Deconstructing Sopon Ongkara: Thaksin Obsession Continues

Thaksin finds less space to move around in the world

Sopon Ongkara

The Nation

Beaming from his Gulfstream private jet with a young pop singer at his side for private pleasure, and away from other pressure, Thaksin Shinawatra seemed to be having a really good time despite his groaning and moaning about the hardship of being away from his wife and children.


It looks like Sopon has turned The Nation into tabloid by insinuating that Thaksin is cheating on his wife.

Yesterday he was supposed to show full support, with two Thai pop singers, when Manchester City tested their talent against Spanish team Valencia. It was a gauge of the future - not only of the team but also of whether Thaksin really means to have a long stay in the English Premier League.

Check out the logic of this sentence. Bangkok Pundit has coined the term "puuyaism" to describe when a puuyai says something incredibly idiotic. I have to find a term to describe the idiotic logic coming from the columnists at The Nation. Considering that Sopon Ongkara is the dumbest of the lot, I think I'll use the term Soponism.

The warm-up match against Charles Le Roi several days ago was a disaster, with Thaksin's team's losing 0-2. Except to hardcore soccer fans, the winning team is barely known in Thailand. It was a really bad start and a hard blow to the egos of both Thaksin and his manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson.

I'm not into football, so I may be wrong about this, but isn't it early in the season? And taking a team that has traditionally been in the cellar to the top takes a lot of effort, so I seriously doubt that MC losing a couple games is a "hard blow" to Thaksin's ego.

Manchester City could indeed have been used as a smokescreen for Thaksin to pursue his investment in the super-casino plan - Manchester was marked as the first location - but now the project has been scrapped entirely by the Brown government. It will not take long for us to know about the former prime minister's hidden agenda.

Here is another Soponism: Make an accusation that has no basis in reality or fact.

If Thaksin, long proven to have a crafty and cunning business acumen, decided to sell the money-making Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings, how long will he continue to spend on buying top players and endless other investment in the club without the prospects of reasonable returns on his billions of baht?

How idiotic can Sopon be? He accuses Thaksin of being a "crafty and cunning" businessman, yet doesn't think Thaksin actually thought about the consequences of buying an English Premiere League team that might turn out to be a lemon. Somebody should explain to Sopon that every business venture is risky. Before becoming a billionaire, Thaksin failed at many businesses, and he could fail again.

The reversal of fortune for the worse continues for Thaksin. Not only will more criminal charges, including arrest warrants for his family members and in-laws, make life more miserable for all of them, there is a real threat of harsh criminal prosecution and long legal battles.

He is in Britain. Why should he care? And if the Halloween Coalition wins the next election, the chances of courts untainted by the juntacracy sentencing Thaksin are slim to none.

What's more? Human-rights groups here and abroad are demanding that the extrajudicial killings in Thaksin's dirty war against drug dealers must be actively probed. This is because it was not just the 2,500 people who were reported killed; the actual figure according to police sources was close to 8,000, if not more.

The Nation never did one investigative report on the War on Drugs. It hasn't shown one smoking gun link between Thaksin's anti-drugs policies and extra-judicial killing. Plus, it wasn't Thaksin who pulled the trigger or gave the order. No, the thugs who were running the police apparatus of the country back then are in control of the political apparatus now. But will we ever see an investigative report from The Nation that digs deep into the criminal empires of police and military generals? Chart na don bai bai.

The Thai Human Rights Commission, each member commanding a princely salary, never initiated this kind of investigation during its six years of existence. It does not even have the nerve and the authority to urge a disgraced member to quit.

The Nation never initiated an investigation either and it is a bloody newspaper!! The Nation never had the nerve to investigate Thaksin and it doesn't have the nerve to investigate the generals. How many reports has The Nation done into the wealth of the generals since the coup? Not one!

Anyway, Thaksin finds that his area of movement is getting smaller. England might not tolerate further embarrassment from his extended presence and role of key financier for all political troubles by paid mobs and street hecklers back home

The British are not idiots. They are not going to take make decisions based on flimsy accusations made by a military junta that took power illegally and by force and a crappy newspaper like The Nation that hasn't printed one investigative report on Thaksin's nefarious empire.

