Thaksin Cancels Hong Kong Speech
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has called off a planned speech in Hong Kong next week, his spokesman said on Saturday, after Thai authorities threatened to arrest him.
"He has decided not to fly to Hong Kong as he had earlier planned," Thaksin's legal adviser Noppadon Pattama told Reuters.
Noppadon said Thaksin was afraid that his planned speech to foreign journalists on Monday could make the administration in the Chinese territory feel "uncomfortable" and jeopardise long-standing ties with China.
The cancellation of the speech came just days after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Bangkok would explore legal avenues for asking China to extradite Thaksin, convicted of graft and on the run overseas.
Noppadon denied Abhisit's threat was behind the cancellation. Thaksin was due to deliver a luncheon speech titled "Financial Crisis, Political Uncertainty: Lessons from Thailand" at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong.
The club said Thaksin was to address members in his capacity as founding chairman of the Building a Better Future Foundation.
Abhisit's spokesman Puttipong Punnagun said on Saturday he believed that Thai prosecutors and consular officials in Hong Kong stood ready to meet Thaksin if he showed up at the luncheon, but he stopped short of saying if they could arrest him.
Ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, Thaksin was convicted by a Thai court last year for breaking conflict of interest laws while in office. He said the verdict against him was politically motivated.
Thaksin remains a highly popular figure among rural Thais who have benefited from his past populist economic policies, some of which have been adopted by Oxford-educated Abhisit who came to office after a snap election in December.
Thaksin, in power from 2001 to 2006, has inflamed political passions in recent months by addressing big public rallies of his largely rural supporters via teleconferences.
Thousands of Thaksin's red-shirted supporters have launched a street campaign against Abhisit since Tuesday by marching on the seat of government in Bangkok, a protest aimed at embarrassing him before a summit of 10 Southeast Asian leaders in Thailand.
Source - Reuters