Probe the root of the crisis: 2001 ruling

For once, dear Somsak Pola, you and I are right on the same page. Why indeed didn’t the NACC seize Thaksin’s assets before 2006, making a further coup unnecessary? Any ideas? Anybody?
The 2006 coup was one of the most embarrassing coups of all time, a fact which even the army felt at the time. That’s why the coup leader, a good man and devout Muslim, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, moved so politely, setting up as fair and wise a civilian government as he possibly could, and getting rid of it, and himself, at the very first opportunity.
The 2006 coup addressed one single Thai chestnut, Somsak Pola, and one chestnut only: your idol, Thaksin Shinawatra. Indeed, the Army did its very best to set up exactly the same sort of judicial inquiry which you wanted to happen before the coup, the Asset Examination Committee. Furthermore, the moment the AEC had done the spade work that couldn’t have been done while Thaksin was in power, for obvious reasons, the generals retired and left it up to us, we the people of Thailand, to process. The committee members worked day and night in the archives to uncover key documents, which would otherwise never have seen the light of day. The sole objective was to pave the way for fair, open and cogent court hearings during which the whole world, here and abroad, could see why the coup was so urgent, indeed almost too late!
And what did we do? We turned on the messenger, that’s what we did; blasted bullhorns in his ear, burnt him with cigarette butts in back alleys and defecated in his garden. And then the message got lost altogether in the spin of Ratchaprasong, both here in Thailand and abroad – with a little help from our foreign friends, of course, the BBC, CNN, and Amsterdam & Peroff. Indeed, what should have been an opening for the people of Thailand to wake up and move on became a huge step backward into self-abuse, disinformation and chaos.
The TRCT, which will be coming out with its final report on what happened at Ratchaprasong, urged us way back in its 2nd Interim Report to look again at the Supreme Court’s acquittal of Thaksin in the “hidden assets” case of 2001 – which indeed would have been the very healthiest moment to nail him. And why didn’t the court follow through on that, Khun Somsak? Why did the 15 good and wise judges find him guilty by a clear majority yet still have a verdict with a tally that let him off the hook? Answering that question will lead us to the root cause of the present crisis, that’s what the TRCT insists. But hardly anybody seems willing, or perhaps dares, to notice.
Yes, get to that root, I say – uncover it, shine a light on it for all the people to see, then we’ll understand how all the rest follows. Yet to do so all of us are going to have to challenge some of our most deeply held cultural values, and that may prove rougher than even the politics we have now to follow!
Not easy at all but worthwhile, and the next step for us all.
Lung Kip
Chiang Mai