Thaksin holding Thailand hostage: Abhisit
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The political conflict will persist so long as fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is holding the country as hostage in order to whitewash his conviction and punishment, Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Thursday.
“The strength of socity is being challenged whether to bow down for the sake of one man,” he said.
Abhisit said all political troubles had Thaksin as the root cause because society had to sustain the collateral damage stemmed from efforts to solve Thaksin’s legal wrangling.
In rebutting Thaksin’s remarks about those benefitted from the conflict to block reconciliation, he said he could only see those close to Thaksin as beneficiaries to the conflict stemmed from attempts to whitewash Thaksin and accomplices.
He reminded the government leaders, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit, that reconciliation could not be forced to happen by a majority vote.
“I suspect the government is invoking reconciliation as a pretext to grant amnesty,” he said.
He said Thaksin would stand to gain from the hasty move for amnesty while the red shirts would still be in the dark about the bloodshed in 2010.
Thaksin tried to deny he was not a man at the centre of the turmoil but it was a fact that the conflict erupted because of the Thaksin regime, he said.
