Asia-Pacific, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights

POLITICS: Don’t Leave Home Without Your Army Chief

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2006 (IPS) - In the 1960s, when African heads of state from a coup-prone continent headed for international conferences, they routinely took oversized delegations, including the army, navy and air force chiefs.

The service heads were never left at home – primarily to prevent a possible military coup when the head of state was out of town.

Perhaps Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra regretted he did not follow the variation of advice given in a famous credit card commercial: don’t leave home without your army chief – particularly if you are heading a politically-shaky government.

Thaksin was ousted in a bloodless coup led by military leader Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratakalin while the Thai prime minister was at the United Nations to address the 61st session of the General Assembly.

On Monday, there were unconfirmed rumours of a military coup in Pakistan to oust President Pervez Musharraf. But news reports from Islamabad said the rumour was triggered by a power outage which interrupted television broadcasts.

Musharraf, an army general who had himself taken power from an elected leader back in 1999, is travelling in the United States and Canada after addressing the U.N. General Assembly last week.

Asked about Thai representation, Gail Bindley-Taylor Sainte, spokeswoman for the president of the General Assembly, said last week there were two sets of credentials before the United Nations.

“Therefore the (U.N.’s) Credentials Committee will meet, and they will then make a recommendation to the General Assembly as to which credentials will be accepted.”

The committee is expected to decide which regime the United Nations should recognise as being legitimate: the ousted regime of Thaksin or the newly-established Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy (CDRM).

According to one Asian diplomat “the (current) temporary military government has been supported by the King of Thailand, and therefore is seen as being legitimate.”

The Bangkok-based English language daily, The Nation, said Monday that hours before Thaksin was scheduled to address the General Assembly last Wednesday, an official of the CDRM called the Thai Mission to the United Nations instructing that Thaksin “should not be allowed to speak on behalf of Thailand.”

This was an attempt to prevent the ousted prime minister from launching an attack on the coup leaders while seeking international support and sympathy for his government.

As the CDRM moves towards establishing a civilian government in Thailand, the job of interim prime minister has been offered to Supachai Panitchpakdi, a former head of the World Trade Organisation and the current secretary-general of the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.

Supachai, an academic and an economist, is also being mentioned as a possible “compromise candidate” to succeed U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan – if the contest remains deadlocked among the seven declared candidates now in the running. The 15-member U.N. Security Council is scheduled to have a third straw poll on the election of the new secretary-general on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has urged CDRM leaders to ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and reinstate the country’s human rights commission.

“The forcible and unconstitutional replacement of Thailand’s freely-elected government on Sep. 19, the establishment of martial law, the abolition of the 1997 Constitution, the dissolution of Parliament and the Cabinet as well as the disbanding of the Constitutional Court, have raised important human rights concerns,” Arbour said in a statement released Monday.

She said the various decrees issued by the CDRM restrict a number of basic human rights, such as the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.

Arbour also “expressed concern” over the dismantling of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by the CDRM. She said that Thailand is party to a number of international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

She urged the CDRM to take all necessary measures to ensure that the country’s international obligations are respected and to reinstate the NHRC.

Over the years, Annan has publicly criticised military leaders ousting legitimately elected governments. He has been particularly harsh on African leaders installed after military coups, and strongly supported a move by the African Union (AU) to refuse recognition to such leaders and barring them from AU summit meetings.

Some of the world leaders who came to power following coups include Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Guinea’s Lansana Conte and Sudan’s Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir.