CDC's Anek abandons his amnesty proposal

Anek Laothamatas, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee’s subcommittee on reconciliation, gave up trying to seek amnesty for conflicting parties, saying his proposal was misinterpreted. 

“People are focusing too much on amnesty, while I only intended to promote reconciliation and create a better society,” Anek told The Nation yesterday.

The academic, who has many years of political experience, threw in the towel after a CDC meeting yesterday strongly opposed the proposal to whitewash rivalling parties who were prosecuted and sentenced after the political battle over the past years.

He said that if he could delete the words “reconciliation” and “amnesty”, he would, because once these terms were mentioned they were interpreted in a negative way. He would rather use the terms “love” and “unity”.

Each side must realise that a political victory is not everything, and if they cannot reconcile it will affect everyone in society, Anek said.

He said he primarily focused on drafting a new charter, which will be key to national reform and reconciliation. “I will propose to have conflicting groups participate in the process of moving the country forward together, and it will be in the form of a committee comprised of government agencies, independent organisations and conflicting groups to propose their ideas on reconciliation,” he said.

The purpose is to make each side forgive the other and also to promote reconciliation to prevent disputes, he said.

Many CDC members argued against Anek’s  amnesty proposal in the meeting, spokesman Khamnoon Sitthisamarn said.

“Some members observed that if the CDC could make the charter fair for all parties without prejudice or favouring any side or singling out any side, the constitution itself could lead to reconciliation,” he said.

The debate on the amnesty bid was joined by 20 CDC members. Many of them disagreed with the idea of granting a reprieve to the heads of opposing parties who led the political conflict over the past years, said a member who declined to be named. 

Some members said there should be some measures to compensate people who simply joined street protests or were affected by the protests, another CDC member said. But the compensation should be considered carefully, since there would be many details involved. 

Some members disagreed with the suggestion that the Cabinet, the junta chief or the prime minister could issue a special law or decree to grant amnesty to the people in political conflicts. They said the amnesty issue should be left up to the National Reform Council. 

However, many CDC members agreed with an idea of having a working committee to promote national reconciliation, the source said. 

The committee would be an entity or semi-independent unit under Parliament to study and explore ways for reconciliation and conflict prevention, Kamnoon said. 

The committee should work for five to 10 years to achieve its mission, he said.

The new committee, if any, must automatically dissolve the other committees for reconciliation set up by a PM’s Office order in 2007.

According to Khamnoon, CDC chief Borwornsak Uwanno told the members that reform and reconciliation are equally important. The constitution needs to address these two issues in a chapter. The chapter would also include reform to reduce social inequality and create fairness for people, he said. 

Conciliation, however, is the urgent atmosphere necessary for the country, he said. 

“If we have the flu, we can take just Tamiflu, but if we also have a fever, we need Tylenol – a fever killer,” Khamnoon quoted Borwornsak as saying, but did not elaborate on the metaphor.