Samak must rely on his sixth sense

They lose their jobs while there and are forced into exile to boot. Former army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin toppled his then boss Thaksin Shinawatra as the latter was about to take the stage at the general assembly in New York two years ago.

Third-world militaries are distrusted because of their liking for coups while incumbent leaders are out of the country. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is trying to rewrite history and heads to the UN later this month.

Like Thaksin, Samak is the enemy of the People's Alliance for Democracy, which is camped outside his office demanding his resignation.

The PAD does not, as its name suggests, stand for democracy. It is ready without hesitation to cooperate and support the military to topple elected governments. Its protests were used as the pretext for the military coup of September 19, 2006.

Thaksin's men in the army failed to save the prime minister's job and even a former classmate, General Anupong Paochinda, now the army chief, cooperated with the coup.

Coup denials from his mouth cannot be relied upon. Sonthi gave his word to Thaksin, but retracted it in no uncertain terms when the then prime minister jetted off to the US.

Samak can trust only his sixth sense that he can return home as the head of government after this UN summit.

Only his sixth sense tells him that Anupong will not stage a coup and will fight to save Samak if others do.Samak believes his senses because he has already allocated all his power to Anupong when he declared a state of emergency last week. If Anupong wanted to seize power, he could have done it by now.