Thai junta going the Burma way?

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Marwaan Macan-Markar from Bangkok
Thailand's junta leader, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin, is in danger of inviting comparisons with military strongmen in neighbouring Burma, where successive generals have refused to transfer power to a civilian administration for decades.
Suspicions have been triggered by the vague language Sonthi used while explaining his political future beyond a general election scheduled to be held at the end of the year. A debate is now swirling in the press and in university circles here about the political ambitions of the country's army chief, who came to power following a coup last September, the country's 18th putsch.
''He could have ruled out all speculation that he wants to be made the prime minister after the poll by simply saying no to the job,'' Michael Nelson, a German academic specialising in Thai political culture, told IPS. ''By being evasive, he is showing that he entertains the idea that he want to jump into politics.''
''This is making people jittery about the true intentions of the coup, which was to return power back to the people,'' he added. ''It seems like an effort by the army to regain lost glory after its powers and prestige was reduced in the late 1990s.''
''Sonthi came under fire from critics and allies alike on Sunday for playing games and planning a return to power by the people,'' reports Tuesday's edition on 'The Nation', an English-language daily. ''It follows fresh speculation that he will run in the next general elections under a new political party backed by the army.''
Burma's military generals, who have held power since a 1962 coup, are in the process of getting a new constitution approved by a military-appointed constitutional assembly. Following that, a referendum will be held in that South-east Asian nation. But this charter has language that aims to cement the military's power in the country as an over-arching force, consequently undermining pledges made by the Burmese junta that the constitution will usher in democracy and give power to the people.
The prospect of Sonthi succumbing to the 'Burma syndrome' has been fed by Thailand's new charter, approved by a military-appointed, constitution-drafting assembly earlier this month. This document, Thailand's 18th constitution since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932, is to face a referendum in mid-August.
''Although the regime in Thailand has been at pains throughout to deny comparisons being made between it and its counterpart in neighbouring Burma, it is increasingly difficult to avoid them,'' argued the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in a statement released over the weekend. ''In Burma too the junta is putting the finishing touches on a constitution that has the purpose of cementing the role of the military in state affairs for years to come and ensure the continued impunity of senior officers for any alleged wrongdoing.''
''It is by now clear that if the referendum is passed and the bogus draft constitution brought into law it will return Thailand to a 1980s model of elite-bureaucratic government under military guidance,'' added the Hong Kong-based non-governmental body. ''If it is not, the military regime reserves the right to pick and amend any of the country's previous constitutions in its stead. In either case, the generals have already taken steps to ensure that their presence will again be felt heavily throughout Thailand for many years to come.''
Analysts like Thitinan Pongsudhirak say that the junta has spent the last nine months ''gradually institutionalising the military's role in politics'' to ensure that the it ''remains as a body with influence after the parliamentary elections.''
Consequently, the coup leaders are shredding the compliments the military were showered with last year for driving from power former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra through the putsch, said Thitinan, who is the director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
''The statements then that it was a good coup have become a myth.''
Of particular concern, he explained in an interview, were the ''subtle and sophisticated ways'' in which the junta has been shaping its political agenda, often doing so ''within the law'' to avoid overt criticism.
The dramatic spike in the military budget is a case in point, where defence spending has gone up by 66 percent in the two national budgets presented to the country's army-appointed parliament since last year's coup. The defence bill for the 2007-2008 budget is 4.5 billion US dollars.
As alarming to human rights groups is the junta's move to resurrect a security law that was used during the Cold War to go after members of the Communist Party of Thailand and others deemed enemies of the state. The Internal Security Act, which the junta wants passed by the members of the parliament that it appointed, is ''the key measure to re-establish the Army as a government within government,'' noted a respected commentator who writes under the pseudonym 'Chang Noi' in Monday's edition of 'The Nation'.
''What the law does is give massive new powers to the army chief,'' adds Chang Noi. ''It make him in many ways more powerful than the prime minister, and not answerable to anyone.''
If approved, the act will see the return of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC).
Among the powers at this military-run agency's disposal would be to ban public assemblies, block roads, detain suspects for up to 30 days without any charges, hold people deemed threats to national security, conduct searches on premises without any warrants, confine people to house arrests, and seize and confiscate anything considered suspicious.
But the Thai military will not have a free run with such plans, says Thanet Aphornsuvan, assistant professor of history at Bangkok's Thammasat University. ''They will be aware of what happened in 1992.
They will probably want to follow the public mood before making a decision; even Gen. Sonthi's plans to become the prime minister.''
That year saw a bloody showdown between the military and a pro-democracy movement on the streets of Bangkok, resulting in over 40 deaths and over 100 people going missing. It came after Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, who had come to power through a coup the previous year, refused to hand over authority to a civilian government following a general election.
He took on the role of prime minister with the support of five political parties after resigning in April 1992 as the supreme commander-in-chief and head of the military.
IPS