BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s all-powerful army chief started
the extraordinary meeting by asking participants to give a progress
report on their "homework."
The participants were the country’s
most important political rivals, plus four Cabinet ministers from the
embattled government, election commissioners and senators. The homework:
solving a crisis so complex it has split the Southeast Asian nation for
nearly a decade, fueling repeated spasms of bloodshed and upheaval.
They
didn’t know it then, but they only had about two hours to figure it all
out. Just after 4:30 p.m. Thursday, the conference room was sealed by
soldiers, and the man who called the meeting, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha,
became Thailand’s new ruler.
Accounts of those pivotal moments at a
military complex in Bangkok known as the Army Club, relayed by two
lawmakers who were present and Thai media, indicate that Prayuth had no
intention of engaging in the kind of protracted negotiation necessary to
mediate a conflict that reignited last year when protesters took to the
streets.
The sequence of events raises questions about whether
the meeting was a ruse to neutralize anyone who might oppose the coup.
The fact it happened so swiftly suggests that Prayuth was already
planning to do what demonstrators had pushed for all along: overthrow
the government, if the two sides could not reach a compromise.
There was never much hope they would.
The
intractable divide plaguing Thailand today is part of an increasingly
precarious power struggle between an elite, army-backed conservative
minority based in Bangkok and the south that can no longer win
elections, and the political machine of exiled ex-Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra and his supporters in the rural north who backed him because
of populist policies such as virtually free health care.
The army
deposed Thaksin in a 2006 coup. And on Friday, it detained his sister,
former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was forced from office
earlier this month by a controversial court verdict of abuse of power,
which she denies.
When Prayuth declared martial law on Tuesday,
the 60-year-old officer insisted he was only trying to restore stability
and force all sides to talk. The next day, he summoned rival factions
and Cabinet officials who had little choice but to show up.
After
that initial two-hour meeting, everyone was told to come back with
proposals to end the crisis, said a lawmaker who attended and spoke to
The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the subject.
Could rival protest groups call off
their demonstrations? Could an interim government be agreed upon? Should
political reform (demanded by protesters) or new elections (demanded by
the government) come first? Could the country hold a referendum on its
fate?
When talks resumed Thursday, the atmosphere was much different.
Participants
were ordered to leave their cellphones outside, more soldiers were on
guard and they were heavily armed. Prayuth opened the meeting, saying
his aim was to bring peace.
"What I’m doing today is in the
interest of security," he said, in a video released by the military’s TV
station. "If this steps over anyone, then I have to apologize. I insist
that I will honor every side, always."
An hour later, there was,
predictably, no agreement on Thailand’s fate, the lawmaker said. The
talks kept returning to a single point: how would the government go?
Former
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the Cabinet could sacrifice for
the nation and resign. Somebody else suggested that the civilian
administration might just "take leave." Others said ministers could step
down one by one, or en masse.
The government officials said "they
couldn’t do it, claiming they were brought to power by the people and
therefore could not step down," said Sirichoke Sopha, a former member of
Parliament from the opposition Democrat Party who was present at the
talks. "We pleaded for them to step back, asking them to sacrifice to
save democracy, because we looked at the situation and it didn’t look
good."
Anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban then held a
private meeting with rival pro-Thaksin leader Jatuporn Prompan. They
spoke, accompanied by aides, for 45 minutes. Afterward, both leaders
whispered with Prayuth in a corner for a brief minute.
When the
meeting resumed, Prayuth asked Justice Minister Chaikasem Nitisiri if
the government was still insisting it would not step down.
"We will not," Chaikasem replied, according to the lawmaker.
Prayuth
then told a representative from the Election Commission not to bother
planning a vote anytime soon because it would be a "long time" before a
ballot could take place. He told representatives of the Senate not to
bother with trying to invoke a constitutional clause they had been
pressing for to appoint an interim prime minister.
And then,
Prayuth stood up and addressed the room. "Sorry. I’m taking power" from
this moment on, he said calmly, according to Sirichoke.
Another
lawmaker who recounted the same narrative of Thursday’s meeting, and
also spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it
was not immediately clear if Prayuth was joking.
But the commander
started heading toward the door and turned back to say: "Stay here …
Don’t leave this room," before walking out and climbing inside the back
of a black Mercedes Benz.
Almost immediately, soldiers poured into
the room and sealed off the exits. Outside, olive-green military trucks
blocked the building’s entrance, trapping everyone inside. Troops with
automatic weapons drawn fanned out and took positions, waving
journalists away.
Suthep, Jatuporn and their entourages were escorted out by soldiers and taken into custody, as were the
four Cabinet ministers.
Half an hour later, TV stations nationwide were forced to broadcast a signal from the military.
A
stern-faced Prayuth suddenly appeared, flanked by the heads of the
armed forces and police, informing his countrymen that the National
Peace and Order Maintaining Council was now in charge.