Thai Coup
Another military coup too place yesterday, this time in Thailand by its Army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin which has resulted in the ouster of the Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. With yet another coup, the 16th since the introduction of its constitution during 1930s, Thailand needs to do some introspection on their future.I remember the last coup, which took place during the mid-90s, when Chuan Lee-Pai was the Prime Minister. The revolt began and was headed by the popular Thai leader Chamlong. Apart from the success of the coup, the only other similarity of the coup was that it was a peaceful takeover (only a few traffic signals were done broken by the opposition). To end the crisis then, His Royal Highness King Bhumibol Adulyadej had to intervene and broker peace between the two factions.
Scenes of tanks rolling over in the streets and moving towards government establishment am sure must have brought back the old memories for the residents of Bangkok. Since the last attempt there were attempts made to reduce the military’s powers. Another major adversity was their economy crash durning the later half of the 1990s.
However this time, the economy is sound and Sonthi, the coup maker is close to Thailand's revered Royal family. Sonthi held a television address with giant portraits of the Thai Monarch in the background, he was flanked by the 3 army chiefs along with the head of the national police.
Sonthi also said that he wouldn’t want to hold onto power and asked people to remain calm. According to him the reason for the coup was Thaksin’s(also a Telecom tycoon) policies and corruption which needed to healed. The Prime Minister is presently in the UN General assembly from where he had declared a state of emergency yesterday.
Though this was a coup that took place without a shot being fired, foreign news stations were not allowed to telecast the events.
Now the important arguement would be whether it’s alright for the military to dethrone an elected government. What can be done if the government and its leaders playing dirty with the country's economy.
The next few days will decide the fate of Democracy in Thailand. Just like the present coup maker Sonthi, many other military coup leaders World over have spoken about returning to democracy (Pakistan, Myanmar)soon and we're still waiting to see how.
Will these coups set a trend and threaten other Democracies World over too? To find answers to this, event World-over needs to be watched closely.
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posted by PressMart Team at
2:42 PM
2 Comments:
The army must restraint from taking over governments. They must set an example to a nation in discipline.
I am a THAI citizen who is neither Thaksin freak nor Thaksin opponent. I am represent another groups of Thai who think this coup is very uncivilized/uneducational wise. This is not democracy. We are going to have the new election anyway in November. The new election committee is already set-up. This is another power abuse by military. Everyone has a good and bad parts, so does Thaksin. But with others goverment, I never seen anyone take our country come this far. It is easy to criticize others, compared to doing it. We has the rules and right to say/act what we think, agree or disagree, but it has to follow the rules. Again the coup is not the effective way to solve this issues and that's why Thailand still the developing country. This is so old school and if the coup leader has the idea that coup is going to solve this issue, how do we know that the new care taker that they chosen is going the be the civilized/educational wise one, until the next election (if we have).
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