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• pub­lished: 2014-05-20
• views: 1989
• Re­lat­ed ar­ti­cle

Thai­land's army de­clared mar­tial law in a sur­prise an­nounce­ment in Bangkok be­fore dawn on Tues­day, in­ten­si­fy­ing the tur­bu­lent na­tion's deep­en­ing po­lit­i­cal cri­sis. The mil­i­tary, how­ev­er, de­nied a coup d'etat was un­der­way. The move came after six months of an­ti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions aimed at oust­ing the gov­ern­ment and one day after the South­east Asian coun­try's care­tak­er prime min­is­ter re­fused to step down. The army said in a state­ment that the mil­i­tary had taken the ac­tion to "keep peace and order" and sol­diers en­tered sev­er­al pri­vate tele­vi­sion sta­tions in the cap­i­tal. An army of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause of the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press "this is def­i­nite­ly not a coup. This is only to pro­vide safe­ty to the peo­ple and the peo­ple can still carry on their lives as nor­mal." A tick­er on Chanel 5, an army sta­tion, also de­nied the mil­i­tary was tak­ing over and asked the pub­lic not to panic. Thai­land's army has staged at 11 suc­cess­ful coups since the end of ab­so­lute monar­chy in 1932. The mil­i­tary state­ment was signed by army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-Ocha. It cited a 1914 law that gives it au­thor­i­ty to in­ter­vene dur­ing times of cri­sis, and said it had taken the ac­tion be­cause on-go­ing mass ral­lies be­tween po­lit­i­cal ri­vals "could im­pact the coun­try's se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of the lives and prop­er­ties of the pub­lic." On Mon­day, Thai­land's act­ing prime min­is­ter in­sist­ed his gov­ern­ment will not re­sign, re­sist­ing pres­sure from a group of sen­a­tors who are seek­ing ways to set­tle the coun­try's po­lit­i­cal cri­sis, and from an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters who are de­mand­ing an ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter. The dead­lock in South­east Asia's sec­ond-largest econ­o­my has been wors­en­ing since for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Yingluck Shi­nawa­tra dis­solved the lower house in De­cem­ber and a court oust­ed her and nine Cab­i­net min­is­ters ear­li­er this month for abuse of power. A group of about 70 sen­a­tors, most of whom are seen as sid­ing with the an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters, pro­posed a frame­work on Fri­day that calls for a gov­ern­ment with full power to con­duct po­lit­i­cal re­forms. Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Ni­wat­tum­rong Boon­song­paisan and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Chaikasem Ni­tisiri met with two rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Sen­ate in an undis­closed lo­ca­tion Mon­day to avoid dis­rup­tion from the protesters. In a state­ment fol­low­ing the meet­ing, Ni­wat­tum­rong said the Cab­i­net can­not re­sign be­cause "it will be neg­li­gence of duty and against the con­sti­tu­tion," and in­sist­ed he "can carry out du­ties and has full au­thor­i­ty" as prime min­is­ter. The Cab­i­net has op­er­at­ed in a care­tak­er ca­pac­i­ty with lim­it­ed power since Yingluck dis­solved the lower house in De­cem­ber in a failed bid to ease the po­lit­i­cal cri­sis. A new gov­ern­ment can­not nor­mal­ly be named until there are elec­tions, which an­ti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tors have vowed to block un­less po­lit­i­cal re­forms occur first. The Sen­ate, the only func­tion­ing leg­isla­tive body in the coun­try, was seen as the last re­sort of the an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters, who are call­ing for an in­ter­im, un­elect­ed prime min­is­ter to be cho­sen. Ear­li­er this month, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court re­moved Yingluck for nepo­tism along with nine Cab­i­net mem­bers in a case that many viewed as po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. Protesters said her re­moval is not enough be­cause she was re­placed by an act­ing prime min­is­ter from the rul­ing party, Ni­wat­tum­rong. An­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters say they are mak­ing their final push to oust the gov­ern­ment and in­stall an un­elect­ed prime min­is­ter and gov­ern­ment. They have promised to call off their ral­lies if they are not suc­cess­ful by May 26, fol­low­ing six months of street demon­stra­tions in which 28 peo­ple have died and hun­dreds of oth­ers have been in­jured. The protesters on Mon­day began search­ing for mem­bers of the Cab­i­net at their res­i­dences to pres­sure them to re­sign, but did not find any. Labor unions rep­re­sent­ing about 20 state-owned en­ter­pris­es vowed to go on strike Thurs­day to sup­port the an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters, al­though sev­er­al com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing Thai Air­ways and the Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­at­ing Au­thor­i­ty of Thai­land, said Mon­day that they would op­er­ate nor­mal­ly. Thai­land's po­lit­i­cal cri­sis began in 2006, when Yingluck's broth­er, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Thaksin Shi­nawa­tra, was top­pled by a mil­i­tary coup after being ac­cused of cor­rup­tion, abuse of power and dis­re­spect for King Bhu­mi­bol Adulyadej. Thaksin, a for­mer telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions bil­lion­aire, re­mains high­ly pop­u­lar among the poor in the north and north­east, and par­ties con­trolled by him have won every na­tion­al elec­tion since 2001. The an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters, who are aligned with the op­po­si­tion Demo­crat Party and backed by the coun­try's tra­di­tion­al elites, say they want to re­move all traces of his po­lit­i­cal ma­chine from pol­i­tics. Thaksin's sup­port­ers, known as the Red Shirts, have staged a rally in Bangkok's west­ern out­skirts since May 10, rais­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble clash­es be­tween them and the an­ti-gov­ern­ment protesters.