Suluck Lamubol04 August 2014 Issue No:330
Rectors from nine of Thailand’s top public universities have joined the
junta-picked lawmaking assembly established three months after the
military staged the country’s 13th coup d'état on 22 May.
The junta, officially known as the National Council for Peace and Order or NCPO, last week announced 200 nominations for membership of the military-dominated National Legislative Assembly, which will draft a constitution to replace the country’s current interim charter.
More than half of them – 105 members – are from the military, 11 from the police and the rest are former senators, technocrats, academics and businessmen. A dozen are women.
The nine rectors are from some of the country’s top universities including Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Chiang Mai, Kasetsart, Ramkhamhaeng, the National Institute of Development Administration, Srinakharinwirot, Khon Kaen and Mahidol.
The rector of Mahidol University chairs the Council of University Presidents of Thailand. Also appointed was Thammasat University council Chair Noranit Sretabutr.
Some of the universities’ websites carried congratulations posted by their administrations on the appointment of the rectors. Academics opposing the coup had to be more discrete in objecting to the rectors’ involvement with the military government.
Critics
Charnvit Kasetsiri, a former Thammasat rector, wrote an open letter calling on Noranit and Thammasat Rector Somkid Lertpaitoon to “refrain” from associating with bodies created by the junta.
Yukti Mukdavichit, an anthropology lecturer at Thammasat University, published an online open letter to the university’s rector and faculty, saying the decision to join the assembly was a “disgrace” for a university known in the past for resistance against authoritarian regimes.
“Right now the people have no freedom. Even though the Constitution stipulates the protection of rights, it did grant NCPO leaders supreme powers.”
He pointed out that those who are against the coup would be tried in a military court. “This is not guaranteeing any of the liberties stipulated in the charter at all,” Yukti wrote.
Since the coup, the junta has summoned 565 politicians, activists, academics and journalists and arrested 233 people, according to iLaw, a non-governmental law group that has documented rights violations. It says some 77 people have been persecuted and of these, 60 are to be tried by a military court.
Thongchai Winichakul, a history professor at Wisconsin-Madison University in the US and a Thammasat student leader during the 1970s student uprising, criticised the rectors’ decision to join the assembly as “shameless” and likely to affect the credibility of the institutions and the academic profession.
“In the current conflict, these rectors have caused heavy damage to the [academic] profession as a whole. They overtly played a leading anti-democracy role, against electoral democracy, and in creating a justification for the latest coup,” he told University World News.
“As of now, it appears that the majority of Thai academics prefer serving the establishment because, after all, they are the privileged ones in Thailand’s hierarchical society. Most of them support their rectors in playing such a disgraceful role,” said Thongchai.
Other critics said the academics were there to ‘adorn’ the national assembly and give it legitimacy, so that it appears to include a wider cross-section of society.
The assembly will convene on 7 August to choose a chair, who will then set a date to select a new prime minister and cabinet.
It is widely expected that NCPO leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the military coup, will become prime minister to consolidate the military’s power.
The junta, officially known as the National Council for Peace and Order or NCPO, last week announced 200 nominations for membership of the military-dominated National Legislative Assembly, which will draft a constitution to replace the country’s current interim charter.
More than half of them – 105 members – are from the military, 11 from the police and the rest are former senators, technocrats, academics and businessmen. A dozen are women.
The nine rectors are from some of the country’s top universities including Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Chiang Mai, Kasetsart, Ramkhamhaeng, the National Institute of Development Administration, Srinakharinwirot, Khon Kaen and Mahidol.
The rector of Mahidol University chairs the Council of University Presidents of Thailand. Also appointed was Thammasat University council Chair Noranit Sretabutr.
Some of the universities’ websites carried congratulations posted by their administrations on the appointment of the rectors. Academics opposing the coup had to be more discrete in objecting to the rectors’ involvement with the military government.
Critics
Charnvit Kasetsiri, a former Thammasat rector, wrote an open letter calling on Noranit and Thammasat Rector Somkid Lertpaitoon to “refrain” from associating with bodies created by the junta.
Yukti Mukdavichit, an anthropology lecturer at Thammasat University, published an online open letter to the university’s rector and faculty, saying the decision to join the assembly was a “disgrace” for a university known in the past for resistance against authoritarian regimes.
“Right now the people have no freedom. Even though the Constitution stipulates the protection of rights, it did grant NCPO leaders supreme powers.”
He pointed out that those who are against the coup would be tried in a military court. “This is not guaranteeing any of the liberties stipulated in the charter at all,” Yukti wrote.
Since the coup, the junta has summoned 565 politicians, activists, academics and journalists and arrested 233 people, according to iLaw, a non-governmental law group that has documented rights violations. It says some 77 people have been persecuted and of these, 60 are to be tried by a military court.
Thongchai Winichakul, a history professor at Wisconsin-Madison University in the US and a Thammasat student leader during the 1970s student uprising, criticised the rectors’ decision to join the assembly as “shameless” and likely to affect the credibility of the institutions and the academic profession.
“In the current conflict, these rectors have caused heavy damage to the [academic] profession as a whole. They overtly played a leading anti-democracy role, against electoral democracy, and in creating a justification for the latest coup,” he told University World News.
“As of now, it appears that the majority of Thai academics prefer serving the establishment because, after all, they are the privileged ones in Thailand’s hierarchical society. Most of them support their rectors in playing such a disgraceful role,” said Thongchai.
Other critics said the academics were there to ‘adorn’ the national assembly and give it legitimacy, so that it appears to include a wider cross-section of society.
The assembly will convene on 7 August to choose a chair, who will then set a date to select a new prime minister and cabinet.
It is widely expected that NCPO leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the military coup, will become prime minister to consolidate the military’s power.
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