Phuc’s first official visit to the country since he took power in April last year will include many cabinet ministers, including the trade and industry, planning and investment, science and technology, agriculture and rural development, information and communications portfolios, in discussions with their Thai counterparts.

Phuc will meet Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at Government House today to discuss issues, including defence and security cooperation, trade and investment, and connectivity and regional cooperation.

After the plenary session, the two premiers will witness the signing of deals including memoranda of understanding on economics and trade, telecommunications, science and technology, and “sister city” cooperation between Thailand’s Trat and Vietnam’s Ca Mau provinces.

The draft joint communique to be issued after the meeting states the two premiers would exchange their views on the development, management and environmental impacts in the Mekong basin shared by Thailand and Vietnam.

The two leaders prioritised a balanced approach between economic benefits and environment preservation while ensuring the well-being of their citizens, according to the draft statement seen by The Nation.

The premiers will also address Vietnam’s serious concerns about the contentious South China Sea, about which Hanoi has been at loggerheads with China for decades. Both sides will reaffirm the importance of maintaining peace, security and stability as well as freedom of navigation, including overflights above the contentious sea, the statement said.

They will also focus on full implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and prioritise solving conflicts through peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Both sides will also express their support for Asean and China’s early conclusion of a code of conduct on the South China Sea, following the ministerial meeting early this month in Manila, which adopted a framework to establish the code.

During his visit, which will last until Saturday, Phuc will pay a courtesy call on the president of the National Legislative Assembly, meet with high-level Thai business executives, and attend a business forum and the opening ceremony of the “Vietnamese Goods Week in Thailand” at Central Ladprao Department Store.

He will also travel to Nakhon Phanom province to visit the President Ho Chi Minh Memorial Site and meet with Thai communities with Vietnamese ancestry there.

THE MONARCHY always shows mercy to those who commit lese majeste crimes, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday in response to student activist Jatupat Boonpattarararaksa being jailed for two years and six months.

“The monarch never wants to see people being punished because of this matter,” Prayut said at a budget meeting. “The protection of the institution of the monarchy is one of the key security strategies of the government.”

Jatupat, known widely as “Pai Dao Din”, was sentenced by Khon Kaen provincial court for sharing a BBC Thai article on a royal profile.

‘We are disappointed’

“While people know very well that defamation of the monarchy is a crime in Thailand, some just want to violate the law,” Prayut said. “I don’t really understand why they just want to disobey the law.”

“The monarchy institution always has mercy, always grants pardons and even amnesty, but there remain many people who want to violate the law.

“I sometimes try to think in the same way as them, but really cannot find good reason why they have to do so,” he said.

“It is not the institution of the monarchy that issues and enforces such laws, it is the government’s duty to enforce the law to protect the institution,” Prayut said. “Please understand that HM the King cannot enforce the law. The monarchy gives the power [to the government] to run the country, so we have to protect the institution.”

There has been criticism that Jatupat was unfairly singled out, although thousands of other people shared the allegedly discourteous article but were not prosecuted.

Jatupat has fought for social justice in the Northeast region since he began his law studies at Khon Kaen University years ago.

He has maintained his innocence since his arrest in December last year, but decided to plead guilty, resulting in his sentence being cut in half from five years.

“We are disappointed with the judgment. Pai cried for an hour and remained silent as if he was thinking of something,” his father Viboon Boonpattararaksa said.

“I have never known of such justice. I cannot teach you, be patient son, we believe in the rightness. We will have a chance to serve our society again,” Viboon posted on his Facebook page.

These local administrative organisations are said to have organised training and field trips to Bangkok, enabling large numbers of Yingluck supporters to show up on “judgement day”.

Deputy premier Prawit Wongsuwan said on Wednesday that the government would take precautionary measures to prevent any unrest around the Supreme Court’s premises on August 25 because several thousand Yingluck supporters were expected to show up.

He said the reform committees had eight months to come up with plans for national reforms.

Prayut also defended the composition of the 11 new panels, saying that their members came from several groups in society – and were not just retired bureaucrats as had been claimed. However, he added that there needed to be bureaucrats included as they had good working knowledge about the bureaucratic system and its problems.

The PM also invited politicians and people from other groups to join the reform committees, as there were still vacant seats.

He was asked if the post-coup government’s reform efforts had already failed, as many of reform panel members were from the now-defunct National Reform Committee and National Reform Steering Assembly. Prayut said those reform assemblies had done a lot of work but more needed to be done.

