Royalist hangers-on join in increasingly nasty attacks on Nitirat

When the military boss barks, the royalists hangers-on get in on the act too. In the case of this op-ed in the Bangkok Post, it is the royalist Veera Prateepchaikul getting in on the coattails of the leader and the yellow shirt social media.

Over the past several years we have pointed to Veera’s op-eds. In April 2009 we pointed out that, like the deeply yellow-shirted media, Veera was calling for “protection” for General Prem Tinsulanonda from red shirt criticism. He got angrier on this in November 2009. Also in that year, in September, he called for more watchful control of the media (to prevent Thaksin Shinawatra getting airtime). He’s also had a record of accusations of disloyalty against (guess who?) red shirts and calling for the use of “pre-emptive” action against them while applauding the use of draconian emergency security laws. And, of course, he’s been supportive of every other royalist attacking “the enemy,” including defending the demonstrably corrupt judiciary. Readers are sure to get the picture.

Hence it is no surprise that this compromised writer would want to join in the attack on Nitirat. He does it like one of those gutless kids who is a hanger-on with bullies who slips in when the one being bullied has already been knocked down.

He begins by noting that the big boys have already thrown verbal punches at the Nitirat academics, claiming that they have “overstepped the line and provoked uproar among the military and within pro-monarchy academia.”

His problem is that the Nitirat group came up with a proposal that the head of state – the king – “take an oath before the parliament to protect the constitution.” PPT would have thought this a reasonable proposal in a country where there has been little attention to constitution by either the military or the king.

He goes on to cite “the most vociferous critics is Dr Bovorksak Uwanno of King Prachadhipok Institute, who targeted Dr Vorajate.” Bowornsak is meant to be a senior legal scholar but according to Veera, Bowornsak engages in nasty personal attack:

He said that as a recipient of a King Anand scholarship, Dr Vorajate should have taken an oath himself, that he would not be ungrateful to the King who bestowed the scholarship on him. The scholarship made it possible for Vorajate to finish his PhD in law in Germany, Dr Bovorksak pointed out.

So much for scholarly debate. So let us suggest that Bowornsak should probably have a doctorate in academic prostitution. This is a shameless man who has sold himself to several governments and privy councilors. And, yes, he is an academic defender of lese majeste whose arguments are shot through with error and he sounds more like propagandist than scholar. His account of lese majeste was corrected by the Dutch ambassador.

Even before that, another member of the Nitirat group suggested that His Majesty the King should not be allowed to address the public.

The Nitirat group is in favour of amending or totally scrapping the lese majeste law, or Secton 112 of the Criminal Code, claiming that it is undemocratic, obsolete and goes against free expression.

Veera gets going again and compares his version of Nitirat’s proposals as reminding him of “the Soviet Union under Stalin…”.  Yes folks, Stalin. Boy, he must have had to really dig into his bucket of smears to come up with that one!

And who does Veera call on for support in dismissing Nitirat? Not Stalin, but Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung. Adding in big boss General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Veera proceeds to dub Nitirat’s proposal that a head of state should vow to uphold the constitution as “outrageous.”In case readers missed it, Veera repeats that it is an “outrageous, insulting and stupid suggestion…”. Simply unacceptable he says.

PPT can only wonder why Veera and his ilk should think the proposal so hopeless and unacceptable that they need to spend so much time on it. If it was such a hopeless idea, wouldn’t it just fade away?

We can only repeat from an earlier post: Why is this set of proposals so threatening? Are the foundations of the whole royalist regime so weak that a set of proposals threatens to bring the whole thing crashing down? Perhaps the the system is weaker than we would have guessed.

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