It is not only human-rights groups that are demanding his case be probed. Indignant British lawmakers and people in the Premier League are making loud noises about the "fit and proper" rule for Thaksin, not to mention expected troubles in giving tall tales to British authorities about the source of funds used in acquiring Manchester City.

Another Soponism.

If the Thai Anti-Money Laundering Office is to be worth the taxpayers' money, it should seek cooperation from the British Money Laundering Reporting Officer, the Criminal Intelligence Service and even Scotland Yard to find out about Thaksin's fund flows.

Lovely. Shameless Sopon's solution to everything: Involve the British in cleaning up Thailand's political mess. I'm still waiting for The Nation to hand over all its documents that proves Thaksin was a crook to the British press. Thepchai Yong claimed that Thaksin silenced the media with his wealth and power, yet now that Thaksin is gone, The Nation hasn't printed one story from the Thaksin years that it was forbidden to print. Where are all the investigative reports it was forced to sit on? I'd love to read them. Put them on the website. Put out all the evidence for the world to see. But what has The Nation done? Absolutely nothing.

Another blow for Thaksin is that the Chinese authorities have decided to terminate his one-year multiple-entry visa. From now on, he cannot just fly in his private jet to have Peking duck in Beijing for lunch and fly on to have a pee at his mansion near Victoria Peak in Hong Kong and then have sumptuous dinner with his close friends back in Beijing without first seeking a new entry visa.

Typical Soponism.

His much-heralded book, which actually reveals nothing much about Thaksin's hours after the coup, might have upset Chinese authorities. For the first time, Thaksin can feel what the life of a pariah is like, and he may soon be upgraded to becoming persona non grata in certain countries if the allegations about money-laundering turn out not to be baseless after all.

Soponism. Owning a English Premiere League team and having every luxury possible is not living the life of a pariah.

With arrest warrants out from the Thai authorities, it is unthinkable that Thaksin and family will want to face justice back home after bad-mouthing about the unfair treatment and prejudice in the rule of law here.

How could Thaksin get fair treatment when the junta-appointed investigative bodies and prosecutors are out to financially, legally and politically crush him? I wonder what this idiot Sopon would say if his personal enemies were responsible for prosecuting him for crimes?

What's more, they do not want justice of any kind, as said before, but just to get off the legal hooks, either by hook or by crook.

Thaksin said he would face the music under a democratic regime. If it were me, I would never recognize the jurisdiction of the junta picked courts also.

With charges of human-rights violations, arrest warrants, and money-laundering and other criminal investigations, Thaksin might find out soon that the world is not so big after all for his Gulfstream jet. He may have to seek a new place of exile in a hurry and discard his plans for Manchester City and other things in exchange for a life outside prison.

Another Soponism.

There are many locations without extradition agreements with Thailand. But there is a difference between a politician seeking exile and a fugitive criminal. The latter is not viewed too kindly by countries in which justice always prevails and never succumbs to bribery.

No country with any sense will extradite Thaksin back into the hands of those who ousted him in a military coup. This notion is so incredibly idiotic that it counts as a double Soponism.

Among Thaksin's top choices would be Cuba and Taiwan, where UN forces or Interpol cannot drag him away to join Charles Taylor, the ex-terror of Liberia now standing trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Or maybe he could consider Costa Rica, experiencing life in a Latin culture until a new location is found.

Triple Soponism.

The last resort is to mobilise his huge war chest, now hidden in many parts of the world and Singapore, to finance a coup with paid forces and mercenaries, creating mayhem and a real bloodbath to regain power. That he can do for sure, with unquestionable potential. After all, the money was from the country of his birthplace and plundered away through various means.

Quadruple Soponism. A Soponism with four times the idiocy.

A few days ago he called himself a "cornered dog." We know how dangerous a cornered dog can be. Should we allow him to rant round and reach the state of a mad dog, which would truly be worse for the entire country?

The only ranting mad dog I see is the fool who authored this column.