Speaking on Dateline on SBS ONE, journalist, blogger and Thailand expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall gave his thoughts on the coup and developing political crisis.
“There were generals woodenly addressing the camera, television programs were knocked off the air, replaced by military music. This kind of thing is out of the playbook of the 1970s and 1960s,” he says. “In the 21st century, it remains to be seen if a coup like this can really work.”
He believes Thailand has changed significantly since the last coup in 2006, but the leaders haven’t moved with the times.
“Thailand is a very elitist society - ordinary people have always done what they're told. That's completely changed over the past decade or so and ordinary Thais now are much more aware of their rights and they don't want to lose their rights. So we're going to see them resisting this coup probably more than any other coup has been resisted in history.”
“We have social media, Facebook, Twitter, and the generals in charge just don't know how to cope with this. They're dinosaurs from a Cold War era. For all of these reasons, they're already struggling to control the protests and this is only likely to worsen.”
Andrew can no longer return to Thailand after publishing controversial stories on the Thai monarchy, but his sources tell him that there are significant splits within the army itself.
“The top ranks are mainly in favour of what's going on, but at the lower levels, many thousands of ordinary soldiers come from poor backgrounds, their own families are against this coup, and unlike in past generations these soldiers I think can be very unwilling to open fire on their own people like the Thai military has often done in the past.”
“So the military itself has slipped and that's another dangerous factor we could see here. We could see some kind of civil war emerging in Thailand. That remains a worst-case scenario, but it's no longer inconceivable.”
He also says Thailand needs to move into the 21st Century to stop this happening again.
“At every past coup that we've seen in Thai history, the people who are behind it have got away without punishment, even those who have opened fire on their own people.”
“So Thailand has been caught in a kind of time warp, history goes round and round in circles in Thailand. The country never moves forward because democratic institutions have never been allowed to flourish.”
Watch the full interview with Andrew MacGregor Marshall above, and read more on the Dateline website.
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