Thai Military Draws Fire for Post-Coup Budget Hike

Thai Military Draws Fire for Post-Coup Budget Hike

Thailand’s army-appointed parliament on July 4 debated a 24 percent military spending hike, which has raised questions about the motives of the generals who launched last year’s coup against Thaksin Shinawatra. The 28 billion baht hike in the 2007/08 defense budget, certain to be approved, to 143 billion baht ($4.5 billion) capped a similar increase for this year — a combined 66 percent rise since the military ousted Thaksin as prime minister in September.
At the time, the generals cited “rampant corruption” under the billionaire telecommunications tycoon as the main reason for launching Thailand’s 18th coup in 75 years of on-off democracy.
Surayud Chulanont, the former army chief appointed prime minister after the coup, gave no reasons for the hike other than a passing allusion to the 3-year insurgency in the Muslim-majority far south in which 2,300 people have been killed.
The government would “raise the efficiency of intelligence and operations” and “integrate efforts of resolving security problems in border provinces in the south to boost public trust in government security enforcement,” Surayud said.
Analysts said the increases at a time of slowing economic growth could come back to haunt the army, squeezed by civilian governments since its attempt to install a general as prime minister after a 1991 coup ended in mass riots and bloodshed.
“The military was in disgrace throughout the 1990s,” said political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
“They’ve suffered as an institution financially and now they are making up for lost time.”
Abhist Vejajiva, head of the former opposition Democrat Party, said the military “should be careful because this raises suspicions.”
Others said the armed forces could even be building up a war-chest for a run at politics after elections scheduled for November or December.
SCANDALS BREWING
“The military and the government it appointed should know there is strong suspicion across the country that the generals are padding the military budget for no other reason than because they can,” the Bangkok Post said in a recent editorial.
“There are many unanswered questions about whether the military is making essential purchases or acquiring more means to cling to power.”
The budget is not the only area in which the Council for National Security (CNS), as the coup command calls itself, is coming under scrutiny.
Saprang Kalayanamitr, a CNS general appointed chairman of state-owned telephone company TOT after the coup, was roundly criticized in the Thai media for ordering the firm to pay for 800 million baht of unspecified telecoms kit wanted by the army.
When TOT president Vuthiphong Preibjrivat refused to pay the money, Saprang fired him and appointed a colonel as his successor. TOT has since approved the deal.
Anti-coup campaigners are also furious about a clause in the new constitution being drawn up by an army-appointed council that enshrines the army’s right to receive adequate “military forces, weapons, ammunition, military equipment and technology”.
Although there has been little in the way of public outrage, analysts say the combination of scandals, constitution and budget could eventually crystallize serious opposition to army rule, as happened in 1991-92.
“There’s no immediate moral outrage, but I think that it is creeping in,” Thitinan said. “This sort of thing is certainly raising the stakes for the army because long term they are generating more and more opponents.”