Thaksin on a Mission to Humiliate Thai Government

Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has spent much of the past three years roaming the globe, shopping for diamonds in Africa, golfing at Asian resorts — and humiliating the government from a distance.

After stirring up sometimes violent passions from afar among his supporters and opponents inside Thailand, the deposed leader has now entangled his homeland in a diplomatic imbroglio with neighboring Cambodia, which this past week named him a special adviser on economic matters.

The idea of Thaksin being made welcome by Cambodia's mercurial Prime Minister Hun Sen has jangled nerves in the Thai capital. Thailand already has a nasty dispute with its neighbor over border territory, which has led to several small but deadly clashes over the past year and a half.

Now Thaksin — who was ousted in a 2006 coup after being accused of corruption and insulting the country's constitutional monarch — may have found his launchpad for a political comeback.

"Thaksin is on a new offensive. This is a calculated campaign to undermine this government and to change governments," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "He wants to retake what he sees as his legitimate right, which is to have another election that he believes he will win."

For the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, Cambodia's action is a slap in the face it feels compelled to respond to, calling it "interference in Thailands domestic affairs."

From cyberspace, Thaksin tweeted to his 40,000 Twitter followers that Abhisit's recall of the Thai ambassador was a "childish overreaction."

"I'm asking permission from all Thai people to advise the Cambodian government ... until I have a chance to serve you again," he tweeted separately, calling his new job "an honor."

Thaksin is thought to currently be in Dubai.