The futility of another passport pursuit

It is disappointing that moves are afoot to revoke the Thai passport held by fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra. While the Foreign Ministry must wait until after the Supreme Court verdict in her case is announced next month – and until police organise a formal complaint if the verdict is guilty – Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has already raised the idea of revoking the passport.
The ministry’s time would surely better be spent in helping resolve the serious issues confronting the Asia-Pacific region. There is the possibility of war between the United States and North Korea, heightened once again yesterday when Pyongyang launched a missile that flew over Japan. There are the overlapping claims to territories in the South China Sea, which might unhinge security on a global scale. There are the atrocities being committed against the Rohingya Muslims of west Myanmar, which could trigger a refugee crisis on Thai shores. And there is the fact that the Islamic State group has gained a foothold in the Philippines. 
Thai officials might object to this last inclusion, saying Thailand is nothing like Mindanao, but if attacks on Western cities offer any indication, the nature of global terrorism has changed dramatically. Attacks no longer need to be carried out in a particular country to have an impact on that country’s government. Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), for example, didn’t have to dispatch militants to Australia – it simply set off a car bomb in front of Australia’s embassy in Jakarta. The effect was the same.
In seeking to revoke Yingluck’s passport, the ministry would risk humiliation, just as it did on the orders of then-premier Abhisit Vejjajiva when Thaksin Shinawatra’s travel documents were the target. Not only did the exercise accomplish nothing, it unnecessarily antagonised our allies overseas. 
Now, under the direction of the military junta, the ministry might again end up tempting political and diplomatic fallout. There was an undeniable political dimension to Yingluck’s trial, but Thailand would have the international community believe otherwise. Based on the fact that both brother and sister were toppled in Army coups, the junta government can’t possibly expect to be seen as impartial in continuing its legal and diplomatic pursuit of them. We are 
witnessing a travesty of our justice 
system and risk further loss of our 
collective dignity. 
Adding to the humiliation is the fact that Yingluck – utterly recognisable anywhere she goes, the junta’s primary target, under constant surveillance – somehow managed to slip out of the country to freedom. The conclusion that the military arranged or helped in her departure is a fair one, but the 
government has strenuously denied the allegation. 
Regardless of how it happened, Yingluck’s flight must have been a relief to the generals, who had seen 
her being hailed by supporters during the trial as “Thailand’s Aung San Suu Kyi”. Yingluck is surely self-aware enough to know she is no Suu Kyi, and certainly not the Suu Kyi who won the Nobel Prize for championing rights and democracy. 
Yingluck’s morally bankrupt rice-subsidy scheme cost the country billions of baht, and in this regard the rule of law, as applied against her and her ministers, should have been and was permitted to prevail. The rule of law cannot be denied just because it doesn’t suit the popular mood. Now, though, we have the spectre of the junta possibly allowing her to escape justice. If the rumour is true, the generals have forsaken the law. It’s an appalling notion, given their 2014 post-coup pledge to restore law and order.