ABCได้ เขียนรายงานการสัมภาษณ์ว่า จักรภพกล่าวว่าอดีตนายกรัฐมนตรี มหาเศรษฐีโทรคมนาคมกำลังพิจารณาตัดสินใจว่าจะยุติบทบาทความเกี่ยวพันกับขบวน การความเคลื่อนไหว(กลุ่มเสื้อแดง)(Jakropob Penkair also says the former prime minister and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra is considering ending his involvement with the movement.)
Senior Red Shirts figure Jakrapob Penkair says international donors are now funding the campaign for a change of Thai government.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: A senior leader of Thailand's Red Shirt protest movement has told Lateline that international donors are now funding its campaign for a change of government.
Jakropob Penkair also says the former prime minister and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra is considering ending his involvement with the movement.
Mr Penkair spoke to the ABC from a secret location outside Thailand because he's on the run from arrest.
South-east Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel reports.
ZOE DANIEL, REPORTER: In Bangkok, authorities sift through evidence after yet another explosion. Twice this week, small devices have gone off in the city, one man is dead, at least nine hurt.
It's a reflection of simmering political unrest that's gone underground since anti-government Red Shirt protests were dispersed by the army in May.
Jakropob Penkair is one of those pulling the strings from afar. A former right-hand man to exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he's been on the run himself since last year to avoid arrest for anti-Government political activity and alleged criticism of the revered monarchy.
Speaking to the ABC in a secret location outside Thailand he vows that he's not behind the violence, but he was playing a co-ordinating role during the civil unrest and remains involved.
JAKROPOB PENKAIR, RED SHIRTS LEADER: Yes, we have had a group that help with the advice, with the suggestions, to the leaders at the stage at the rally.
ZOE DANIEL: Do you think the suggestions you made were the right ones, now that we've seen how things unfolded?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: It was not about the right and wrong of the advice, it's about the disorganisation of the mass rally. I believe that it came to the point that the leaders on-stage had become less vigorous than the people who joined the rally.
ZOE DANIEL: They'd lost control of the group?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: I think so. The crackdowns on April and May this year was brutal, inhumane, but expected.
ZOE DANIEL: You say that the crackdown was brutal and inhumane, but the weapons weren't only on the government side, were they? You accept that?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: I accepted that, but I would not accept the Government's version that there was any organised uprising against them.
ZOE DANIEL: That may to be case, although - well we did see a number of grenade attacks, we do know that there was an element of the Red Shirt movement that was more heavily armed than the way that you suggest, and even since the protests, we've seen a number of bombings, one quite recent, in Bangkok. Who's co-ordinating that?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: We don't know.
ZOE DANIEL: Not you?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: And I could say it is not me, and it's not ...
ZOE DANIEL: You're not co-ordinating any sort of armed uprising?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: No. It's not anyone related to us at all.
ZOE DANIEL: Jakropob Penkair claims he'd be killed if he returned to Thailand. He's in exile and the other Red Shirt leaders are in jail or hiding as well. He also says that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra may leave the movement altogether, so how can it achieve the change that it wants?
It's still a stalemate position.
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Yes.
ZOE DANIEL: You're not talking. There's no option for reconciliation. Where is Mr Thaksin in all of this in terms of being involved in the day-to-day strategy of the movement?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Yes, I would say that he's still in the picture. He remains a strong symbol to our movement. But he's pondering the next steps and that would be for him more than for the movement.
ZOE DANIEL: What do you mean?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: I think that he is re-evaluating whether or not that it is a fight worth fighting.
ZOE DANIEL: Really?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Maybe.
ZOE DANIEL: Why?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: I couldn't say for him. I haven't worked with him closely enough to say that, but I think that people in the movement, Kun Thaksin included, have the right to reposition themselves. That's all I can say.
ZOE DANIEL: You think he might decide to bow out, take a back seat?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: I wouldn't say that, but I think that he has the right to be pondering about it.
ZOE DANIEL: Where would that leave the movement if the rank and file of the movement lost their symbolic leader?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: The confronting issue is that how the movement would get its support. And in the past year it proves that its support could come from elsewhere. It doesn't have to come from Kun Thaksin and his family or his assigned people.
ZOE DANIEL: Are you talking money now?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Talking money, talking about the safe place to stay, talking about the co-operation of respective government in the countries that we visit or stay - all those things.
We have been receiving, in a more natural way than before - in other words, we have had such a controlled system before, and then it's quite a relief to see that in the past year, there are a lot more universal support too of course, but we have the duty to make it clearer to the people out there, especially foreigners.
ZOE DANIEL: So, you're saying that others are donating financially to the cause to keep you going?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Yes. Yes, they have.
ZOE DANIEL: Internationally as well as Thais?
JAKROPOB PENKAIR: Especially internationally.
ZOE DANIEL: Jakropob Penkair, thanks for your time.
LEIGH SALES: Zoe Daniel, out South Asia correspondent there.
