By Rob Edens
Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s approach to Southeast Asia’s migrant crisis cannot be allowed to continue.
Since 1932, there have been 18 military coups that have overthrown the ruling Thai governments. In 2014, Thailand experienced its 19th led by General Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Prayuth’s latest junta with its accompanied National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) toppled Yingluck Shinawatra and her extended clan on grounds of corruption, disrespecting the monarchy, and not uniting or bringing prosperity to the Thai people. But this military clampdown on dissenting political figures is rather a seizure of absolute power lending itself to a military dictatorship. What was supposed to be a caretaker cabinet to accelerate a democratic transition, purging the ill affected from governing over the Thai people, the new moral “soldier with a democratic heart” has thwarted freedoms, civil liberties, and any opposition through fear and silence.
His roadmap to a new democracy mirrors itself to an antiquated authoritarianism. The absence of accountability or oversight mechanisms on Prayuth’s actions allows the junta to pass new laws such as the banning of public gatherings (no more than five to a group), the cancelling of political events and academic panels, the blocking of more than 200 websites, pulling off air satellite TV and radio stations that broach political discourse, along with print media that voice similar commentary, all in the name of threatening national security. Further depressing democratic freedoms, civilian courts have been replaced with military courts for many offenses, which do not tend to observe international fair trial standards. After publishing five Facebook posts confronting the new governing junta, or rather, “threatening national security,” a citizen received a 50-year prison sentence (25 years once he pleaded guilty) for this “lèse-majesté” offense. And with the new election date continuously being pushed back, the NCPO’s and military authorities’ unchecked powers will unceasingly repress fundamental social rights for its citizens. The case has become even worse for migrants and victims of human trafficking.
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