Opportunities lost under NCPO rule: academics

Marking the third anniversary of the coup, the Thai Academic Network for Civil Rights held a press briefing to elaborate on the opportunities they felt Thailand had lost since the military took power.
Bandit Chanrotchanakit, a political science lecturer from Chulalokongkorn Unviersity, said freedom of expression had significantly decreased under the junta’s rule. 
The order banning political gatherings of five or more people, for instance, has put pressure on attempts at public scrutiny of the NCPO’s performance, he said. 
“From activists’ attempts to visit Rajabhakti Park to observe any irregularities to movements [critical to the then-charter draft] on the referendum, they [participants] were all suspended by the NCPO,” Bandit said. “Even reporters and lawyers on these cases were prosecuted for breaking the junta order,” he added.
A climate of fear has even been cast over private conversations online, especially on subjects related to lese majeste, the lecturer said, adding, “This kind of atmosphere has discouraged rational and civilised discussion.”
The NCPO, during one period, also equipped a military court to prosecute civilians on claims of “so-called” national security and sedition, while the swift use of power under Article 44 in the now-defunct interim constitution is still authorised in enforcing the charter, also suppressing people’s different opinions in many cases, he argued.
Such “scenes” have resulted in a lost opportunity for the country to develop a democratic society, which “also makes the NCPO’s claim of building reconciliation and unity nearly impossible,” he added.
Pichit Likitkijsomboon, an economics lecturer from Thammasat University, said Thailand had also lost significant economic opportunity during the military-led government’s time in power. 
For example, economic growth decelerated to 2-3 per cent annually from 2014 to 2016, from a period of annual growth of 4-5 per cent from 1998 to 2013, he said.
Export growth also shrank, from 9 per cent to minus 2 per cent per year from 2013 to 2016, while private investment dropped from 11.8 per cent in 2013 to minus 0.8 in 2014 and minus 2.2 per cent in 2015, before increasingly by just 1.8 per cent last year, he said at the press briefing.
Thailand also received less foreign direct investment during the period, declining from US13 billion (Bt447 billion) in 2013 – when it was second only to Singapore in Asean – to $2.55 billion in 2016, placing the Kingdom fifth in the region, he added.
Decharat Sukkamnard, an economics lecturer at Kasetsart University, said the NCPO, through its Article 44 orders, had deprived the public of participation in the deliberation of resource-management issues that could have an effect on local communities.
For instance, he said, Article 44 orders had allowed around 50 waste-to-energy plants to emerge, many of them located nearby local households, without environmental impact assessments being undertaken beforehand. 
The junta has also pressed forward on planned coal-fired power plant and infrastructure projects, with the military obstructing people from attending discussions about such matters, he said.
The NCPO head – Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha – has also on many occasions appeared to speak against human values, especially those of lower-income people, Decharat claimed. 
“For example, he said that low-income people should ‘know their place’ and ‘get up on their feet’,” the lecturer said.
“He was also insulting [in saying] that ‘gardeners and farmers’ do not have enough knowledge about democracy, not counting the fact that he compared women to toffies, suggesting that they should be ‘properly wrapped’, or dressed, to stay attractive,” the academic added.
Public welfare, especially on healthcare and education, should also be closely watched under the junta’s rule, he suggested. 
The NCPO is curbing the employment quota of nurses in the public sector, while definitions of education are also altered in the current charter, he argued. 
“Under this Constitution, people tend to have less independence to manage their own educational approach,” he said. “The NCPO’s thinking on welfare is very centralised, that people gradually become mere recipients of public service.”