A Possible Coup in Thailand

[Samurai Waki]

CNN:

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Tanks have been seen rolling through the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday amid rumors of an attempted coup, witnesses tell CNN.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra -- currently at the U.N. headquarters in New York -- went on a government-owned TV station and declared a state of emergency, The Associated Press reported.

According to officials at the Thai mission at the United Nations, Thaksin has moved up his speech to the General Assembly to Tuesday night and will return to Bangkok after his address.

He had been scheduled to address the assembly on Wednesday.

Thaksin has been under considerable pressure to step down. Elections in Thailand are scheduled for November after the country's constitutional court ruled April's vote was unconstitutional.

Thaksin had called for the elections in April, three years early, after opponents accused the billionaire leader of abusing the country's system of checks and balances and bending government policy to benefit his family's business.

Hmm... if this is true it sounds like the bastard finally pissed off the wrong people.

[Scurvy]

it'l be interesting to see what happens / has happened / might have happened when more detail emerge

[lancelot]

According to the news definate coup...

[King Henry V]

The Army has declared marshal law. Looks as though they've done a pretty smooth operation here, and I wouldn't be surprised if they win.

[Solon of Athens]

The Army has declared marshal law. Looks as though they've done a pretty smooth operation here, and I wouldn't be surprised if they win.

Yeah I agree, especially with the Thai PM being at the UN General Assembly, they obviously know what they are doing...

I wonder if TWC going down has something to do with this?

[yesdachi]

That’s pretty slick, wait till he’s off to NY and lock the door so he cant get back in.

[Lemur]

I hate it when my military pulls coups when I'm visiting New York. Can't a man shop at Barney's in peace?

[Ice]

I hate it when my military pulls coups when I'm visiting New York. Can't a man shop at Barney's in peace?

On cnn it appears they are still loyal to the king. Why not knock out two bad things with one coup?

[Ser Clegane]

Why not knock out two bad things with one coup?

Why would the king be a bad thing?

He is incredibly popular in Thailand.

[Scurvy]

ditto to what Cleg says, if hes popular why get rid off him? a monarch isnt neccessarilly (prob spelt wrong) a bad thing.

[Duke Malcolm]

On cnn it appears they are still loyal to the king. Why not knock out two bad things with one coup?

Because a monarchy is not usually a bad thing.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Because a monarchy is not usually a bad thing.

In this case, we shall see whether a monarchy can actually live up to its alleged usefulness.

Bhumibol is held in very high regard by the entire population. Therefore, he should protect the constitution and denounce the military coup. If anyone can help return Thailand to its proper constitutional democracy, it should be him.

King Juan Carlos of Spain thwarted just such a bunch of generals with incredible courage.

Will we see Bhumibol do the same?

[King Henry V]

However, the king is much older (he's been on the throne for sixty years) and according to the BBC, it seems as though the coup may have popular support (the prime minister has been very unpopular recently).
Edit: The King may actually do something; he has done so before.
Wiki: Although Bhumibol is a constitutional monarch, he has several times made decisive interventions in Thai politics, including the political crisis of 2005-2006. Bhumibol is widely credited with facilitating Thailand's transition to democracy in the 1990s, although in earlier periods of his reign he supported military regimes.

[lancelot]

Just heard on the news that the Thomas Cook holiday company has stated that holidays to thailand do not present any danger at present...this is at the moment true but seems to me to be deeply irresponsible...situations such as this can turn on a penny and get real ugly, real quick.

They should not be advising people to still go at least for a week or 2.

[AntiochusIII]

Wiki: Although Bhumibol is a constitutional monarch, he has several times made decisive interventions in Thai politics, including the political crisis of 2005-2006. Bhumibol is widely credited with facilitating Thailand's transition to democracy in the 1990s, although in earlier periods of his reign he supported military regimes.

King Bhumibol is indeed held in such high regards as to be considered something of a demi-god (not theologically, but in terms of devotion) to the Thai people. Being one myself, I know that well. I don't know how he actually got that reputation from, though; it was either due to an incredibly endearing character or an incredibly effective propaganda machine that runs through generations. Either way, the monarch, though not actually concerned with the day-to-day dealings of government, has much more power than a Westerner reading about him being a Constitutional Monarch would think. There are even legal loopholes that he could exploit if he choose to. Remember the Presidential power to refuse to sign a law passed by the legislature into effect? He has that. And more.

Bhumibol essentially stopped a bloody riot between two groups some decades past (liberal -- in a very classical sense -- college students demanding a free Democracy and the military junta at the time; it was the sixties, of course, when progress was the world's rallying cry) which resulted in the military leaders retiring peacefully, or at least officially. He repeated something like that again almost two decades ago.

