The new army chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha reckons that the most “urgent mission for the Thai army … isn’t to return peace to the South, but to continue the fight against the red shirts and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.”
As the Bangkok Post reports, today the “agenda for every meeting – starting from the morning briefing at 8:30am – which Gen Prayuth and his ‘big five’ deputies attend, revolve around the red shirt movement, Thaksin, intelligence reports on possible acts of sabotage and how to deploy police and soldiers to maintain internal security. These gatherings do not include the regular meetings at the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) on Tuesdays and Fridays, which normally is dedicated to issues concerning the red shirts.”
Of course, Prayuth is in his position because he is prepared to defend monarchy and the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime and he hates the red shirts. For him, nothing else really matters. He demands that his subordinates work against red shirts and “follow his policies strictly.”
The battle against Thaksin and the red shirts is driven by a royalist fanaticism. How else can Prayuth discount some 4,000 deaths and thousands of other casualties in the south in such a cavalier manner. It may be that his comments may even inflame further violence in the south. The fear of Thaksin has reached absurd levels amongst the royalist elite, and Prayuth’s statement is a clear indication of the position of that elite.
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