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Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was among those who reported to the military junta, which seized power in a coup Thursday after months of turmoil that paralyzed much of the government and caused deadly clashes in the streets of Bangkok.
The United States and
other countries have criticized the military's intervention, the latest
in a long list of coups in Thailand, and called for the swift
restoration of democracy.
Yingluck, whose
government was in power when the unrest began in November, was removed
from office this month by the country's Constitutional Court over the
appointments of top security officials.
Prominent people summoned
Yingluck arrived around
noon Friday at a military compound in Bangkok with one of her sisters
and was still there hours later, a source close to the former leader
told CNN. The military on Thursday summoned Yingluck and three other
members of her politically powerful family to report to authorities.
It has also called on
more than 100 others, including prominent figures on both sides of
Thailand's political divide, to come to military facilities. Those who
don't report, it has warned, will be arrested.
Military officials
haven't provided much explanation about the reasons for the summonses,
saying it's necessary "to ensure smooth operation of restoration of
peace and order."
They have also placed travel bans on Yingluck and scores of others.
The junta on Thursday
detained some of the leaders of the country's deeply polarized political
factions. Some of those held, including opposition leader Abhisit
Vejjajiva and members of Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party, were later
released.
Constitution ditched, curfew imposed
Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha,
the head of the military, has assumed the powers to act as Prime
Minister until a new one takes office, the military said Thursday.
How the government will
operate remains unclear, given that the military also has thrown out the
constitution it drew up in 2007 after a previous coup, except for
Section 2, which acknowledges that the King is the head of state.
The last six months have
been marked by large-scale protests, both by those backing Yingluck's
government and those opposed to it. There have been periodic outbursts
of deadly violence in the streets.
Protest camps of both sides in Bangkok have been cleared away since the coup.
Under the new order,
schools will be closed nationwide between Friday and Sunday, the
military said. A curfew is in place between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. And all
state-run, satellite and cable TV providers have been ordered to carry
only the signal of the army's television channel; CNN is among those
networks that have been taken off the air.
The military warned against posting misleading or critical comments on social media platforms.
In a speech Thursday, Prayuth explained that these actions were necessary to restore order and push through reforms.
In Bangkok, calm and a cleanup
The day after the coup, a
peculiar calm had settled on the streets of much of the Thai capital,
which has been the focal point of political unrest.
A few hundred anti-coup
protesters gathered in central Bangkok, some cheering and whistling and
others holding banners saying "no to coup," but members of the military
kept a distance.
A few demonstrators from
rival camps argued among themselves, but police tried to calm both
sides down. The crowds were thinning out by early Friday evening.
Life in most of the city's center appeared normal during the day, with shops open and people going to work.
In the area by the
Democracy Monument, where anti-government protesters had camped out for
months, work had begun to clear up the detritus that had been left
behind.
Dozens of people were
dismantling large tents, cleaning and sweeping. Trucks and cranes were
pulling down the infrastructure the protesters had put up at the camp.
The military presence
around the city remained subtle, with few soldiers in view, except
outside the Defense Ministry and military sites.
"The situation in
Bangkok is quite calm at the moment, but obviously we're all watching
very, very closely to see what happens next," Kristie Kenney, U.S.
ambassador to Thailand, told CNN.
Kenney said she would
not be attending a briefing Friday that the Thai military was holding
for diplomats but would send someone from the U.S. Embassy.
Her comments came after
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that there was "no
justification" for the military coup.
The U.S. Embassy in
Bangkok has updated its guidance for Americans traveling to Thailand. It
"recommends that U.S. citizens reconsider any nonessential travel to
Thailand, particularly Bangkok, due to ongoing political and social
unrest and restrictions on internal movements, including an indefinite
nighttime curfew."
The question many
analysts are asking is how the popular "Red Shirt" movement, which
supports Yingluck and her exiled brother Thaksin Shinawatra, will
respond to the coup.
The Red Shirts, whose
support base is in the rural north and northwest of Thailand, were
already angered by Yingluck's ouster this month, a move they viewed as a
judicial coup by Bangkok elites.
Senior Red Shirt
leaders, as well as prominent figures from the anti-Yingluck protesters,
were still being held Friday by the military, according to Lt. Gen.
Paradon Patthanathabut, a national security adviser to the government.
Thaksin, a business
tycoon who built a highly successful political movement through populist
policies benefiting the rural masses, was deposed as Prime Minister in a
military coup in 2006.
In 2010, when the
pro-Thaksin party was out of power, the Red Shirts mounted large
protests in the heart of Bangkok. An ensuing crackdown by security
forces resulted in clashes that killed around 90 people.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/23/world/asia/thailand-coup/index.html?hpt=ias_c1
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