Thailand army chief declares martial law
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s powerful military chief intervened Tuesday for the first time in the country’s latest political crisis, declaring martial law and dispatching gun-mounted jeeps into the heart of the capital with a vow to resolve the deepening conflict as quickly as possible.
The move stopped short of a coup and left the nation’s increasingly cornered caretaker government intact, along with the constitution.
Despite a steady stream of army edicts throughout the day that expanded the military’s power and included censorship of news and social media, life continued normally, with residents largely unfazed by the declaration. But the intervention, which follows six months of crippling protests that killed 28 people and injured more than 800, left the country at another precarious crossroads — its fate now squarely in the hands of the military.
“The key going forward will be the military’s role in politics,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “If they play the role of enforcer of law and order and even mediator ... this could be a resolution to the impasse.”
But if they don’t, “we can expect protests and turmoil from the losing side.”
Thailand, an economic hub for Southeast Asia whose turquoise waters and idyllic beaches are a world tourist destination, has been gripped by off-and-on political turmoil since 2006, when former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was toppled by a military coup after being accused of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect for Thailand’s king.
His overthrow triggered a power struggle that in broad terms pits Thaksin’s supporters among a rural majority against a conservative establishment in Bangkok.
The army action came a day after Thailand’s caretaker prime minister refused to step down, resisting pressure from a group of senators calling for a new interim government with full power to conduct political reforms.
Although soldiers entered multiple television stations to broadcast the army message, life in this vast skyscraper-strewn metropolis of 10 million people and the rest of the country remained largely unaffected, with schools, businesses and tourist sites open and traffic flowing normally. Near one of Bangkok’s most luxurious shopping malls, bystanders stopped to snap smiling “selfies” of themselves with armed soldiers in jeeps and Humvees.