Any military coup that even think about trying to remove him would suffer a very swift loss of support in Thailand, that is for certain. Though his son is unlikely to prove to be equally as popular.

Now I have to worry about my childhood friends back there. ****. And they were "modernizing" peacefully well enough when I left.

Damn that power-hungry Thaksin. It's Marcos all over again. From what I've heard, the blooming of capitalism (in the midst of a recession, no less) that I left to join America fell quickly enough when that bastard monopolized every little piece of dirt in the land for him and his relatives. An example: when I first bought my cellphone, it was from a company freshly entering the market, willing to exploit something of a general opening of Thai economy to more up-to-date stuff. It was one of a few "starters" in the country (though already big somewhere else), and there already were at least two big competitors in the phone business in what apparently was a relatively fast-growing sector in a potentially rewarding situation for the more globally-minded, and modern-minded, of the population.

Now there's only one left, and that "company" belongs to the "Shin Corporation," the family's business.

And to think that my parents used to voted for him.

This coup isn't that promising either. Men who are willing to raise arms to take power in Southeast Asian countries are greedy men and men of power, and whom I despise for that.

Just heard on the news that the Thomas Cook holiday company has stated that holidays to thailand do not present any danger at present...this is at the moment true but seems to me to be deeply irresponsible...situations such as this can turn on a penny and get real ugly, real quick.

They should not be advising people to still go at least for a week or 2.

I indeed agree with you, but I just wanted to point out that usually anyone in Thailand won't be willing to attack the "Farang" (as Westerners are known) because the tourist industry is considered a cash cow of the nation.

[Ice]

Because a monarchy is not usually a bad thing.

That's a matter of opinion, obviously. I actually dispise monarchies. So to me, they are quite bad. I can't remember the exact name, but this relates to the thread about what people find evil.

[Strike For The South]

my aunt and cousin are visting family, hope there o k

[Lemur]

As long as they stay away from large crowds chanting slogans ...

[Papewaio]

The courts decreed that the elections where unconsitutional (may have something to do with alledged bribes of the electorial commission). So the military should step in and remove the current set of politicians until a consitutional election can be held as soon as possible. The King on the other hand should do everything possible to make it a peaceful and speedy transition to the next elected government.

[lars573]

That's a matter of opinion, obviously. I actually dispise monarchies. So to me, they are quite bad. I can't remember the exact name, but this relates to the thread about what people find evil.

What conincidense I despise republics.

Anyhow Shinawatra sounds like a real crook. I say good ridance. Let's just hope that the Generals are not planning on making the return to democracy a 5-20 year plan though.

[Divinus Arma]

Imagine this happening in a Western Industrialized Nation: France, U.S., Australia, or Canada, et. al.

This is insane. I thought Thailand was pretty stable. Apparently I thought wrong.

[lars573]

Stable, democratic, and prosperous. For a south east asian state. But this isn't the first time the military has taken over. They took over in '76. And a General was PM (elected and everything) for two terms in 83 and 86. There was even a brief civil war (10 hours) in 85 after an army coup failed. Another coup suceeded in 91. Which led to a junta till 1995. Then democracy was back in.

[AntiochusIII]

This is insane. I thought Thailand was pretty stable. Apparently I thought wrong.

I was born right some time after the last coup troubles (around '89, methinks. The Fall of the Berlin Wall heralded my birth ) and Thailand was a pretty stable, if not too free and quite very corrupted, country. But the meteoric rise of the "Thai Rak Thai" party, (literal: Thai love Thai, a stupid name) changed everything. I remembered the general impression the current prime minister made then as he swept old guards and fresh rising stars (usually the new generation that has an inkling of a more intellectual, less traditionalist view) alike in the political scenes into his well-funded, well-publicized party that promised to break the corrupt old guards' parties (the most powerful being that of the Democrats). The guy proposed a lot of things that appealed greatly to the poor masses: welfare, rural economic revitalization (propagandized as "one product every county" or something), crushing drugs traffic (a major problem in Thailand, being a Western outlet for the productions in less open neighboring countries), and wipe out corruption.

Sure enough, he took the election by storm and the party came to dominate the country. And the early years were indeed something of an economic boom -- but he showed his true color soon enough as nothing really got done by the government, especially for the urban middle class (of which my family, when we were still there, would constitute) while the welfare programs and rural economic revitalization efforts remained useless in practice, if a good propaganda tool for Thaksin's most important voter base: the poverty-stricken rural population that make up the vast majority of the Thai population. Of course, it was the rampant corruption; the strict hold he has upon the media and the supposedly neutral Electoral Commission, as well as many NGOs involved in observing the electoral processes; the pathetic mismanagement of the Southern Islamic insurgency -- which could've been easily managed, the failure and mistakes of the government which led to the escalation mirrors that of Iraq's -- and his monopolizing, as I've already said, every bloody little business in the country to gouge huge profits that pissed off enough of Bangkok for the mass protests to occur regularly. The Bangkok people tend to be much more politically aware than their rural counterparts anyway, having relatively good access to the world, being the jewel of the Southeast and all that.

