Lies and lies

When you repeatedly lie others come to the conclusion that everything you say is likely laced with untruths. So it is with the military’s top brass.

Readers will recall that the military recently abducted Nattathida Meewangpla, who was a witness to murders by soldiers at a Bangkok temple during the 2010 crackdown on red shirt protesters. The junta’s spokesman denied that the military could possibly have been involved. Within just a few hours, the military handed her over to police. One lie demonstrated.

Remarkably, The Dictator, General Prayuth Chan-ocha then demonstrated his disdain for the intelligence or Thais and/or demonstrated his own thick-headedness by saying that the military hadn’t arrested her, just invited her to join them in what we might describe as their secret abduction headquarters. A second lie.

Then, having “invited” her, and then not charged her with anything, the brass quickly arranged for her to be slapped with both “terrorism” and lese majeste charges. We count that as lie number three.

Three lies over one abduction-arrest is a relatively low count if one considers the thousands of lies the military has told involving the tens of thousands of citizens it has abducted, tortured, disappeared and murdered over several decades. Of course, the lies are unnecessary because the military has impunity from prosecution in these instances of violence.

So when Army boss General Udomdej Sitabutr gets all huffy and puffy because the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights Center claims the military tortured four men arrested as part of an alleged “terrorism network” plotting bomb attacks in Bangkok or of having carried them out, and then produces photographic evidence seeming to back up the claim, we wonder about his counter claims.

Army boss, the suspiciously dark-haired General Udomdej “has threatened to take legal action against anyone who accuses the military of torturing four terror suspects arrested earlier this month.” That is not a lie. Under martial law, he can pretty much threaten and arrest/abduct any one he pleases.

The the General gets into the untruths. He “insisted that the allegation was untrue, and stressed that all security officers performed their duties without violating human rights.” That’s clearly a lie. And not just a little one. The military violates human rights on a daily basis; the links above are to just a few of these in recent days.

It gets into the deeper, almost pathological category of lying when he states: “Especially the action of harming suspects. We strictly do not do that…”. Of course, there’s ample evidence of the military using torture over a long period. Just look to the South to see confirmed cases of torture.

And Udomdej then contradicts himself, admitting, “Whoever does a wrong thing, they have to be investigated and punished.” But, dear General, if you say it doesn’t happen, how could you ever investigate it? Another lie.