“In order for the
country to return to normal quickly, the National Peace Keeping Committee
comprised of the army, the Thai armed forces, the Royal Air Force and the
police need to seize power as of May 22 at 4.30 pm,” army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha said.
The commander-in-chief, who invoked martial law on Tuesday,
said the coup was needed to prevent the conflict escalating. “All Thais must remain calm and government officials must work as
normal,” he added.
The move came after military-hosted talks between the
kingdom’s political rivals apparently failed to reach a compromise on ending
nearly seven months of mass protests on the streets of Bangkok.
Rival protest leaders at the talks held at a heavily guarded
military facility in the capital were seen being taken away by the army
although it was unclear whether they had been formally detained.
The long-running political crisis broadly pits a
Bangkok-based royalist elite and its backers against the billionaire family of
former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin, a former tycoon-turned-populist politician, was ousted by the military
in a coup in 2006 but still enjoys strong support, particularly in rural
northern Thailand.
His sister, Yingluck
Shinawatra was dismissed as prime minister earlier this month in a
controversial court ruling after months of protests seeking her overthrow. Her
supporters have warned of possible civil war if opposition demonstrators
achieve their goal of seeing an unelected interim premier take power to oversee
vaguely defined reforms widely seen as a bid to cripple the Thaksin family’s
political power.
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