After media around the world reported a military coup in Thailand Tuesday while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York for a U.N. meeting, students and faculty expressed their reactions.
Nick Lythgoe, a senior in business management who lived in Bangkok, Thailand for six years, said Thai residents expected some action to take place.
“People who live there, they kind of knew something was going to happen but they didn’t know on this kind of scale,” he said. “This has been going on for months now — all this turmoil with politics. They’ve been arguing and stuff and the past election, not everyone’s very happy with it.”
In March, members of the opposition coalition, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, accused Shinawatra of stifling the press and suppressing civil society, among other things, according to a report released by the Council on Foreign Relations.
He said he had New Year’s plans in Thailand but may not travel if the political situation escalates. He also said he is trying to get in touch with his friends in Thailand.
“It’s very scary because I’ve got friends there,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to them if they have to leave the country. I don’t know. I have to talk to them to see what’s happening with them.”
The coup is led by Thai army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, according to CNN.com, who announced to King Bhumibol Adulyadej Tuesday that the military and PAD were taking over the country.
Sasitorn Srisawadi, a doctoral student in industrial engineering who is from Bangkok, said she is waiting to get in touch with friends and family.
“We should get back to call the family to see if they’re OK and in a safe place and get some information from them,” she said. “Sometimes the media…makes things seem more than it actually is.”
Dr. Michael Stoskopf, a professor in the department of clinical sciences, works with veterinary students at vet schools in Thailand as part of the Thailand Expedition program.
“Faculty here at the vet school and students have been working in Thailand over the last nine or 10 years, primarily in environmental medicine, ecological health and zoological medicine,” Stoskopf said. “Our interactions with the government are primarily focused on those kind of issues.”
Stoskopf said he and his group have not encountered any problems with the Thai government in the past.
“Actually, Thailand has been a delightful place to work,” he said. “It’s been peaceful, people are generally quite helpful and friendly and Thailand itself has a long history of avoiding conflict and has been relatively stable in that area for decades.”
As to whether or not the expedition will continue this year, he said it depends on how things pan out.
“Whenever there’s a conflict arising in a country, we put a hold on travel just out of concern for students’ safety,” he said. “Right now we’re just watching to see how this develops and whether or not the students planning to go there later this semester will or won’t. [It] will depend on how things proceed.”
Stoskopf said residents in the rural parts of Thailand support the prime minister.
“The prime minister is very popular in the rural parts of the country and up north where he’s from,” he said. “So a lot of our projects are up north.”
According to a Council on Foreign Relations report released in March, the political situation could “scare off potential investors, damage Thailand’s economic prospects and cause a recession.”
“I don’t know what the best way would have been but Thailand did actually have a military leadership during the ’80s and it wasn’t the best for global business and [for] opening up Thailand to the rest of the world,” Lythgoe said.
Lythgoe said some residents of Thailand have expressed hostility toward to the government, but said he didn’t think anyone expected a military intervention.
“There’s been corruption in the Thai government for a while now and I don’t know if the military just got tired and decided they needed to do something now,” he said. “What we don’t want to have is a military dictatorship again. Military coups are not good.”
According to CNN.com, there have been 17 coups in Thailand since World War II, not including Tuesday’s, with this being the first since 1992.