A slip of the pen can be mightier than dynamite

This does not mean, though, that last month’s Facebook post by political veteran Suranand Vejjajiva will not come back to haunt a lot of people.
Nobody should question the sincerity of Suranand’s post after his friend, former Commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, was handed a heavy jail term in the rice case on August 25. Yet from a legal point of view, it could make life very difficult for a lot of people. Ask Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck and they would probably say they could live without such heartfelt outpourings from the Pheu Thai old guard.
Last week’s court verdict and sentencing of former premier Yingluck Shinawatra in absentia to five years in jail obviously had nothing to do with Suranand’s post. However, the Supreme Court treated her case in such a way that his words could have blown her defence out of the water.
To recap: Boonsong was found guilty of corruption which the prosecutors insisted was rampant and massive in the Yingluck government’s rice scheme. The former premier had been defending herself on the following grounds: The rice policy was an election promise that she had to implement. She had taken sufficient steps to prevent corruption. If irregularities occurred at the implementation level, she, as the policymaker, should not be held responsible.
The court did not agree, and she was sentenced to jail for dereliction of duty. Things could have been much worse, though, if what Suranand divulged about his friend Boonsong had been taken into account.
Here’s what he said, word by word: “When he [Boonsong] was commerce minister, I was the prime minister’s secretary general. I dropped by for a chat and saw a lot of files on his desk. I couldn’t help but worry. ‘Who are helping you look at these?’ I asked. ‘Each item is scary.’”
Suranand went on to say he had detected anxiety in Boonsong’s eyes. After Yingluck’s administration was ousted by the 2014 coup, both men were drinking wine together and discussing Boonsong’s potential troubles.
Suranand recounted the conversation thus: “‘Just tell me what it’s all about,’ I asked him, and immediately admired his reply. ‘I can’t say,’ he said. I understood that perfectly well. In politics, there are things that we have to take to the grave.”
Pheu Thai supporters shared the post like crazy. Curious minds, though, were left wondering exactly what on Boonsong’s desk had scared Suranand, what was bothering the ex-minister and what he had to take to the grave with him.
We can only speculate. We can also assume that a Commerce minister’s desk would contain nothing more than straightforward documents about trade and related activities. The files should not have dealt with scary subjects such as, for example, a government war on drugs. In fact, they shouldn’t have been scary at all.
One important thing is this: The files on Boonsong’s desk scared Suranand when Pheu Thai was in power. The word “scary” would have taken a different meaning if Suranand had seen the files after the coup, with the military snooping around for anything that could be used to “persecute” him. 
Suranand’s Facebook post was touching, but it’s also the kind of statement that can easily attract a court subpoena. He could have been asked what he actually saw. “I don’t remember” would have been an implausible reply, because people don’t easily forget what scares them, do they?
Other details could have also come back to haunt him in the courtroom. “I sympathise with my friend for being trapped in that condition [having to take something to the grave]. I may be luckier as I was able to remain who I was. My friend wasn’t that lucky,” he wrote.
If Boonsong was unlucky, Yingluck and Thaksin would be unhappy. The cryptic Facebook message implied that the ex-Commerce minister was caught in a trap – damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. It implied that whatever Boonsong was doing that was scary, he wasn’t doing it for himself.
But make no mistake, the Facebook post hasn’t done Boonsong any favours either. It risks weakening the former minister’s appeal, for one thing. “What was on your desk that scared your friend?” he could be asked. “What was it that you could not say?” 
Boonsong could insist that he doesn’t know what Suranand is talking about. Whether that would make Suranand look like a liar or whether it would backfire against the ex-Commerce minister, whose public statement on a government-to-government rice purchase deal was damningly refuted by the judges, remains to be seen.
The pen is mightier than sword, they say. In this case, a friendly pen may be even more destructive.