Thaksin asset freeze may backfire

Bangkok, June 12: Freezing ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's assets could backfire for the army-appointed government and bring more outraged Thaksin supporters onto the streets, analysts said today.

Thai banks received letters on Tuesday from the Asset Examination Committee (AEC), established after a September coup against Thaksin, ordering them to freeze 1.5 billion dollar held by Thaksin and his immediate family in 21 bank accounts.

The AEC also asked banks to help find 618 million dollar missing since the sale of the Thaksin family's telecommunications empire last year. It was part of a ''one-track political vendetta'' against their client, Thaksin's law firm said. Analysts predicted more trouble ahead for Thai politics.

Political commentator Sukhum Nualskul told a Bangkok radio station ''it is inevitable that the other side will fight back hard.'' ''Despite their explanation, the AEC cannot stop people from thinking that it was a political decision. People will have sympathy for Thaksin, who they feel has been bullied,'' he said.

Without pressing charges in court, the AEC said the freeze was based on its preliminary investigation that ''Thaksin and his cronies had been corrupt and committed wrongdoings''.

A former policeman and telecoms tycoon, Thaksin came to power in 2001 as head of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, promising to improve the lives of the rural poor with universal public health care and cheap credit schemes.

He was wildly popular in the countryside, but critics and political opponents said he used his vast wealth to blind voters to ''policy corruption'' that unfairly benefited his Shin Corp telecommunications empire.

''I disagree with the order,'' said Sakol Pakdisamai, a Bangkok taxi driver from northeast Thailand, a former stronghold of Thaksin's party.

A court disbanded the party last month and barred its leaders from politics for five years for election fraud.

''I think it will become chaotic because a lot of people who love Thaksin and disagree with the order will come out on the street,'' Sakol Pakdeesamai, 41, told Reuters Television.

''KANGAROO COURT''

Thaksin's US law firm, Baker Botts, said freezing his assets ''sent a powerful reminder to all that Thailand remains in the grip of military rule that is divorced from the rule of law''.

A leader of the pro-Thaksin street campaign, which drew 10,000 protesters in Bangkok on Saturday, called the freeze ''a ruling by a kangaroo court'' which would anger his supporters.

''The CNS is wrong in believing that they could cut funding for the rallies by seizing Thaksin's assets,'' protest leader Jatuporn Prompan said, referring to the Council for National Security, the name the coup leaders gave themselves.

''The asset freeze will bring more people onto the streets to protest against the abuse of power by the CNS,'' he said.

Police, often a target of verbal abuse from protesters at the rallies which began four months ago, have been ordered to use restraint and there have been no incidents of violence so far.

Hundreds of Thaksin backers and anti-coup activists gather each day in front of the city's glittering Grand Palace.

For their next major rally on June 24, the groups plan to march to army headquarters and to the home of chief royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda, a retired general whom they have accused of playing a key role in the coup.

Police have vowed to stop them, according to unnamed police officials quoted in the Thai press.

Analysts said serious unrest on the streets of Bangkok could alter the timing of a general election, which the interim government has tentatively scheduled for December 16 or 23.

''The government will have to handle the situation delicately, otherwise we won't have an election as planned,'' political commentator Prayad Hongtongkhum said.

REUTERS

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