September 29, 2006

WITNESS - Caught up in Thailand's courteous coup

By Martin Petty

BANGKOK (Reuters) - When a coup is under way and a soldier with a rifle stands in the road and tells you to stop, you tend to do just that.

But what happened next set the tone for Thailand's first military putsch in 15 years.

A Thai soldier stands guard near tanks parked at Royal Plaza in Bangkok September 28, 2006. (REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang)

"Excuse me, but I'm not from around here," the soldier said, smiling awkwardly as my girlfriend and I sat on a motorbike in the middle of the street. "I'm really hungry. Do you know where the nearest 7-Eleven is?"

Before that moment, when I thought of coups, I thought of angry crowds, burning barricades and deposed leaders being led away by men in camouflage fatigues.

But this was a coup in the "Land of Smiles", where a band of generals worried about the state of the country toppled a billionaire prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, because they thought he was corrupt and upset the national karma.

This was a coup where, instead of staying behind closed doors as the tanks rolled in, bleary-eyed people took to the streets of Bangkok in their pyjamas to watch and -- seemingly oblivious to the irony -- cheer on the soldiers in the name of democracy.

As the night wore on and it became clear there would be no violence, people posed for photographs with troops who had lowered their rifles and now munched on snacks, or chatted with locals and puffed away on donated cigarettes.

"I'm here because Thaksin is corrupt and is ruining this country," said one motorcyclist, clearly the worse for several glasses of the infamous local Mekhong whisky. "I'm here to support the soldiers."

WAR GAMES?

In the days that followed what would become Thailand's 18th successful coup, I saw hundreds more people doing just that.

In tune with the southeast Asian nation's famed hospitality, the streets around Bangkok's gilded Royal Palace were awash with people of all backgrounds offering food and flowers to the soldiers.

A carnival atmosphere prevailed as models donned camouflage hot-pants to twist and twirl around the tanks. Newlyweds dressed all in white posed beside the soldiers. Children with toy guns played war games as soldiers dozed in the shade of trees.

Who would have thought life under martial law could be so much fun?

Under the new military council, soldiers might have been ordered to crack down on public gatherings and any kind of dissent but they had been told to do so with a smile.

Even generals' edicts and announcements about the army takeover, read out on television by a beauty queen, came with a "We apologise for any inconvenience" sign-off for interrupting the usual fare of soap operas and slapstick comedy.

The voices of dissent seemed to come mostly from abroad, from foreign governments and human rights groups.

"The Thaksin government was a civilian autocracy, but a military autocracy is worse than a civilian autocracy," the Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement unreported in Thai media.

Thailand was "in a very dangerous moment", the Hong Kong-based body said.

But as I travelled into the newsroom the next day, declared a public holiday by the military, some people in Bangkok didn't seem know, let alone care.

"What happened to my country last night?" a friend called me to ask. "And why has no one showed up for work?"

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