Army chief shouldn't be commenting on politics

Grant considers me as “that stalwart defender of his own concept of democracy” and “our self-appointed champion of democracy”. I must consider that as a compliment but democracy is not a matter of opinion, as stated. It is a matter of fact. 

Democracy is a form of gov-ernment controlled by laws. Democracy once established creates political stability, but conversely, where there is polit-ical instability, there is no democracy. This is the situation in Thailand where the vote itself is considered as being democracy regardless of the resulting system of govern-ment.

Grant has clearly not under-stood my comment referring to General Prayuth Chan-Ocha’s remark that was, in effect, that to remove his boss, the PM and defence minister, from office would be wrong. That was a political statement and outside his remit as chief of an apoliti-cal institution. 

The point is the general should not intervene in politi-cal issues either verbally or actively. The military should protect the interests of the peo-ple if threatened with armed violence from whatever source. That is not political and neither is the current situation, which is a struggle to establish a dem-ocratic basis for governance by eradicating corruption, which is supported with the use of armed violence. That’s a moral issue. There is no “outrage” on my part, simply sound reason-ing.

J C Wilcox

Bangkok