Thaksin On A Mission To Humiliate Thai Government

JOCELYN GECKER

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has spent much of the past three years roaming the globe, shopping for diamonds in Africa, golfing at Asian resorts — and humiliating the government from a distance.

After stirring up sometimes violent passions from afar among his supporters and opponents inside Thailand, the deposed leader has now entangled his homeland in a diplomatic imbroglio with neighboring Cambodia, which this past week named him a special adviser on economic matters.

The idea of Thaksin being made welcome by Cambodia's mercurial Prime Minister Hun Sen has jangled nerves in the Thai capital. Thailand already has a nasty dispute with its neighbor over border territory, which has led to several small but deadly clashes over the past year and a half.

Now Thaksin — who was ousted in a 2006 coup after being accused of corruption and insulting the country's constitutional monarch — may have found his launchpad for a political comeback.

"Thaksin is on a new offensive. This is a calculated campaign to undermine this government and to change governments," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "He wants to retake what he sees as his legitimate right, which is to have another election that he believes he will win."