Coup!
[2:30] Tomorrow (actually today) Sept 20th will be a Government Holiday, All Banks will be closed, including the Stock Market in order to settle things down.
[2:00] Check out this blog http://19sep.blogspot.com/ based on the today’s coup date. Clever fellow, courtesy of Kit
[1:30] Apparently, the elder man from before is Retired Lieutenant-General Prapart Sakuntanak… now who was that lady?
[1:27] Some Thai Guys, photoblog of the scene >>> here
[1:24] Oh, the rep has changed. Coming on to basically say Police & Army should not move unless given orders from the King. The King has power of the PM for now? All Government should operate as normal under the Head of each Deparment except for the Department of Defense, he should report to coup who is controlled by the King – is the King really behind this?
I seriously doubt it would be an action the King would sanction. Just because they said they are loyal to the King doesn’t mean he approves of it or authorizes it.
[01:10] The 1997 Constitution has been revoked… I heard rumors eariler this month that the King thought it was flawed… maybe the King is involved in this? a Pre-Coup to prevent planned-coup by another faction? Possibily……
[12:47] There goes CNN, BBC and all the International cable news channel… now just a matter of getting the Internet down…. I’ll see you guys when Thailand becomes civilized again…
[12:46] Hrm, apparently my friend’s father who’s a House of Rep for Thai Rak Thai has disappeared, along with a few other Reps…. this is touching a little too close to home
[12:45] So this represenative came on TV and basically due the fact that two major political parties – Thai Rak Thai & Democratic party cannot come to civilizied conclusion and thanks to constant escalating protests by the PAD. The Army has taken temporary control of the order of Thailand until the two sides can come to a agreement. He says the Army has no intention of running the country and “will” return the “power” back to the citizens of Thailand as soon as the country is settled. Apparently, the speech was prepared by the Army General Sonthi Boonyaratglin.
[12:43] Side note, guess the Army isn’t smart enough to block the Internet yet…. since they already killed the radio & tv stations… lets see how long it takes for them to figure it out….
[12:30am] Apparently, the “represenative” of Sonthi has stated the are sanctioned by the Royal Family. I seriously doubt the King of Thailand has actually sanctioned this… 10 bucks by the time this over… Sonthi and his faction is going to ousted, deported and exiled from Thailand… its 2006 not 1991/1973
I spoke way too soon.
picture credit > Manager Newspaper
So after recieving 20 text messages all saying the same thing for since 7 o clock “I got inside information, there is going to be a military coup in BKK” from a bunch of friends and elder people. I got my ass out Nung Len and headed home.
Turned on the Thai TV stations…. great – all the stations have happy pictures drawn by children and pictures of the Royal Family with some happy Army music playing…
This is a bad sign…
Turn on CNN…. Tanks rolling around Parliment and Prime Minister house…. Oh crap this is a really bad sign….
Side note, My friend’s comment – “This is 3rd military coup, I’ve been through!” I chuckle a bit.
Oh man… everyone go find the nearest uncle who’s in the Army.
Crazy times in Bangkok…
I can only imagine what the King is thinking at this very moment. Something, to the tune of “What the hell is wrong with the people who have power in this country?” Apparently, they all suffer from meglomania.
Sounds like serious situation over there, hope everyone is safe!
is it like wrong to enjoy this??
well it is history in the making, Kit.
you can either freak out, or be in awe that your part of revolution (for better or worse)
This is pretty heavy, but Thailand has been through far worse and surived the challenge. Although I doubt this has been sanctioned by the King from the beginning, my reaction is that constant references to loyalty to the king is better than the alternative – assuming military rule independently. Calling on support of the King and the people of Thailand is an SOS of sorts, to protect the faction from retribution, but it also means they want to avoid convincing people that the junta is there to stay. This gives the opposition leverage to call for new elections without Thaksin’s interference – ten bucks says the army will attempt to try Thaskin in court for abuse of power to prevent him from being elligibal in the next election, and Thai Rak Thai will put up a new candidate not associated with Thaksin. Just my jut reaction though, I’m still digging through the endless stream of confusing news reports.
I am a Thai citizen in Bangkok and I’d like to point something out. Our king is not behind this coup even His Majesty has legitimized it. Now the power of PM is the coup leader’s (Gen Sonthi), not His Majesty’s. Our king is NOT controlling anything. Foreigners may think this coup is bad for democrary in Thailand but most of Thai people think this is a major improvement in our politics.
Gen. Sondhi went to the palace around 8 pm the night of the coup. The King must’ve given his blessing, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.
