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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai junta's legislature impeaches, bans Yingluck |
| 2015-01-24 |
| [Chicago Tribune] Thailand's junta-appointed legislature on Friday impeached former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and banned her from politics for five years, while the Attorney General's office announced it will file criminal charges against her. The impeachment and criminal charges, which are tied to alleged corruption in the Yingluck government's rice subsidy program, threaten to upset a fragile calm that has emerged since junta leader Prayuth Chan-Ocha toppled her government in May and enforced martial law. Prayuth has said he wants to "return happiness" to the country by ending political turmoil. "Reconciliation cannot happen by chasing after any particular person," Yingluck said after her impeachment Friday in a statement on her Facebook page. "When there is fairness, justice will follow and then acceptance, peace and unity will happen in Thai society." Yingluck has argued that the allegations against her are politically motivated and she has defended the rice purchasing program as a way too boost incomes in rural areas. She also questioned how she could be impeached when she is no longer in office. The junta's hand-picked National Legislative Assembly, which is dominated by active or former military officers, voted 190-18 in a secret ballot to impeach her. "It doesn't really make sense, and Yingluck has herself made that point," said Patrick Jory, senior lecturer in Southeast Asian history at The University of Queensland in Australia. "It's more a kind of theater to give legitimacy and a sense of due process to what appears to be the military regime's main objective, to ban Yingluck from politics." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" Mao In previous generations it may just as well been the sword or spear. And that's why 300 million guns in the hands of the American public give wannabe tyrants pause and those wannabe's want to seize those guns given any excuse. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-01-24 09:16 |