But I was out of Thailand by then, enjoying newfound freedom in America and trying to adapt to a new home country.

The business here is pretty sad, though. In a way, the coup is a betrayal of the Democratic principles that the protesting groups claim to hold.

...Scratch that. Nobody in power in Southeast Asia ever care about Democracy. They could loudly proclaim loyalty to the King and wrap themselves around His flag to get ten times more support for any bold, illegitimate moves they want to make. Besides, some might not realize this, but at least a big chunk of the opposition is not entirely made up of idealistic innocent freedom-seekers but also of the old guard that lost power in Thaksin's rise, as well as a few of the generals that I despise so much for their authoritarian tendencies. In the end the few and far between, if slowly emerging, new generation intellectual liberals lose. The actually cool artists lose. And the people lose. And democratic progress lose also. Nice to see that country gets back into the cave.

[GoreBag]

Thai Love Thai party? Nationalists?

[Banquo's Ghost]

The courts decreed that the elections where unconsitutional (may have something to do with alledged bribes of the electorial commission). So the military should step in and remove the current set of politicians until a consitutional election can be held as soon as possible. The King on the other hand should do everything possible to make it a peaceful and speedy transition to the next elected government.

You're kidding, right?

It is never acceptable for the military in a democratic country to overturn a government elected by the people. The last elections were certainly flawed (the opposition refused to turn up) but it is up to the judiciary and the constitutional guardian (in this case, the King, who certainly has the power available to him) or at the most extreme, the people to remove an unconstitutional government. Never, ever, ever the army.

Remember Thaksin is actually quite popular in the countryside, if not amongst the chattering classes of Bangkok.

I'm amazed that anyone can support a military coup, especially one in this part of the world and in a country where the military have always found it difficult to let go.

[lancelot]

That's a matter of opinion, obviously. I actually dispise monarchies. So to me, they are quite bad. I can't remember the exact name, but this relates to the thread about what people find evil.

Monarchies are evil? Thats a bit of a generalisation isnt it? Lived in many monarchist states?

Have not the Americas been plauged with Presidents that dont seem to ever leave office?

[AntiochusIII]

Thai Love Thai party? Nationalists?

Thai parties do tend to name themselves in funny names; only a few of the names make any ideological sense. Let's just say it sounds a little catchier in Thai than in English.

You see, Thai politics don't have ideological splits or two-party polars. It's just who's proposing what in what issue and who's supporting who in the Parliament of crooks and mafia-leaders. Many of the Thai Love Thai ringleaders -- and ministers -- themselves are actually the old guard politicians who joined Thaksin to serve his new party. And all politicians proclaim their loyalty to the nation and especially the King to one point or another. Never forget the King.

There might be something close to a two-party system arising, though, one side being the large Thai Love Thai party and the other being the opposition , gathering around the Democrat Party (Prachatipat, in Thai) which was once the most powerful party prior to Thai Love Thai's rise. I wouldn't bet on it though, not as long as the eggheads in the military are there. Prior to the insurgency in the South, and perhaps even now, the Democrats' support base are in the South (based on the regional loyalty to some key party leaders, actually; namely, a former Prime Minister from the Democrats) and in urban Bangkok itself. The rest of the country usually vote for Thaksin.

[doc_bean]

According to the news it's been a coup without bloodshed and there will be elections in a year. The bad news (perhaps ?) is that the constitution will be re-written.

[Banquo's Ghost]

According to the news it's been a coup without bloodshed and there will be elections in a year. The bad news (perhaps ?) is that the constitution will be re-written.

Let's hope it stays peaceful and the general is true to his word. Mind you, Musharraf of Pakistan said much the same thing ten or more years ago, as have many other military dictators. Hard to let go in favour of those untrustworthy democrats, you know. Just one more year and it will all be fine...

Re-written constitutions by the military rarely prove to be a step forward.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Monarchies are evil? Thats a bit of a generalisation isnt it? Lived in many monarchist states?

Have not the Americas been plauged with Presidents that dont seem to ever leave office?

Actually, no. From the inception of the Presidency, most of the holders of that office held to the tradition established by George Washington that two terms was enough. The only one not to do so, Franklin Roosevelt, ending up engendering a Constitutional ammendment that made the two term limit a fixed limitation. Whatever flaws we may have, the peaceful transfer of power is one of our strengths.