E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Thai Coup Leader Soft on Muslim Insurgency?
Long piece in Forbes, so here's the most important part:
Striking when Thaksin was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly, army commander Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin sent tanks and troops into the drizzly, nighttime streets of Bangkok. The military ringed Thaksin's offices, seized control of television stations and declared a provisional authority loyal to the king.

In his first public appearance since seizing power, Sondhi Wednesday asked for the public's support and declared the coup was necessary to end serious conflicts within Thai society that Thaksin had created.

Sondhi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said. Sondhi, well-regarded within the military, is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation.

Sondhi, 59, was selected last year to head the army partly because it was felt he could better deal with the Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, where 1,700 people have been killed since 2004. Recently, Sondhi urged negotiations with the separatists in contrast to Thaksin's hard-fisted approach. Many analysts have said that with Thaksin in power, peace in the south was unlikely.
The rest of the article has reaction blurbs, quotes and analysis.

Posted by: Steve White 2006-09-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=166420