In a message marking the 12th anniversary of the military coup that toppled his government, fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said it would be in the national interest if old political rivals began talking to each other.
He sent the message on Tuesday via a post on his Facebook page "Thaksin Shinawatra", one day ahead of the 12th anniversary of the Sept 19, 2006 coup d'etat that ousted him from office while he was in New York to attend a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
"Is it time for us to face each other and have discussions for the sake of the nation? Or will we keep attacking each other, even though it is only over differences of opinion and preferences?" he said.
"I want to shout loudly 'Are we fellow Thais?'."
He wrote that he felt sad that all the experience he had gained throughout his 70 years of life had been lost to the country.
“On the 12th anniversary, I would openly say that I deeply regret what has happened to Thailand," he said.
In the past 12 years, there had been two coups, toppling two prime ministers who were both siblings and the most popular prime ministers in Thai political history. The coups had a negative impact on the country in the eyes of the international community.
He was referring to his young sister and now fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled the country last year shortly before the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions sentenced her to five years in prison for dereliction of duty in failing to prevent corruption in her administration's loss-ridden rice-pledging scheme.
"Of course there are the people who were successful and became rich from the two coups," he said. He asked if the country was any better.
Thaksin also wrote that the coup 12 years ago cost him his happiness and the family warmth of children and parents being together.
"At the end, I want to use this opportunity to say I forgive all the people who have slandered me,’’ Thaksin wrote.
Thaksin fled the country in 2008 just before the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions sentenced him to two years in jail for a conflict of interest, while prime minister, in the purchase of state-owned land in inner Bangkok in 2003 by his then-wife Khunying Potjaman na Pombejra.
He also faces many arrest warrants in other cases related to decisions he made while prime minister from 2001 until 2006.