Font size: 
Thaksin – who is asking the Thai government to let him back into the country sans punishment for anything he may have done – promised to continue fighting for “justice.”
In 1982, when his current fellow Privy Councilor General Prem Tinsulanonda was serving his second out of four consecutive terms as prime minister, General Surayud Chulanont purchased 8.4 acres of land in a protected forest area in Nakhonratchasima province’s famous Khao Yai National Park.
The parcel of land on which the general built a multimillion baht vacation home oversees a large valley and, according to activists protesting against it, his purchase deprived landless farmers of the opportunity to develop their own small plots.
Now, 28 years later, attempts to lay to rest the alleged impropriety of the purchase were exposed when the attorney general found that Surayut did not intend to break the law when he and his wife took the land over from a military officer. That officer had obtained the land when it was “handed to him” by the legal occupant, a resident of Nakhonratchasima province.
The exact location, Khao Yai Thiang, is right on a peak of Thailand’s famed Khao Yai National Park, and by all measures is an ideal place for a grand vacation spot. This writer visited the place several months ago and was amazed to think of the tremendous political pull needed to be able to build such a mini-palace. Ironically, Surayut is also president of the Foundation for Khao Yai National Park Protection.
That Surayut was found not to have intended to break the law is a traditional watermark of official documentation that closes such cases against high-profile public figures in Thailand. Retrospectively, when one considers the general’s current position – at that time he was a prime minister in waiting, then prime minister, and is now back in the Privy Council – it is almost beyond credibility that he would not have known that the land was not his for the taking and that he was indeed breaking the law.
Such transactions, however, are de jure in the Land of Smiles, where protected forests, land belonging to state agencies and land belonging to legitimate but undocumented owners is suddenly reissued to resort developers, top generals and local politicians.
At the time each transaction takes place, everyone is well aware that something is amiss. But with transfer documents to sign and reassurances to make, who really is willing to stand up and challenge the takeover of land belonging to someone else? In Thailand, there is also the "risk factor" to consider.
Plodprasop Suraswadi, who used to be head of the Forestry Department that oversees Khao Yai forest, has charged that Surayut should be prosecuted for illegal land ownership and encroachment. But Plodprasop is also a pro-Thaksin politician and deputy leader of the Pheu Thai party, so he has his own axe to grind. Yet his appeals are not falling on deaf ears.
Back in October 2007 the junta-led government was already wrestling with how the general would be absolved from wrongdoing in the land acquisition. A special ethics subcommittee of the National Legislative Assembly was then stating it was not empowered to investigate any alleged wrongdoing as the general had already declared his assets to the committee before he retired.
Just how this absolves him is unclear at best. As well, the National Counter Corruption Commission was absolving itself of any role in investigating possible wrongdoing by the general.
That in Thailand, like anywhere else, certain people are basically untouchable is clear. There are indeed double standards for those of position versus those without, for those with money versus those without, and those with connections versus those without. This is a human reality around the world, but in Thailand it seems to be omniscient and culturally enshrined. If this is the case, probably none of the thousands of such illegal land acquisitions still being conducted will ever be ethically accounted for.
--
(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
