US embassy cable - 05BANGKOK7317

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGKOK 007317 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KPAO, PINS, PROP, TH, Media/Freedom of the Press 
SUBJECT: COURT VICTORIES FOR RABBLE-ROUSING JOURNALIST 
SONDHI 
 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Susan M. Sutton for Reasons 1.4 (d) 
 
1. (U) SUMMARY. One week after Sondhi Limthongkul attracted 
nearly 40,000 people to Bangkok's Lumpini Park with his 
"mobile talk show", the businessman-turned-media defender won 
two significant legal victories, including a partial reprieve 
from last week's gag order on him and his associates. 
Meanwhile, the PM slapped Sondhi with a fifth lawsuit, this 
time for criminal defamation. Popular monk Luangta Maha Bua 
has offered to act as a mediator between Thaksin and Sondhi, 
although Thaksin was reportedly too busy to show up at the 
monk's suggested "peace meeting." After initially accusing 
Sondhi of being in cahoots with the opposition to "topple the 
government", spokesmen for TRT and the Armed Forces have 
taken great care to deny the persistent coup rumors which 
have been swirling about Bangkok, and which have cause the 
stock market to take a noticeable dip. Tonight's rally, 
Sondhi's tenth, is poised to be the biggest one yet. END 
SUMMARY 
 
TWO COURT VICTORIES 
 
2. (U) Sondhi had asked for the support of the Thai public in 
lifting the gag order which barred him and his colleagues 
from directly criticizing the Prime Minister on five key 
issues, On November 21, Sondhi filed an appeal against the 
order. On November 24, the Thai Civil Court lifted many of 
the most restrictive parts of the order, while others 
remained in place. The court ruled that Sondhi and his 
associates had the constitutional right to criticize and 
report news about the Prime Minister, who is a public figure. 
The court further stated that the defendants should be 
allowed to criticize Thaksin over alleged acts of nepotism, 
alleged conflicts of interest in business dealings and his 
alleged misuse of state resources. The gag order would 
continue to apply to events which occurred before Thaksin 
became Prime Minister, including those which allegedly netted 
him much of his satellite and mobile phone empire. The gag 
order would also continue to bar distribution of video CDs of 
three of Sondhi's nine mobile talk shows so far, since they 
touched on issues which were still included in the gag order. 
(NOTE: The original gag order had banned the distribution of 
five shows. END NOTE) 
 
3. (U) Sondhi also won a court victory in Yasothorn Province, 
which is located in the so-called "Thai heartland" where 
Thaksin draws much of his support. A provincial court refused 
a request for an arrest warrant for Sondhi and his co-host 
Sarocha Pornudomsak for the crime of lese majeste. The court 
ruled that although Sondhi and Sarocha had referred to the 
royal family and though this was "improper", there was no 
evidence that they had committed the crime of lese majeste. 
Lt. Colonel Thammarak Atthajak, who made the original 
request, vowed that his office would continue the 
investigation and would bring the case back to court with 
unspecified new evidence. A second case, which had been filed 
in Nakhon Ratchasima, is still under investigation by the 
Central Investigation Bureau. 
 
4. (U) On November 22, Sondhi participated in a panel 
discussion on royal powers and peaceful political reform at 
Thammasat University. Sondhi outlined his ideas about 
reforming the constitution in order to safeguard freedom of 
speech and of the press, and to protect the civil liberties 
of the Thai people. Among Sondhi's suggestions were (a)- 
transferring organizations like the Royal Thai Police and the 
anti-money laundering office (AMLO) from executive to 
legislative control, (b)- a constitutional right to 
information from the Government and (c)- a constitutionally 
mandated mechanism to effectively guard the public interest 
against crooked politicians. Sondhi also defended his right 
to speak about the powers of the monarchy, as long as it was 
not in a disrespectful way, and condemned the current 
government for its relentless attempts to silence his voice. 
 
5. (U) On November 23, Thaksin filed a fifth lawsuit against 
both Sondhi and Sarocha for criminal defamation. The latest 
suit makes the same allegations as last week's civil lawsuit, 
which resulted in the gag order. The suit alleges that Sondhi 
and Sarocha made slanderous remarks about the PM by saying 
that Thaksin had dishonestly secured state concessions for 
his satellite and mobile-phone empire. 
 