Hasn’t Thai Rak Thai, essentially, been dissolved? I’d like to know. If not, then you can be sure that Isaan people will vote for TRT and Thai people will have to go through several more years of TRT-domination.
I’m glad Thaksin’s out!!
Most of Thai people glad to have brave people as Gen.Sothi and team who help of this situation and no any bloody on Sept 19. We all Thais know well of our country situation and we are Thais know what’s we are and we don’t care other countries thinking due to our peaceful country and the land of smile are the most important of our happy life here. We have to keep up with to do good like our King devoted to us more than 60 years then we all survival.
I think more than anything, the West seems to be confused.
Blessing, perhaps. It may have been his only choice though, to avoid bloodshed. The King certainly is not “behind” the coup, he has repeatedly tried to avoid allowing the Thai government to rely on his authorization for constitutional questions, and seems to have attempted to reduce his own influence in politics. Unfortunately, I think in this case the King had no choice but to support the coup, the lesser of two evils, in order to preserve democracy in Thailand. The anti-Thaksin movements were so pronounced, a revolution in some form was inevitable – i’m glad all of the guns are on one side.
I feel dissolving the TRT is impossible, and undemocratic, but removing Thaksin is positive. He was a blemish in Thailand’s improving history of democratic and peaceful civilian rule.
I wish the best to the Thai people.
I totally disagree with the coup. The coup leader said later that they do this to promote democracy in Thailand. I think this is very unreasonable explanation. The first thing they did after bringing the troops into Bangkok is to throw away the constitution. Yes. the coup got support from majority of middle class people in Bangkok who had long been trying to oust Thaksin’s cabinet. While there is no chance for those lower class people to speak out their opinions. IMO, Thaksin is the best ever PM in Thailand history. He established village fund, national health insurance system and supported rural economic system etc. Most of his policies are directly to the poor. Recently, he also launched the anti-poverty program. That’s why he won the last election with a wide margin i.e. 16 millions for him and 10 millions against. Currently, I can’t state my anti-coup opinion elsewhere in the websites in Thailand. Many of my post got deleted by the moderators. Can you call this democracy? They make me shut up by using military weapons. There are many corruption allegations directly to Thaksin’s cabinet. Well, they certainly deserve to be probed. And, the coup leader is trying to go on this. On the contrary, one of the major corruption problem in the country is in the defence ministry by ranking military officers. Why not do this? How clean they are I wonder. I’m not sure what many middle class people have in their minds. Fourteen years ago, the constitution written by the (military) National Peace Keeping Council allowed to have appointed PM. The pro-democracy group was fighting for elected PM which led to “May massacre” event. Many died and many still absent. This led to the resignation of the PM appointed by the chief NPKC later. Today people make a U-turn on this. They welcome the intrusion of military power as if they can’t remember the tragic events. Now the mastermind of the coup is trying to appoint someone to be the PM. If I don’t like this PM, what can I do? For elected PM, If found guilty or corruption, I would be against him in the next election. Most of middle class people in Thailand are not strict to any rules, laws even the constitution. They don’t concern the long term effect. What they want is to oust Thaksin by all means even breaking laws, this’s very sad to me and I feel sorry for those who lost their lives for democracy in many events.
Thaksin has personal assets up to 60,000 declared 20 years ago. He himself borrowed money in building a satellite while at that time, mobile phone was not popular. The total corrupted money declared by this coup is 10 times less than his personal assets in the stock exchange. CTX money is just 1.4 billion while his long ago asset is 60 billion, for example. So it will be unfair for him to lose all of his personal, legal money for the cheated money during his Administration. To be fair for him and his family, the coup should just ask him to pay compensations for the loss he made from his failure to control corruption.
People glad with this coup are only anti-Thaksin group which is allowed to express their feeling. This is while those who support Thaksin don’t; they cannot even express their ideas. Election is a right way to judge which group is the right majority. I voted for him at the recent election judged later by feeling invalid for alleged vote buying. I myself urged one of my friends with anti-Thaksin ideas to vote and judge which group is the right majority. This friend refused, claming vote buying without considering that I myself, her own friend, want to vote for Thaksin.
Bangkok and DD, this is what I suspected. The Western world is not being exposed to your opinions. The mainstream media is only reporting a “peaceful coup” and calling it good news. I think they are doing this because any negative news has the potential to damage the Thai (and World) economy. Unfortunately, the longer voices like yours are suppressed the more likely a violent civil dispute is to erupt. I hope General Sonthi and the Thai army has enough sense to realize this!!!