Many in Bangkok Embrace Military Takeover

Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, called the developments a "step back for democracy."

Sonthi insisted the military had no interest in maintaining power. "We have two weeks; after two weeks, we step out," he said, referring to his search for a caretaker prime minister, who analysts say would probably still operate under the scrutiny of the military.

While activists who had long sought Thaksin's ouster cheered the military's move, some opposition leaders acknowledged that Thailand must find some way out of its political crisis.

"Of course we would have liked to see this handled another way, but we also recognize that Thaksin's abuse of power had grown to the breaking point," said Abhisit Vejjajiva, head of the main opposition Democrat Party. "Now, at least, we will see a new constitution written and the path of a clean electoral process. That is what the people of Thailand want and deserve."

Diplomatic sources and Thai officials said there was little indication that the remaining Thaksin loyalists in the military and police would attempt to resist the coup. Although analysts said such a response could not yet be ruled out, Bangkok newspapers reported that at least two high-ranking military figures linked to Thaksin had pledged allegiance instead to Sonthi's "political reform council."

[Early Thursday, Lukman B. Lima, an exiled leader in one of several groups fighting the central government for a separate Muslim state, told the Associated Press that "it is the right thing that the military has taken power" and that Sonthi was the "only one who knows the real problems" of the Muslim-dominated provinces of southern Thailand.]

Thailand has suffered 17 successful or attempted military takeovers, but Tuesday's was the first in 15 years and something of a shock for Thais who thought they had left the days of coups behind. Many leading opposition figures have called this coup different in nature from the others -- mostly because the military is being trusted to simply act as a caretaker and restorer of democracy -- but others here recalled the coup in 1991. A year after that takeover, when pro-democracy activists began demonstrating against the interim military commander, at least 50 people were gunned down by troops.

"We are entering another vicious circle in Thailand -- of coups, democracy, corruption and more coups," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "We had hoped that we would get beyond this. We went 15 years without a military intervention, but clearly recent events have shown that we have yet to escape that cycle."