By Lynn Sasinpong

Last week, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha rejected the proposal for a blanket amnesty bill aimed at political reconciliation. This idea came from an earlier suggestion by Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan’s former assistant, Paisal Puechmongkol, that the Prawit-led Palang Pracharath Party may advocate for such a bill. 

 

Amnesty–the use of legal measures to retroactively bar the criminal (and sometimes civil) liability of an individual or a certain group of individuals for a specific crime that they have committed–is no stranger in Thailand. From Prime Minister Prem Tinsulandonda’s executive order granting amnesty to communist cadres in the 1980’s to Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon’s amnesty decree following the Black May incident in 1992, Thailand’s generals-turned-prime ministers have employed amnesty laws, orders, and decrees as a purported means of moving the country on from conflict.

 

It is not unique to that side of the political spectrum. Under the administration of the democratically-elected civilian Prime Minister Yingluck Shinwatra, the Pheu Thai Party proposed a controversial amnesty bill in 2013 that would allow the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra–a polarising figure convicted on charges of corruption. This had led to a period of great turmoil whereupon tens of thousands had taken to the streets in protest and eventually led to the 2014 coup d’état.

 

Full story: https://www.thaienquirer.com/48120/amnesty-is-not-thailands-answer/

 

-- © Copyright Thai Enquirer 2023-02-16

 

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So it will be Prawit, when he comes to power as PM, who will pave the way for Thaksin's return.  How interesting.  ????

Hypocrite.

NCPO Chief Prayut took no time in 2014 after his coup to rewrite the 2007 Constitution into the Interim Charter to grant swift amnesty to his coup co-conspirators that included Prawit.

And yet, throughout contemporary history, all these acts and writs require special green lights and mandated blessings that always appear to secure the protection for a particular few.....the influential ones. 

 

The surface politics and militarism are still answering to the entity - as they have for decades upon decades. 

The crux. All the while, most still slumber as to the reality. 

Covering each others backs... barrack room games continue.