Reconciliation body dominated by military and state officials

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha on Monday night signed an order to appoint members of four committees under one umbrella covering reform, reconciliation, and national strategy.
Each of the four committees – the national strategy preparation committee, reform preparation committee, reconciliation preparation committee and strategic administration committee – will be chaired by Prayut, with one or two deputy PMs as vice chairman. Most members of the four committees are ministers, state officials, and the president and vice president of National Legislative Assembly and National Reform Steering Assembly.
Some “outsiders” will sit on the reconciliation preparation committee which is the biggest with 33 members. It will be overseen by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, and includes military top-brass and chiefs of security agencies.
The five outsiders are former charter writers Sujit Boonbongkarn and Anek Laothamatas; Panitan Wattanayagorn, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of political science and an adviser to Prawit; Suthibhand Chirathivat, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of economics, and former Supreme Commander General Boonsang Niampradit. They were appointed as advisers and members of the committee.
Anek was chairman of now-defunct National Reform Council committee on studies for national reconciliation while Boonsang was commander of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor.
Earlier, 85-year-old Prawase Wasi, an influential social critic who played an important role in the setting up of several development agencies, and Kanit Na Nakorn, veteran former chairman of the Truth for Reconciliation Commission, which independently investigated deadly political violence in 2010, reportedly declined to sit on the reconciliation preparation committee.
Prayut said Prawase could not sit as the member but would |send his representative to help instead.