Word: sondhi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) voted this week to form a political party and contest Thailand's next general election. The head of the still-unnamed party is expected to be movement leader Sondhi Limthongkul, 61, a formerly bankrupt media magnate who has accrued various enemies in a long public career. Sondhi was wounded in an assassination attempt in April that he blamed on corrupt politicians and military men. Millions of viewers regularly watch his satellite television channel ASTV, which openly advocates for the PAD and could provide the new party with a potentially huge voter...
...late Friday morning, doctors were operating on Sondhi Limthongkul, the media magnate and leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy who sustained a bullet wound to his head, according to Dr. Chaiwan Charoenchoketawee, spokesman for Vajira Medical College in Bangkok. "His condition is serious. He has a brain hemorrhage, but he is expected to survive," Chaiwan said. Sondhi was wounded, along with his driver and bodyguard, when his car stopped at a gas station about 5AM, according to a PAD member. News reports quoted police as saying Sondhi's car was sprayed with bullets from gunmen in another vehicle...
...Sondhi's "yellow shirts," as PAD members are known because of the color of their attire, are a movement of royalists, big businessmen and urban middle class Thais who are opposed to the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup, convicted of conflict of interest charges by Thai courts last year and is now living in self-imposed exile. Sondhi's firebrand speeches full of demagoguery rallied crowds of supporters in prolonged, occasionally violent, protests last year against Thaksin, but he has been accused by critics of stoking hatred against rural people...
...peace, not payback. We will only use violence to defend ourselves, as is permissible under the law. But this is bad. It means a civil war is starting, and Thailand could end up like Rwanda," said Puchong Tirawatana. Puchong blamed the Red Shirts for the assassination attempt on Sondhi, and said there were police and military men who were red shirt members or sympathizers. Red Shirt leadership and the police have yet to comment...
...time the opposition alliance withdrew on Dec. 3, a democratically elected government had been disbanded by the country's courts and political street violence had claimed several lives. And should future polls bring back politicians linked with Thailand's ousted rulers? "The PAD will return," vowed alliance leader Sondhi Limthongkul, who earlier in the siege told his thousands of supporters to "shed your blood if it is necessary." (See pictures from the Thai protests...