6. (U) Luangta Maha Bua, a controversial and popular monk, 
has offered to act as a mediator between the two men in order 
to prevent the conflict from destabilizing the country. It 
was a sermon made by Luangta in September that sparked the 
first lawsuit against Sondhi. "The Manager" newspaper, which 
is owned by Sondhi, published a scathingly critical sermon 
made by Luangta in which the monk compared Thaksin to an 
ancient mythological monster. The PM elected to sue to 
Sondhi, but purposefully left Luangta out of the lawsuit 
saying the monk, a former supporter, had been kind to him in 
the past. Luangta dispatched several hundred monks to offer 
moral support to Sondhi on November 21. That same day he 
invited both men to come to a "peace meeting" at his 
monastery in Udon Thani in order to resolve their 
differences. Sondhi showed up but the Prime Minister took a 
rain check, saying he had matters of state to attend to, but 
that he would be happy to meet with the monk, but not 
necessarily Sondhi,  "when time permits." 
 
COUP RUMORS SWIRL AROUND BANGKOK 
 
7. (SBU) In a throwback to an earlier age, coup rumors have 
been swirling around the capital ever since Supreme Commander 
General Ruengroj Mahasaranond warned that the army might lose 
patience if Sondhi continued to refer to the monarchy in his 
rallies. This was followed by statement by several members of 
the ruling TRT party that Sondhi and the opposition were 
working together to "topple the government". Sutin Klungsang, 
a deputy spokesman for TRT went so far as to say that the 
party had "a piece of in-depth intelligence that a group of 
people was plotting to overthrow the government." Phumtham 
Wechayachai, a Deputy Minister, claimed Sondhi's rallies were 
a practice run for staging a coup. The persistent rumors have 
become serious enough to have a negative effect on the Thai 
stock market and have reportedly hurt short-term investor 
confidence. Government spokesmen have now gone out of the way 
to assure the public that there is no imminent coup with the 
Defense Minister and the Prime Minister's Office Minister 
assuring people that the democratic system was too firmly 
embedded into Thai society for a coup d'etat to take place in 
2005. Even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Sondhi 
Bunyaratgalin, felt the need to step into the fray, saying 
that "You can rest assured that there will be no coup as long 
as I serve as the Army chief." It is possible that coup 
rumors were an attempt by the TRT to taint the opposition 
with a reputation for treasonous tendencies. 
 
TONIGHT'S SHOW 
 
8. (U) As Sondhi continues to reveal more and more of the 
government's alleged indiscretions, Sondhi's rally has 
morphed into a "one-part talk show, one-part national soap 
opera" national media event. Organizers say they are bracing 
for "at least 100,000" spectators for Sondhi's tenth show, to 
be held November 25 in Lumpini Park, although this number is 
surely wildly exaggerated. Bangkok police have announced they 
will be employing over 1,000 officers to maintain security at 
the rally, which has so far not been a problem. With much 
better weather than last week's dreary drizzle, Sondhi 
appears poised to top last week's show. 
 
9. (C) Thaksin and the RTG appear to have realized that the 
more they hit back publicly against Sondhi, the more popular 
(and the more press coverage) Sondhi gets. The PM appears to 
be experimenting with a quieter approach to his Sondhi 
problem. Despite last Friday's extremely provocative show, 
which accused the PM and his younger sister of corruption, 
Thaksin has refrained from making any of the angry, 
foot-in-mouth statements that have so often made the front 
pages here. Sondhi has not been arrested, and no draconian 
measures have been taken against him or his program this 
week. Sondhi is now under pressure to make each show bigger 
and better than the last. It may be that Thaksin is waiting 
for the general public to lose interest, or for Sondhi to go 
overboard by saying something that crosses the line, either 
about the monarchy or about a scandal he cannot prove. 
Considering Sondhi's growing number of listeners in the rest 
of the country who tune in via radio, the Internet and 
satellite TV, waiting for the public to get bored might be a 
dangerous strategy. 
BOYCE