By Agence France-Presse
11/12/2009
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Dozens of red-shirted Thai supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra greeted the fugitive former premier as he paid a controversial visit to the main tourist town of neighbouring Cambodia.
Dozens of red-shirted Thai supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra greeted the fugitive former premier as he paid a controversial visit to the main tourist town of neighbouring Cambodia.
Singing "We love Thaksin!" in Thai and English, the protesters, who had crossed the border from northeastern Thailand, gave the billionaire tycoon roses and hugs as he arrived at a hotel in Siem Reap.
"I am very happy to see him. We hug him and he hugs us," Taradang Chinin, a representative of the group who travelled from their homes in Thailand the previous day, told AFP in the lobby of the Nokor Kokthrok hotel.
Thaksin, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption in Thailand, arrived in Cambodia Tuesday to start a new job as economics adviser to the government.
Cambodia on Wednesday angered Bangkok by refusing to extradite Thaksin.
"The Thai government right now is a big cheater. Mr Thaksin, when he was prime minister, he thought about poor people. He shared his love for people. He is very popular," supporter Taradang said.
In Bangkok, leaders of the pro-Thaksin "Red Shirt" movement said the supporters had travelled to Cambodia of their own will and that it was not an officially sanctioned rally.
Thaksin later left the hotel to tour the famed Angkor Wat temple, where he and his tight security escort of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's bodyguards was a curiosity for foreign tourists.
Earlier Thursday, Thaksin addressed some 300 members of business and government at the finance ministry in the capital Phnom Penh.
Thaksin won two elections and remains an influential, divisive figure in Thai politics, stirring up mass protests by the "Red Shirts" against the government of current prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
The Reds are pitted against the royalist "Yellow Shirt" movement which helped to spark the coup three years ago and then blockaded Bangkok's airports in November-December 2008 to help force Thaksin's allies from government.
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