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Published on October 12, 2007

PM's Office Minister Thirapat Serirangsan failed to defend Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont convincingly during Wednesday night's censure debate, failing to explain what critics claim to be the dubious acquisition of land that was allegedly transferred to Surayud's wife by a lower-ranking army officer.

But he said Surayud was willing to return the controversial 20-rai plot to the state if the land was found to be part of a national forest in Nakhon Ratchasima province.

"The PM didn't really know the land may have a problem of being inside a forest reserve," Thirapat told the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) in the early hours of Thursday.

He took the microphone after midnight after about a dozen NLA members had grilled the junta-appointed premier and his Cabinet for more than five hours on Wednesday night.

Surayud hadleft the meeting chamber shortly after 10pm.

"The prime minister had no intention to trespass reserved forest as alleged and reported by newspapers ... the premier will be willing to return the land if it is found to be inside reserved forest," Thirapat said.

Thirapat, assigned by the premier to defend him in the censure debate, added that Surayud's country estate on a mountain called Khao Yai Thiang had a proper fence, electricity connection and house number, and was located near orchards cultivated by locals.

He claimed there was no sign anywhere to indicate that the land is inside a national forest reserve.

The minister added that a Cabinet resolution in 1988 backed the legality of land ownership in the disputed area and pointed out that Surayud's plot was acquired four years after the resolution.

What Thirapat did not answer, however, is the allegations by NLA members Prasong Soonsiri and Praphan Koonmee about the conditions under which the land was transferred to Surayud's wife, Chitravadee Chulanont.

Both NLA members, who were part of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), claimed that an Army colonel by the name of Surarith Chantrangsin had transferred the land to Chitravadee without recording any monetary transaction, and had since been made a general.

Though further substantiation is needed to prove that some land-for-favour deal took place, Thirapat completely failed to respond to the allegation. NLA members from the anti-Thaksin Shinawatra PAD have been accused of trying to force Surayud to resign so that General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, former leader of the junta that ousted Thaksin and recently appointed deputy premier, could replace him and offer them better protection against the former premier's possible return to power by proxy.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation