PM's Office Minister marks 1973 anniversary

PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE Minister ML Panadda Diskul represented Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday in honouring demonstrators who died fighting against military dictatorship during the October 14, 1973 uprising.

Panadda laid flowers at the October 14 Memorial at Bangkok’s Khok Wua intersection in the morning. He said that though the incident occurred 41 years ago, its pictures still epitomised students demanding rights and liberty with the expectation of a just democratic system.

Panadda praised the “martyrs” who fought against the Thanom Kittikachorn and Prapas Charusathien military dictatorship in 1973. He urged people to create a constructive democracy by joining hands to reform Thailand in order to realise a “full democracy”.

He said Thailand did not need a “divisive democracy” but one that would lead to progress. He said people should honour those who sacrificed for their country and the spirit of democracy must be continued.

Amara Pongsapich, chairwoman of the National Human Rights Commission, said democracy alone without caring for society was insufficient. “There were military coups in 2006 and 2014 and we are now in the middle of building a democracy,” said Amara, adding that the spirit of October 14, 1973, lived on.

Amid religious rites and alms offered to monks, representatives included those from the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the Thammasat University students’ organisation, the Democrat Party, relatives of the October 14, 1973, martyrs and others. The event was held amid strict police security.

A seminar at Thammasat Univer-sity also commemorated the uprising of 1973 – with ideas floated by some members of the NLA, including a new election law not requiring parliamentary candidates to belong to any political party.

NLA member Kamnoon Sidhisa-marn said that would prevent big business from dominating political parties. He also proposed there should be no requirement for a future prime minister to be an elected member of Parliament.

Kamnoon said Thailand had been trapped over the past 41 years with no progress made when it came to democratisation. He stressed, however, that the community had not looked to military dictatorship as its political system – but it must also say no to parliamentary dictatorship through a capitalist-run political party that was the cause of the military coup.

The attention of others at the seminar revolved around how to prevent domination by big political parties and how to tackle corruption.

Manit Suksomjit, another NLA member and senior editor at the Thai Rath newspaper, said Thailand had never enjoyed genuine democracy and now the current reform initiative before the unelected assembly was a good opportunity.

He said the judicial system must be made reliable and the education system improved. People, said Manit, must learn to understand democracy “correctly” and use their liberty “appropriately”.

As for the mass media, Manit said they had been blamed for feeding the public nonsense and called for greater critical scrutiny of the media by the public.

Manit said many administrations had unduly exercised influence over the media by spending money to buy advertisements.

Anek Laothamatas, dean of Rangsit University’s Social Innova-tion College, urged the NLA to listen to all groups, including non-governmental organisations and academics.