THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Twenty years on, Alpine affair still unresolved

Twenty years on, Alpine affair still unresolved

The justice system has handled political matters with due tempo before, but the pace of Yongyuth’s case is shameful 

How is it even possible for a criminal case over an illegal land-grab in which the accused is an ordinary citizen to remain undecided after two decades? More commonly, such circumstances culminate in a court verdict within three years. If the accused is a political officeholder or in some other way influential, it appears that 20 years must pass before the case is resolved.
The Alpine Golf Course affair drags on through the legal system. The Appeals Court late last month upheld the two-year jail sentence given former Pheu Thai Party leader Yongyuth Wichaidith. He will next appeal again, as is his right, to the Supreme Court. The facts of the scandal seem to embody the major ills of Thai politics – greed, corruption and abuse of power – all compounded by a snail’s-pace approach to prosecution that withers public hope in seeing justice finally done. 
Abuse of power allowed temple land to be bought and turned into a commercial golf complex, then for the shady deal to be covered up, at least for a while. Original owner Nuem Chamnarnchatsakda donated 924 rai to Wat Thammika Voraviharn in her 1969 will. But then in 1990 the temple administrators violated transfer conditions and sold the property to a foundation. 
The foundation in turn sold it to a company that planned to establish the Alpine Golf Course. Among key stakeholders in that company were the wife and younger brother of Snoh Thienthong, then deputy 
interior minister in charge of the Land Department. 
Laws were being either sidestepped or violated outright. The Shinawatra family, then at the height of its political might, bought the golf course from Snoh for about Bt500 million, only for the Council of State to denounce the resale of the temple land. That left the Land Department with no choice but to try and annul the property’s private ownership. And that’s when Yongyuth stepped in. He was serving as acting permanent secretary of the Interior Ministry. 
Yongyuth, now hoping for what would be a miracle verdict on his final appeal, might have been a small pawn in the game. People in lofty positions of power in Thailand too often override the law to grab parcels of land, and it is not a crime unique to any party, nor is the military guiltless. A property-related controversy led to the downfall of Chuan Leekpai’s Democrat government in the mid-1990s. The controversial purchase of government-auctioned land in the mid-2000s – by the ex-wife of then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra – loosened his grip on power and triggered the political division that continues to this day.
Chuan and Thaksin’s tempests were resolved quickly because they were so highly politicised. But the Alpine affair is more typical of the Thai justice system, in which cases against powerful people seem to drag on forever. 
Thaksin’s supporters still ask what made the Ratchadapisek scandal such a big deal. The question, which represents an integral wedge in the national divide, is entirely political and subjective. It is also far less important than asking why the Alpine case remains unresolved. The accusations levelled in this matter, after all, ought to be easy enough to prove or dismiss in accordance with the law and available documentation.
It is essential that we hear a verdict soon, not least because putting the matter to rest would help us on the path towards reconciliation.

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