So as Thaksin’s globe hopping continues, you begin to see some interesting patterns shaping up. He has no place he can call home, and where he stays he is constantly looking over his shoulder as well as having a huge negative cash flow to buy that stay out of jail insurance.
Robin Hood who Thaksin tries to mimic to some extent had Sherwood Forest as a place he could call home. But Thaksin seems to be more like Bonny and Clyde without Bonny or some other high profile criminal on the run.
So running out of landlocked places near Thailand that would fit Thaksin’s needs, Thaksin decided to visit Fiji because it was within range of his private jet without refueling. However Fiji is not on the list we are using as a source of information. It seems Fiji only looks to be a place out of reach of the law. Seeing that Fiji was just expelled from the Commonwealth of Nations in 2009 for failing to hold elections, we would have to say that Fiji would probably rank well over 100 for corruption and perhaps 150 for democracy for failing to hold democratic elections. So by now you are starting to see how much effort Thaksin has put into staying ahead of the law, and you begin to see what his world has become.
Moving right along there is Montenegro, Thaksin apparently has been granted citizenship in exchange for an investment. However at last check according to the news, Thaksin seems to be a person that can stand in the way of Montenegro getting accepted into the European Union and NATO. That country also does not seem to be listed. But based on them willing to have Thaksin or his money at least, scoring may be on par with Thailand as there are plenty of undesirables in Thailand as well.
Also just a geographical note, the countries are progressively getting smaller and smaller with some the size of medium size provinces in Thailand. That means Thaksin’s private jet could fly from end to end of the country in under 10 minutes.
And most certainly we can not forget Cambodia. There certainly looks to be a buddy to buddy relationship with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, but that was all before the Red Shirt riots and Thaksin getting charged with terrorism. Judging by the global condemnation of the Red Shirts, Thaksin is really starting to damage the image of anyone who he associates with. Needless to say Cambodia ranks 128 for corruption and that is exactly double Thailand’s 64 ranking. They also rank 113 for democracy.
Uganda that has apparently issued Thaksin a diplomatic passport is ranked at 103 for corruption and 91 for democracy. It seems that too was an under the table transaction as members of Uganda’s Parliament are questioning how Thaksin got his passport. It would seem that Thaksin’s Uganda passport may be short lived. It seems that some in the government have a habit of selling passports. That also seems to be a characteristic with countries ranked higher than 100 for corruption.
Next Part 3 of 3
You do know that this government will never catch Thaksin. Sure – there’ll be plenty of countries which won’t allow him entrance. Britain for one but heck, they won’t allow Martha Stewart entrance either because of her criminal past (although Abhisit pays to have her come to Thailand on the taxpayers dime – 35,000 dimes actually).
But no country will extradite Thaksin. For a variety of reasons. I’ll give you a few:
1. No country in their right minds believe Thaksin would get a fair trial in the “Land of Double Standards”
2. Just because the PAD and the so-called Thai democrats call Thaksin a terrorist – they’ll need to supply proof. – Countries which are not Banana Republics tend to require actual proof instead of propaganda dribble.
3. The Thai regime don’t really want to get Thaksin because without Thaksin they’ll have nobody left for the brainless in Thailand to focus on while they rob the treasury.
Frankly, I grow tired of all the Democrat Party/PAD apologists that continually try to tell us how undemocratic Thaksin was.
We know. We lived though it. He was deporable in his civil rights and deflamation suits.
That was then.
But this is now.
And now we have a government that uses snipers for crowd control, harrangs teen aged boys for facebook postings, declares that the majority party politicians and their fans are terrorists, ship UNHCR refugees back Lao, leads boat people to their deaths at high seas, arrests scores over computer postings, regards intercrime as reposting information from Bloomberg…..and the list goes on.
So of the two admitedly problem regimes, Thaksin was the preferable one and it had unrefutable “democratic” legitimacy.
But just keep focusing on Thaksin, I’m sure he is actually sleeping safe and secure at night.
Whoops! My bad – Abhisit paid Martha Stewart 3,500,000 dimes with Thai taxpayer money. I guess birds of a feather really do flock together.