Page 2 of 2 Lights, camera,
protest By Shawn W Crispin
staff, but
insists that neither Thaksin nor his deep-pocketed
wife, Pojamarn Shinawatra, have contributed
financially to the station's political cause.
However, Jakrapob openly admits during the
interview that he and other senior PTV staff
members are in regular telephone contact with
Thaksin, who according to them is morally
supportive of the
station.
After telephone discussions with the ousted
premier, Jakrapob contends that Thaksin now views
last year's coup as an opportunity to reform his
political movement and he proceeds to identify a
number of once-prominent party members who are
allegedly no longer welcome in his political camp.
Through that process of subtraction, it's
difficult to gauge just how much in-country
political support PTV really has. The station's
four co-founders, all former TRT members, lack
their own political support bases; Jakrapob was
one of the few TRT candidates to lose his
constituency in Bangkok in 2005.
The three
PTV-led rallies to date have generated
progressively larger crowds - though Jakrapob's
buoyant estimate that 30,000 supporters came out
for its most recent protest widely overshoots
press reports, which estimated the crowd at about
5,000 people. Not helping the PTV cause was the
CNS blocking it from rallying at Bangkok's
expansive Sanam Luang park area, and the
inexplicable positioning of more than 10 municipal
garbage trucks heaped with rotting refuse in the
more congested area that it was allowed to use, in
front of City Hall.
The CNS "has no good
choices", said Jakrapob. "If they crack down on
us, they risk making us democratic heroes. If they
do nothing, they risk looking like wimps. Either
way it demonstrates that after less than one year
their power has declined significantly."
If the PTV-inspired crowds start to swell
beyond 10,000, it's entirely possible that the CNS
opts for the stick rather than the carrot.
Assistant army commander and CNS hardliner General
Saprang Kalayanamitr, tipped by some to become
army commander when CNS leader General Sonthi
retires this year, in widely reported public
remarks referred to PTV's founders and supporters
as "dogs" and claimed that he had "spared their
lives" by not cracking down on their protests.
It is not lost on PTV's founders that
Bangkok's middle classes enthusiastically
supported both the anti-government rallies and the
military's extra-constitutional intervention that
drove Thaksin's allegedly corrupt administration
from power. And the widely attended
anti-government rallies were also significantly
shrouded in royal symbolism, with tens of
thousands of anti-Thaksin protesters donning
yellow shirts emblazoned with "We Love the King"
messages.
One message PTV is keen to get
out either over the airwaves or through protests
is that the monarchy did not necessarily support
last year's coup, but rather that the military
intervention was presented to the palace as a
fait accompli. Like the leaders of the
anti-government street protesters, the military
also mobilized royal symbolism the night of the
coup, indicating to some political observers that
the coup makers may have had the palace's
blessing.
They note that lese
majeste charges filed by the CNS against
Thaksin were dropped as unfounded this month by a
criminal court. Jakrapob contends, allegedly based
on conversations he has had with King Bhumibol's
personal advisers, that the monarch has ignored an
amnesty request for last year's coup forwarded to
him in December by the CNS. A senior PTV member
also claims that Thaksin recently met with Crown
Prince Vajiralongkorn in London to discuss his
possible return to the country in June, based on
information he received by telephone from Thaksin.
It's impossible to know whether such
assertions are based on fact or rather are PTV's
attempt to play the royal card in their own
political favor. The station's founders also say
they are willing to end their street protests if
they are allowed to go on air - which likewise may
be true or false. What is clear is that PTV's
politicians cum journalists cum protest leaders
are preparing to go for broke with their street
rallies - risking the same type of confrontation
and social fragmentation last year's coup was
supposedly staged to avoid.
Shawn W
Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia
editor.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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