The Crooked Canal: Alleged Bribery By Singapore & Malaysia And The Toppling Of Thaksin
Andrew Gomez
“The canal would compete directly with ports in the Strait of Malacca area, including Port Klang and Singapore and there is a long-standing rumor in the region that Singapore and Malaysia have been trying very hard to prevent the construction of the project by bribing Thai officials to vote against the construction of the project in the Parliament of Thailand.”
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Canal
If ethnically President Barack Obama is African-American, then Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad is an ethnic Indian. And Thaksin Shinawatra is an ethnic Chinese.
Some will, no doubt, dispute the foregoing paragraph.
Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra’s grandfather emigrated from present day Guangdong, China. Thaksin’s ancestral dialect would therefore be Cantonese.
To recap, do recall that Thaksin was democratically elected (by a landslide) in 2001 as Prime Minister of Thailand. Beginning as a police officer, he later became an IT & telecommunications tycoon and billionaire before entering politics.Thaksin’s government launched programs to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure, promote small and medium-sized enterprises, and universal healthcare coverage.
Thaksin declared a “war on drugs” in which more than 2,500 people died and took a strong-arm approach against the separatist insurgency in the Muslim southern provinces.
He was the first democratically-elected prime minister of Thailand to serve a full term and was reelected in 2005 by an overwhelming majority. After selling shares of his corporation worth more than a billion dollars to foreign investors without paying taxes, considerable criticism resulted. A citizens’ movement against Thaksin, called People’s Alliance for Democracy or “Yellow Shirts”, launched mass protests, accusing him of corruption, abuse of power and autocratic tendencies. Thaksin called snap elections that were boycotted by the opposition and invalidated by the Constitutional Court.
He was overthrown in a military coup on 19 September 2006. His party was outlawed and he was barred from political activity. Thaksin has since lived in self-imposed exile except for a brief visit to Thailand in 2008. He was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail for abuse of power. From abroad he has continued to influence Thai politics, through the People’s Power Party that ruled in 2008, and its successor organization Pheu Thai Party, as well as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship or “Red Shirt” movement. His younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra was the prime minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014.
Shortly before he was toppled, Thaksin had publicly expressed his support for the proposed Kra Canal which forms part of China’s Maritime Silk Belt & Road. In the global and grand scheme of things, this canal will be a good thing; look at the Panama and Suez Canals as precedents.Arguably, any vessels that use this canal in the future were never intending to stop at ports in Singapore or Malaysia.
Now, ever since Thaksin was toppled, any election candidate affiliated to him (his brother-in-law,his sister) has won democratically fair and square by a landslide, but were subsequently toppled, usually on what are claimed to be trumped up corruption or abuse of power charges.His sister Yingluck, in fact, was toppled even before being declared guilty of the current charges she is now facing in court.
Indeed, this modus operandi would seem to be the only option to unseat a democratically-elected PM. Scream “Corruption! Abuse Of Power! Corruption! Dictator! Corruption!” Then, rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. (Malaysia, please take note. Oh, wait, is this already happening?)
Clearly, Thailand’s wealthy elite who wear Yellow Shirts, are dead set against democracy and will stop at nothing to defeat Thaksin’s desire to look after and help the poor and middle-income Thais who wear Red Shirts. The fact that Thaksin himself is part of this same elite (because he is a billionaire plus at least one other reason) does not matter.
Perhaps nowhere else on Earth is the war between the Haves and the Have-Nots so clearly apparent. Or the 1% vs the 99%, if you prefer that analogy instead.
Thailand’s 19th Constitution is now being drafted and democratic elections are slated for 2017. The candidate affiliated to Thaksin will win, and then be toppled somehow. And the majority of the Thai people will continue to suffer.
In the meantime, an international impartial investigation must be launched into the alleged criminal activities of Singapore and Malaysia, and the truth exposed about the true identity of these democracy-hating Yellow Shirts.
Until this occurs, injustice will continue to reign over Thailand.
