By John Sifton
It’s been one year since Thailand’s coup, and there are no signs of democracy’s return.
If Thai military junta leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha was a movie character, film reviewers would likely find his role crude and implausible. Ham-fisted, impetuous, and almost comically unaware of how his own words make him seem unhinged, Prayuth seems like a stereotypical dictator from central casting. Since seizing power in a coup one year ago this week, Prayuth has ruled Thailand as a coarsely crafted despot: threatening and arresting dissidents and critics and offering up strings of inaccurate, frightening, and often self-contradicting statements to justify his actions.
There was no coup, according to Prayuth’s spokesmen. Thais are completely free. “You want freedom,” Prayuth said in March, “I gave you freedom. Everything. I never forbid anything.”
Detainees making allegations about torture are lying-in jail they only suffered mosquito bites. Critics are not being detained-Thais held incommunicado in military camps have been “invited” to meetings to “calm down” and “adjust” their “attitudes.” Since May 2014, the junta has detained hundreds of politicians, activists, journalists, and others, usually in secret military facilities. Several detainees who have emerged have made credible allegations of torture, including with electricity. Meanwhile, hundreds of people, most of them political dissidents, have been sent to trials in unfair military courts.
But we’re told Prayuth’s military-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is not a junta. Yes, the word junta in Spanish means “council,” which happens to be the second word in the NCPO’s name, and yes, the word junta has been used for well over two centuries to refer to military councils operating in a governance role, as in Thailand now. But the junta thinks it’s not the right word. “One must never use that word, it sounds bad,” said a spokesman.
Democracy is overrated, anyway. “Our country has seen so much trouble because we have had too much democracy,” Gen. Prayuth said at a press conference on March 23. All the same, Prayuth insists he is ruling democratically. “We are 99.99 percent democratic,” Prayuth said at the same event.
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