No doubt Thais be they pro or anti Thaksin are interested in what Thaksin Shinawatra will do after a second Coup once again removed his self serving influence. This entry will look at that and what generally can be expected and make some predictions as to how that will unfold.
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First off we need to establish some facts and differences between the 2006 Coup and the 2014 Coup. The reason for this is it will have some influence on how Thaksin will react. In 2006 the Coup happened while Thaksin was at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Thaksin’s self serving arrogance triggered that Coup as well as the 2014 Coup. In 2006 as soon as the Coup was staged, most if not all of Thaksin’s Government headed for the border and were out of Thailand inside of 24 hours.
In 2014 that was not the case. The Coup was totally unexpected and happened when Thaksin told his proxy Government not to budge or make any sort of compromise. So the General who called the 2014 Coup did so in the same room that the Government was sitting in when Thaksin more or less told the General to his face no compromise. Until that point the General had done his best to take a neutral position, but that could be no more because he had placed himself as mediator when he declared Martial law two days earlier.
Much of Thaksin’s remaining government was arrested and held for up to 7 days. Needless to say what was told to them will not be known for some time but when they were released, they appeared to have been declawed. They have not been in the news since, so what they are doing is unknown so can not be a factor in seeing what Thaksin will do next. We can comfortably assume that the military has tapped their phones or at least is recording who they are calling. That would make it too risky for Thaksin to contact them and talk about anything more than the weather.
There were also arrests of Red Shirt leaders and other people who seemed to have an itch for violence. The result of there arrests were said to allow a cooling off time, and for the most part that make sense. In the US, people that look to buy guns must wait several days before they can go back to the store and take the gun home. The reason for this is if they were angry at a person the chances of using the gun for a crime are reduced. Unfortunately that has no effect if they already have the gun. So this move by the Junta is just chalked up to common sense as they already know Thaksin well enough that violence will be one of his moves.
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