<p>&lsquo;Soldiers, don&rsquo;t sit still. Come out and seize power.&nbsp; PAD supporters across the country will join the soldiers to seize Thailand back from those scoundrels,&rsquo; said Sondhi Limthongkul in a broadcast <a href="http://www.manager.co.th/Politics/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9550000009019">programme</a> on ASTV on 20 Jan. </p>

<p>While the vast majority of Thai people are commemorating the 5th anniversary of the latest coup in order to show their strong disdain for this unconstitutional method of political change, a small group of people is spreading the possibility of another coup if the fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra returns to the country.</p>

<p>With rumours swirling of yet another military coup in the pipeline, along with calls from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) for a government that is selected by the palace, one can't help but wonder why so many Thais continue to be so fond of instant political gratification.</p>

<p>In Thailand, reality and its acknowledgement have a way of being supplanted by fiction and denial. </p> <p>Take for instance the gathering of some 10,000 red shirts last Sunday at Rajprasong intersection to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2006 coup and the fourth month since the military cracked down on the movement.</p> <p>The one thing conspicuously missing from media coverage was the angry messages emblazoned on the corrugated iron wall outside CentralWorld, which is being rebuilt after the red shirts allegedly burned it down in the aftermath of the crackdown.</p>

<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t use a coup to solve the problems of corruption. That will destroy the legitimacy of the whole justice system. It&rsquo;s really a high price to pay,&rsquo; Kasian Techaphira, political science lecturer at Thammasat University, told Matichon reporters in an interview after the court ruled on the Thaksin assets case.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thailand is again in frenzy over coup rumors, perpetuated mostly by anti-government Red Shirts who need a reason to protest and by a media machine that needs a story. The top generals have denied that anything is amiss, words that mean little since they said the same thing before ousting former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Phuttipong Pong-anakekul, a second-year law student at Ramkhamhaeng University, wrote an article in Prachatai in response to what Surapon Nitikraipot, Rector of Thammasat University, <a href="http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/1596">said</a> at a public forum on 25 Jan.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tu.ac.th/eng/administrators/rector.html">Surapon Nitikraipot</a>, Rector of Thammasat University, has spoken in a public forum in defence of the 2006 coup and its resulting constitution. &nbsp;He argued that anti-coup activists should have also opposed the 1997 Constitution, as it resulted from a coup in 1991. &nbsp;As a law professor himself, he said that there were no double standards in prosecuting the red and yellow shirts, except that the cases were being handled sooner or later. &nbsp;</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s 19 September, 2009. Three years after the coup - how time flies. Might some want to revel in nostalgic idealization of the past, of the complimentary-flower coup d&rsquo;etat which ousted Thaksin Shinawatra? Some may at least want to look at things on a bright side and at least thank these generals for their invaluable service to &lsquo;Thai democracy&rsquo;.</p>