gather more evidence on human rights violations during Thailand’s political turbulence in April and May.

As many as 91 people were killed and more than 1,900 wounded during the confrontation between security personnel and the ‘Red Shirt’ protesters of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

Mr Noppadon quoted Mr Thaksin as saying he was confident that once the truth is revealed to the public, social divisiveness in Thailand could be healed and national reconciliation restored.

In 2008, Mr Thaksin was sentenced in absentia to two years imprisonment for abusing power to facilitate a land purchase deal in Bangkok by his then wife from the Thai state.

Meanwhile, ‘Yellow Shirt’ politician Suriyasai Katasila, said he did not understand why the CSCE invited Mr Thaksin to brief its commissioners on the March-May Bangkok confrontations when the US agency’s mandate is limited to European affairs.

As secretary-general of the New Politics Party, the party which sprang from the ‘Yellow Shirt’ People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the UDD Red Shirts’ arch rival, and comprised of veteran Yellow Shirt activists, Mr Suriyasai said thousands of people were killed in human rights abuses such as Mr Thaksin’s so-called war on drugs when he was in power.

“The US must answer why Mr Thaksin has been invited and on what capacity,” Mr Suriyasai said. “The US knows fully well that Thaksin was behind the demonstrations of the Red Shirt people.”

He urged the Thai government urgently strip the police rank of Mr Thaksin, a retired police lieutenant-colonel, as demanded by the public a long time ago. Although ousted in a bloodless coup in September 2006, Mr Thaksin has not had his police rank removed.

Comments

Musongman

said :

I have to stop reading the English language Thai Media articles from all sources, otherwise I have got find somewhere else to visit/live.
Sometimes, ignorance is bliss!

Email : teddy338@hotmail.com Date : 2010-12-15 19:53:36

Nathan Hale

said :

To who and why does the US have to answer as to why they've invited Thaksin to testify? Does the US really know 'fully well' that Thaksin was behind the protests?

It would seem that it was an error on the part of the present Thailand government to have a Thai Army sniper assassinate Seh Daeng while he was giving an interview to a New York Times staff reporter in April.

It was the first time anyone had ever been assassinated while in the middle of a New York Times interview and apparently, once the reporter finished wiping Seh Daeng's blood and bits of brain off his face and jacket, he wrote a lengthy and detailed report to his editor back in New York and ever since then, the New York Times and much of the US has refused to "buy" the present Thailand government's narrative as to what in the world is going on in Thailand.

Email : agentofthefree@gmail.com Date : 2010-12-15 02:54:08

Pip

said :

One could not make this drivel up if one were writing the next Mills and Boone Book. Many sources are claiming that Thaksin was refused a Visa to the US so whom is one to believe. Seems to me that this is just a typical Thai face saving exercise attempt by Khun Thaksins "lawyer" after he was told he couldnt enter the USA. By the way, his Police rank shouldnt be active after retirement and certainly not after conviction of criminal offences, is it me or is all this so childish and do the thais really believe this inane nonsense generated by these so called laywers and publicity agents.?????

Email : philsanuks@hotmail.com Date : 2010-12-14 07:29:24

Patrick Henry

said :

I grow tired of all the Democrat Party/PAD apologists like Suriyasai, that continually try to tell me how bad Thaksin was.
I know. I lived though it. He was deporable in his civil rights and defamation suits.

That was then but this is now.

And now we have a government that uses snipers for crowd control, harrangs teen aged boys for facebook postings, declares that the majority party politicians and their fans are terrorists, ships UNHCR refugees back to Laos, leads Rohingya boat people to their deaths at high seas, arrests scores over computer postings, regards internet crime as reposting information from Bloomberg, censors over 300,000 websites,…..and the list goes on and on.

So of the two admitedly problem regimes, Thaksin at least had unrefutable “democratic” legitimacy.

Email : noyellowshirts@gmail.com Date : 2010-12-14 00:54:34