Military officers oppose Pitak Siam | Bangkok Post: breakingnews

Military officers oppose Pitak Siam

Alumni from Class 5 and 10 of the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School (AFAPS) will hold a peaceful rally at a Bangkok hotel on Friday morning in protest at the leader of the Pitak Siam group, Gen Boonlert Kaewprasit, and his supporters.

The Class 5 and 10 members will meet at the Miracle Grand Convention Hotel at 10am to announce their opposition to Gen Boonlert, a member of Class 1 of the AFAPS, and his group which is mobilising supporters to try to bring down the Yingluck Shinawatra government.

The general has called for a military coup to overthrow the Pheu Thai-led administration. "I'd love to see a coup,'' he told the press while heading up an Oct 28 anti-government rally at the Royal Turf Club in the Nang Loeng area of Bangkok.

The planned rally was revealed on Thursday by Gen Chaisit Shinawatra, Thaksin Shinawatra's cousin and a former supreme commander.

Gen Chaisit, a member of Class 5, said he would not join the gathering because it will merely announce the political position of his fellow classmates but he would attend a mass rally if one is held in the future.

Asked if he was disappointed with Gen Boonlert, who is his senior schoolmate, Gen Chaisit said the Pitak Siam group leader likes the planning and execution of a coup d'etat as it runs in his blood.

Pitak Siam plans a second rally later this month. However, Gen Boonlert said the rally will be called off if it attracts less than 1 million supporters.

Defence Minister ACM Sukumpol Suwanatat said Friday’s gathering of the Class 5 and 10 alumni should be seen as a personal affair and an expression of individual opinion, and that it has nothing to do with the bonds of brotherhood among soldiers.

He said none of his fellow classmates in Class 10 had discussed the planned rally with him. Both Gen Boonlert and those of the Class 10 alumni had the right to hold a peaceful rally. This was not a collision of mobs, he said, adding each group was just exercising their constitutional rights.


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Thaksin's ex-classmate to show force against Pithak Siam group - The Nation

Thaksin's ex-classmate to show force against Pithak Siam group

The Nation November 9, 2012 1:00 am

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's former classmate at Pre-Cadet Academy would show force on Friday against the Pithak Siam group, former army chief Chaisith Shinawatra said.

Alumni of class 10th at the Pre-Cadet Academy would gather at a Bangkok hotel to show their support to the government under Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and their former classmate Thaksin, said Chaisith who study in the class fifth at the military academy and also a cousin of Thaksin.

"I do not organise the gathering but our brothers want to express their view. Many of my classmate and I will join them to show our stance," he said.

"It's not the right thing to call a protest to topple the elected government," Chaisith said referring to the anti-government protest. "If the government did anything wrong we should allow the parliament to scrutinise in accordance with democratic way."

Retire General Boonlert Kaewprasit, the leader of Pithak Siam (Protecting Siam) movement, said the next rally against the government would be held on November 24 or 25 and he expected that the number of demonstrators would be 20 times higher than the last rally.

Boonlert's movement held a rally at the Royal Turf Club on October 28, drawing more than 10,000 demonstrators.

He said he would hold a press conference tomorrow to announce more details of the next rally. He said he expected more than 100 groups of activists to join the press conference.

He said he believed the yellow shirted People's Alliance for Democracy would join the next rally although PAD leaders have announced they would not participate in the protest.

Boonlert said the protest would be held on the same causes and he would lay down his "thump card" to try to topple the government if the rally failed to bring it down.

"If the next rally fails, everything will be over and I will not hold another rally. I'll stop my role because I'll regard that the people do not support me," Boonlert said.

"But if a lot of people join the rally and we still fail to oust the government, I'll unveil my thump card."