FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Rival banners still wave on the battlefield

Rival banners still wave on the battlefield

Thanks to our disputed draft charter, reconciliation is a lost cause

Comments made over the weekend by politicians in rival camps served to confirm that the ruling military junta has failed utterly in its ambition to bring about reconciliation in our deeply divided land.
Suthep Thaugsuban, once deputy prime minister in the Democrat administration of Abhisit Vejjajiva, now chairman of the Great Mass of People’s Foundation for Thailand’s Reform, applauded the document drawn up by the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC), which is headed for a national referendum.
Jatuporn Prompan, speaking on behalf of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), which he chairs, flatly 
rejected the draft charter. 
The yellow flag and the red flag are still fluttering on opposite sides of the battlefield.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has always maintained that he led the military coup of May 2014 in order to end a political crisis in which opposing groups were poised to launch a heavily armed civil war. He blamed the politicians for the country’s dire state, with tensions boiling and the economy reeling. The military, he said, was reluctant but forced to seize control of the situation to avert worse violence and find a means of reconciling the combatants.
The two ensuing years have indeed been relatively peaceful – by dint of military threat – but there has been not a glimmer of reconciliation. Instead we have seen the junta using double standards in its treatment of the two rival groups. Suthep and his group have enjoyed full freedom of expression – and invariably use it to support the generals – while the UDD and others who have challenged authoritarian rule have been harassed, arrested and “detained for attitude adjustment”.
Scholars and diplomats around the world have asserted that Thailand’s military coups, particularly since 2006, have not in fact had reconciliation as a goal. Instead, it’s been averred, the coups have been the means by which the elite establishment consolidates power, silences critics and gets rid of enemies. Little heed is paid to the damage these military interventions wreak on the rule of law and democratic values, especially human rights. 
It is difficult to reject out of hand allegations that Suthep, who as head of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee sought to overthrow the democratically elected Yingluck Shinawatra government, shared that goal with Prayut ahead of the 2014 coup. Now we have Suthep expressing supreme satisfaction with the junta’s draft charter. “The preamble states clearly that the country is to be ruled under a true democratic system, not just a superficial form of democracy,” he said this weekend.
Hours later the UDD leadership formally objected to the draft, using the opportunity to criticise the generals for suppression. “If Suthep can [hold a political press conference], we can too,” Jatuporn declared. “We have asked for permission to do this many times, but we were never allowed.” The only “permission” Jatuporn has ever won from the military was to spend days in Army camps on several occasions being berated for criticising the junta. He and others who challenge military might have been cowed to silence this way, while Suthep and others who welcome military rule have been allowed to speak their minds freely.
The generals clearly have no patience for hearing opposing views, and thus the new constitution has been drafted without essential debate. Ultimately, for lack of alternatives views, the average voter will have no choice but to endorse the draft when it comes to referendum in August.
It is appalling for a country that has for decades enjoyed an enviable level of freedom and democracy to now hold a referendum on its most important law tract with critics gagged, discussion suppressed and citizens denied the basic right to exchange opinions.
This new charter, presuming it will pass, will be “the constitution of the victor” rather than “the constitution of the people”. It will legitimise the seizure of power by force and demean the spirit of democracy by denying the popular mandate. The country as a whole will be among the vanquished.
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