Published on January 12, 2005

Riding high on an upswing in popularity, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was on the political warpath yesterday, lashing out on the airwaves at opposition party leaders and leading contenders in other parties.

At yesterday’s mobile Cabinet meeting in Chiang Rai, which was aired on Channel 11 and Radio Thailand, Thaksin slammed Mahachon Party secretary general Jadet Insawang for ignoring a tsunami warning seven years ago when he was the governor of Phuket.

Thaksin did not specify what his government had done to improve the tsunami warning system.

The prime minister also did not pull any punches when he criticised Democrat Party leader Banyat Bandatdan for calling for an end to the two- and three-digit government lottery, which the government plans to use to fund post-tsunami recovery.

The Democrat Party had said that they would do away with the lottery if elected into office, saying that it unnecessarily boosted gambling and that the current lottery system was already adequate.

Thaksin also took a shot at another Democrat heavyweight, Jurin Laksanavisit, who was the minister in charge of tourism seven years ago when Jadet was the governor of Phuket.

He described the way that Jurin and Jadet handled a tsunami warning back then as “careless”, in that they didn’t push for a tsunami warning system. He accused them of ignoring the danger because they were worried it would adversely affect the tourism industry.

Thaksin said a current vice-minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Samith Dhammasaroj, the country’s chief meteorologist seven years ago, gave two warnings about the movement of the fault line in the Andaman Sea, and said that southern Thailand could be affected by a tsunami in the case of an earthquake.

“Somehow the then governor of Phuket came out and said to the public not to be worried, saying if there were a quake or tsunami, he was willing to die together with the people,” Thaksin said.

Responding to Thaksin’s attack, Jadet instead accused Samith of not doing an adequate job in producing scientific findings to back up his claim.

“Phuket tourist operators were worried and came to see me, as tourists got worried and started to cancel their hotel bookings,” Jadet said, adding that he looked into the matter and found no convincing evidence to back up the warning.

“But when I didn’t believe him, why didn’t Samith provide the information to the agencies in charge and why didn’t he make sure that Thailand was a member of the international warning system?” Jadet said.

“So if a governor doesn’t believe you, then there’s nothing you can do?” he asked.

He said that he would like the issue to be discussed in a public forum, saying a public debate, not a televised Cabinet meeting dominated by Thaksin, would set the record straight.

Then all would know that it was Samith who was not doing his job, Jadet said.

“The Prime Minister brings this up in an attempt to link the tsunami to politics. Aren’t there any other topics to pull votes from? Does he need to settle on people’s grief?” Jadet said.

Piyanart Srivalo,

Bancha Khaengkan

The Nation

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