Thailand's Sondhi Says Military Men Were Responsible for Attack
BANGKOK -- A Thai media baron who was instrumental in toppling two of Thailand's governments said Sunday an alliance of unnamed military officials and politicians bent on thwarting political change was behind an attempt to assassinate him last month.
Sondhi Limthongkul made the allegation in his first public remarks since the assassination attempt at dawn on April 17. Police say that at least five men fired a minimum of 84 rounds from military-grade assault rifles at Mr. Sondhi's car as he traveled to his office in Bangkok's historic old quarter. The attack seriously wounded the broadcaster's driver and forced Mr. Sondhi to undergo surgery to remove shrapnel from his skull. No arrests have been made.
The assassination attempt was a fresh twist in Thailand's ongoing political drama, in which the 61-year-old Mr. Sondhi has played a leading role. In early 2006, the outspoken publisher and broadcaster stirred mass protests against then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, accusing him of corruption. The protests helped pave the way for the armed forces to remove Mr. Thaksin in a military coup later that year.
In 2008, Mr. Sondhi and his yellow-clad allies in the People's Alliance for Democracy also helped force the collapse of a government led by Mr. Thaksin's brother-in-law by occupying and shutting Bangkok's international airports for a week as army and police looked on.
Many commentators had expected Mr. Sondhi to link the attack on him to supporters of Mr. Thaksin. But at Sunday's news conference live on his ASTV satellite network, he accused military men.
"I am certain that soldiers were behind this assassination attempt," Mr. Sondhi said, citing the way assailants positioned themselves around his vehicle and how they held their weapons.
He said he believed the assault was plotted by a group of military officers and their political backers bitterly opposed to both Mr. Thaksin's populist version of democracy and a culture of accountability that Mr. Sondhi promotes with his television network and newspapers. He didn't provide any names.
The nation's army chief, Gen. Anupong Paochinda, has previously confirmed that bullets found at the scene of the shooting were issued to a military division. On Sunday, he couldn't be reached for comment. An army spokesman said the military would have no official comment on Mr. Sondhi's allegation until police investigators, who are still probing the case, submit their report.
If Mr. Sondhi's claim that the army was behind the assassination attempt is true, political analysts say, it could show that reform-minded Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva isn't fully in control of Thailand. It might also show that some influential members of the armed forces could be jockeying for a greater say in how the nation is governed.
Mr. Sondhi commands a large audience through his television and newspaper network and has largely been supportive of Thailand's armed forces and the coup they staged in 2006. He said at the time it was necessary to uproot Mr. Thaksin's lingering influence in Thai society. Mr. Thaksin now is moving from country to country in the Middle East and Africa to evade extradition and imprisonment on a corruption conviction.
"What we may be seeing now is a realignment of alliances," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "Some very powerful people supported Mr. Sondhi in the past, but now with Mr. Thaksin out of the picture he may have outlived his usefulness."
On Sunday, Mr. Sondhi said that Mr. Thaksin's supporters, or the "red-shirts," as they are known, and his own yellow-clad allies in the People's Alliance for Democracy are both pushing for political change in Thailand.
Mr. Sondhi and the PAD are demanding greater accountability and the end of corruption and money-based politics, while the red shirts seek fresh parliamentary elections and want the army and Thailand's courts to stop interfering in the country's democracy. Last month, some of Mr. Thaksin's followers rioted in Bangkok and forced the cancellation of a major international summit at a nearby seaside resort, badly embarrassing the government.
"The yellows and the reds are seeking something very similar, which is change. The only difference is that once we have achieved that change is how to go about creating a new politics," or a more effective way to run the country, Mr. Sondhi said Sunday. He also said not everybody is on board with his program for a corruption-free "new politics," though he declined to specify names.
Wall Street Journal May 3, 2009