1 week Ago
On the surface, the political situation appears to be calm and the government is doing fine. Politically, if not economically, it enjoys a comfortable majority in the House, with the opposition People's Party performing its role half-heartedly. But a strong undercurrent is running underneath the surface like a time bomb waiting to explode if the government makes a faux pas.
The time bomb is MoU 44, a document signed between Thailand, under the administration of Thaksin Shinawatra, and Cambodia, under prime minister Hun Sen, in 2001 regarding joint development of an overlapping claim area in the Gulf of Thailand. The MoU stipulates the sharing of undersea gas, oil and minerals on a 50:50 basis. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said the other day that she had ordered a quick setup of a Joint Technical Committee, expected to be ready after her return from the Apec Summit at the end of this month, so Thailand and Cambodia can start negotiating on the joint development within the framework of the MoU.
It may be easier said than done as opposition to the MoU 44 is escalating and getting louder. Last week, the opposition Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and Thai Pakdee Party demanded the government cancel the MoU. They claimed the MoU was done in haste 23 years ago, within just 44 days when compared to seven years for a similar MoU with Malaysia.
It also goes against the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), particularly regarding Cambodia's unilateral drawing of the continental shelf borderline which trespasses on Thailand's territorial area, Exclusive Economic Zone and about half of Koh Kut. The PPRP and the other opponents of MoU 44 claim the government will put Thailand in a disadvantageous position and put Koh Kut at risk of being claimed by Cambodia in the future, if not now, if the government goes ahead with the negotiation. The other opposition party, the People's Party, remains silent on this issue, reinforcing the suspicion that the party is, deep down, a comrade-in-arms of the Pheu Thai Party.
It was suggested the government demand Phnom Penh to comply with the UNCLOS first before the negotiation, which should be the proper approach. It is understandable that Cambodia, or Hun Sen to be more specific, wants to drill for oil and gas. However, are we, Thailand, so badly in need of money that the oil and gas which have been sitting under the sea for 23 years since the signing of the MoU must be exploited now in disregard of international law? Why is the Pheu Thai Party in such a hurry? The Pheu Thai-led government must tread carefully on this matter as a mistake will be costly.
Branding its opponents as ultra-nationalists will not make the Pheu Thai Party a better nationalist party, either. The other burning issue concerns Thaksin himself, which will affect the Pheu Thai Party because of his role as the party's de facto leader. He claimed life-threatening sicknesses allowed him to stay on the 14th floor of the Police General Hospital for six months without spending a day behind bars to serve out his jail term.
The case looks like a Pandora's box that is now returning to haunt Thaksin and several other people, among them a nurse and doctors of the Corrections Department and the Police General Hospital who vouched for his life-threatening health conditions, which allowed him to spend six months in the hospital instead of prison or the Department of Corrections' hospital like other sick inmates. One key element which will tell the truth about Thaksin's "life-threatening illness" is the Police General Hospital's medical records, which could clear the air of the controversy. It will also clear suspicions about Thaksin's sickness for all players in this drama, including the doctors, nurse, Corrections Department officials and Thaksin himself, if the record clearly says he was indeed very sick and required medical treatment outside the prison.
If that's the case, then why the reluctance to surrender the medical record, even to the National Human Rights Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission, which conducted probes into the controversy? Was it because the surrender of the medical record would violate the confidentiality of the private information of inmates or was there something to hide so much that its disclosure may put several people behind bars? The Supreme Court has ordered the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) to probe the case in response to a complaint filed with the court by independent lawyer Thirayut Suwankesorn. Now, we will wait and see whether the OAG, plagued by several scandals in the past, will do its job straightforwardly as it tries to pry open Pandora's box. Veera Prateepchaikul is former editor, 'Bangkok Post'.
.
