Coup Leaders Receive Official Royal Endorsement

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The following appears in the BANGKOK POST:

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Thaksin Caused Severe Division: Royal Order

 

(bangkokpost.com, dpa) - Thailand's coup leaders on Friday received an official royal endorsement as the country's ruling junta in a ceremony broadcast on Thai television.

 

His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is head of state, on Wednesday informally endorsed coup leader and the Army's commander-in-chief, General Sonthi Boonyaratklin, as head of the Council of Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy (CDRM).

 

On Friday, Gen Sonthi and members of CDRM received an official endorsement as the country's new rulers in a ceremony performed in front of a portrait of the king.

 

"Gen Sonthi informed HM the King that Thaksin Shinawatra as the prime minister caused severe division within the nation. This is something that has never happened in the country's history," according to the Royal Order as it was read out.

 

Most people believe that the Thaksin administration was plagued with irregularites and corruption. Political intervention on independent bodies was rampant under Thaksin's watch. These interventions have created conflict and division. Many parties have tried but failed to change the situation.

 

Therefore, the armed forces, police and civilian members have decided to seize administrative power under the leadership of General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the head of the CDRM.

 

For the sake of peace and national unity, HM the King has issued the Royal Order for General Sonthi as the leader of the CDRM.

 

"We urged the public to remain calm and we ask that all government civil servants to support General Sonthi Boonyaratglin," the Royal Order said.

 

The ceremony was broadcast on all Thai TV stations, which are now under the control of the council.

 

Thailand has been under martial law since Tuesday night with troops and tanks stationed in the capital.

 

At a press conference Wednesday, Sonthi said the junta would run the country for two weeks, after which it would hand power over to an appointed civilian administration to pave the way for a general election within a year.

 

Sonthi mobilized troops and tanks Tuesday night in Bangkok in a bloodless coup that quickly toppled the caretaker government of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly at the time.

 

The junta dissolved the former cabinet, the Senate and the constitutional court and abolished the constitution.

 

One of the next government's first tasks will be to draft and approve a new constitution that will presumably guard against the return of a populist prime minister who could gain complete control over the political system, as Thaksin did.

 

Initial opinion polls suggested the coup has been popular among Thais although it has sparked criticism from abroad as a step backward for democracy.

 

The majority of Thais polled said they believed the coup would help end Thailand's political impasse, which has dragged on since February when Thaksin dissolved Parliament in the wave of growing opposition to his rule.

 

An election, scheduled for some time in November, was expected to bring back Thaksin's populist Thai Rak Thai Party to power, given its tremendous popularity among Thailand's provincial poor.

 

Although still popular in the provinces, Thaksin faced strong opposition from Bangkok's middle class and members of the political elite, who were unlikely to accept his return to power.

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Who is Sonthi?

 

The following appears in the BANGKOK POST:

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Sonthi: The Unusual Coup Leader

 

PROFILE:

 

Bangkok (dpa) - Army Commander-in-Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who was officially sworn in Friday as head of the junta that now rules Thailand, does not fit the common profile of past coup leaders.

 

Thailand has experienced 18 coups in the past 76 years, including the last one staged Tuesday, but past putsches have been led by military or police generals with big mouths and giant egos, descriptions that so far don't stick to Sonthi.

 

"In my dealings with General Sonthi, I've found him to be genuine, to be humble, to be polite and to be professional," said Surin Pitsuwan, a former foreign minister and leading executive of the Democrat Party.

 

Like Surin, Sonthi is a Muslim, another trait that distinguishes this coup leader from his predecessors in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

 

Sonthi, 59, became Army commander-in-chief last year, partly on the prompting of Prem Tinsulanonda, chairman of the Privy Council, which advises the king, who thought it would be wise to have a Muslim in charge of the Army to cope with the escalating violence in Thailand's troubled, Muslim-majority deep South.

 

He was never deemed a favourite of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whom Sonthi overthrew earlier this week.

 

Some said they believe it was disagreements over how to handle the southern situation that pushed Sonthi to stage the coup.

 

In the aftermath of a spate of bombings of banks last month in Yala, Sonthi proposed opening a dialogue with the Muslim militants blamed for the violence, which has claimed up to 1,700 lives in the past two and half years.

 

Militant groups in the deep South - made up of Narathiwat, Pattanai and Yala provinces - have for decades been waging a separatist struggle for the region, which was an independent Islamic sultanate more than 200 years ago.

 

Thaksin, whose heavy-handed tactics in the South have been blamed for inflating the situation, turned Sonthi's suggestion down.

 

Other sparks might have been Thaksin putting the blame on the military for an alleged assassination attempt on him on August 24; his efforts to handpick allies to be promoted to powerful posts in the military's annual reshuffle, which is to be finalized by September 30; or rumours that the now-former premier was planning to mobilize thousands of armed forest rangers to come to Bangkok to crack down on an anti-government protest on Wednesday without Sonthi's OK.

 

Whatever his reasons for staging the coup, since seizing power, Sonthi has gone out of his way to make clear that his junta would not be in power for long, maybe two weeks at most, and would pave the way for a new general election as soon as possible.

 

Both the international community and the Thai people will be waiting to see in the next few weeks whether Sonthi is as good as his word.

 

"My advice to him is make the junta as short and as painless as possible, and don't take the international community lightly," Surin said. "It is the weak link in Thailand's chain of legitimacy, and Thaksin will try to exploit it."

 

Thaksin, who counts world leaders, including US President George W Bush as friends, was in New York when the coup occurred and is currently in London, taking what he called a "well-deserved break" from politics.

 

 

[Guest Geezer]