The coup master

General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Thailand’s new military dictator, has the reputation of a staunch royalist hardliner who has tried to recast himself as a more moderate figure since taking charge of the country’s powerful army.

A senior commander at the time of the military’s killings of “red shirt” protesters occupying parts of Bangkok in 2010, his relations with the red-backed government elected the following year appeared to have been improving — until now.

While he has portrayed himself as a reluctant intervener in the latest, near seven-month spasm of Thailand’s long-running political crisis, some analysts say his record shows a man sympathetic to the ideas of opposition demonstrators campaigning to topple the elected administration.

“There’s no doubt General Prayuth has good intentions, as all Thais do — we all want to get out of this mess,” said Kaewmala, an online political and social commentator. “But coups have added to the country’s problems rather than solving them. The majority’s will has been repeatedly subverted.”

General Prayuth seized power in Thailand’s 12th coup in 82 years, late on Thursday, during the second afternoon of inconclusive talks with politicians from all sides about resolving a deadlock in which the government insisted on elections and the opposition wanted to install an unelected junta to rule the country.

In a slickly co-ordinated series of moves, the general announced he was taking charge, had his troops round up the politicians and conveniently corralled into one room, and then headed off to declare on television that he was launching a coup “for society to love and be at peace again”.

His actions underlined the total authority wielded by a career soldier from the army’s powerful “Eastern Tigers” faction — named for its base near the Cambodian border and now dominant in a military loyal to King Bhumibol Adulaydej, the monarch of almost 68 years.

General Prayuth, 60, had also been an important figure in the 2006 coup against Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former premier who is at the heart of the current political strife.

General Prayuth was part of the army’s inner circle in 2010 when it launched an operation to eject pro-Thaksin red-shirt protesters from parts of Bangkok, killing scores of them.

Proclaiming neutrality

While he and other military officers have always denied they did anything wrong, human rights activists say there has never been a proper investigation or accountability for a massacre that deepened Thailand’s divisions.

The general became army chief later in 2010 and appeared to launch an effort to build bridges, visiting the families of dead red-shirt protesters and developing a rapport with Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, who was elected prime minister in 2011.

Once opposition street protests against Yingluck’s government began in November last year, General Prayuth responded to demonstrators’ pleas for him to intervene by proclaiming his neutrality, but occasionally suggesting that a coup was not entirely off the table.

A press conference addressed by General Prayuth, after his declaration of martial law late last week, revealed a tough talker who even edged his humour with a sense of menace. Speaking about the sweeping powers of detention, seizure and search that the military enjoyed, he pledged not to violate human rights “too much”. Asked if there would be a curfew, he replied: “Do you want one? How about a curfew for the press?”

The general’s supporters insist he did not set off Thailand’s latest turmoil lightly, but acted with the Royal Thai Army’s historic duty to the king, country and people in mind. He was under competing pressures and stress in the run-up to this week, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Analysts say one reason for General Prayuth to hesitate was tensions between pro and anti-red shirt factions in the military itself, in spite of an earlier purge of some pro-Thaksin officers.

Almost half the 245,000-strong army is made up of conscripts, who are disproportionately likely to come from pro-Thaksin poor rural northern strongholds, rather than middle class, urban opposition areas, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

“There are many views among the officer corps and among the soldiers about the way Thailand should go,” said Tim Huxley, executive director at the IISS’s Asian arm, speaking just before the coup. “There are dangers a heavy direct intervention could divide them.”

As his retirement loomed later this year, General Prayuth could have chosen to see out his final few months quietly and then enjoy the kudos and financial rewards available to the former senior military officers that pepper Thailand’s corporate boardrooms.

He chose, instead, to take over his country, a man who has seen first-hand the disastrous aftermath of the previous coup — but seems confident that he can do better.

— Financial Times