“We need the reform committees to map out a national reform and strategy plan. This kind of work needs time and you should be patient. Things have become better,” he said.

Surasak Trirattrakul, from the Office of the Attorney-General, said prosecutors had submitted 211 pages of documents to the court concerning Yingluck’s alleged negligence of official duties while implementing the rice-pledging scheme.

According to the prosecutors, Yingluck’s wrongdoing resulted in corruption and massive financial damage to the state.

Regarding a related matter of fake government-to-government rice export deals, 165 pages of documents have been submitted to the court by prosecutors who allege wrongdoing by former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and others.

The cases are related because the previous government allegedly announced the government-to-government export deals, which turned out to be bogus, to justify extension of the rice-pledging scheme.

Yingluck and other defendants in these two cases have already presented their closing statements before the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry has ordered provincial governors to ensure that local administrative organisations do not use their state budgets to organise trips to Bangkok as part of their efforts to show moral support for Yingluck on August 25.

These local administrative organisations are said to have organised training and field trips to Bangkok, enabling large numbers of Yingluck supporters to show up on “judgement day”.

Deputy premier Prawit Wongsuwan said the government would take precautionary measures to prevent any unrest around the Supreme Court’s premises on August 25 because several thousand Yingluck supporters were expected to show up.

He said the reform committees had eight months to come up with plans for national reforms.

Prayut also defended the composition of the 11 new panels, saying that their members came from several groups in society – and were not just retired bureaucrats as had been claimed. However, he added that there needed to be bureaucrats included as they had good working knowledge about the bureaucratic system and its problems.

The PM also invited politicians and people from other groups to join the reform committees, as there were still vacant seats.

He was asked if the post-coup government’s reform efforts had already failed, as many of reform panel members were from the now-defunct National Reform Committee and National Reform Steering Assembly. Prayut said those reform assemblies had done a lot of work but more needed to be done.

“We need the reform committees to map out a national reform and strategy plan. This kind of work needs time and you should be patient. Things have become better,” he said.

Since the “13th International Conference on Thai Studies”, which was held at CMU from July 15 to 18, at least four academics have been summoned by the police after displaying banners saying “this was not a military camp, but an academic forum”.

Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, director of CMU’s Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, is the latest to be called upon by the police for alleged violation of a ban on political gatherings or activities. He initially planned to meet the police on August 23, the Transborder News online news agency reported on Tuesday.

Chayan was quoted as saying that he had not asked for permission from the military to organise the event in the first place, as it was academic-based. It was probably the banners that were displayed at the event that had prompted the latest call from the police, he acknowledged.

Chayan insisted, however, that no political activities had been held at the four-day conference, despite what he was being accused of, so he had no idea why he had been summoned. He added that he had consulted the Chiang Mai governor about the event, and that the governor had even presided over it.

The civil organisations, mostly working with him in the development field, insisted that Chayan is an academic who always works side-by-side with the poor, with knowledge and expertise serving the people and the country’s fundamental problems.

They said the conference he helped supervise was definitely not a political gathering but a forum where the problems of the poor discussed and solutions proposed – something the group viewed that the government should listen to.

In addition, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights –to which the country is a signatory and had ratified – guaranteed rights to academic expression. The government should protect such rights rather than violate them, the group said.

They called on the authorities to drop the charges against Chayan and his fellow academics immediately.

Among those signing the statement were the Thai Network of 8 Mekong provinces, Kaeng Sua Ten groups, Living River Siam, the Foundation for Integrated Water Management, and others.

“Government censorship and military surveillance have no place at an academic conference,” said Brad Adams, HRW Asia director. “By prosecuting a conference organiser and participants, the Thai junta is showing the world its utter contempt for academic freedom and other liberties.”

Since the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies, which was held at CMU from July 15 to 18, at least four academics have been summoned by the police after displaying banners saying “this was not a military camp, but an academic forum”.

Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, director of CMU’s Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, is the latest to be called upon by the police for alleged violation of a ban on political gatherings or activities. He initially planned to meet the police on August 23, the Transborder News online news agency reported on Tuesday.

Chayan was quoted as saying that he had not asked for permission from the military to organise the event in the first place, as it was academic-based. It was probably the banners that were displayed at the event that had prompted the latest call from the police, he acknowledged.

Chayan insisted, however, that no political activities had been held at the four-day conference, despite what he was being accused of, so he had no idea why he had been summoned. He added that he had consulted the Chiang Mai governor about the event, and that the governor had even presided over it.

HRW said that since the military-installed government took power after the May 2014 coup, Thai authorities have frequently forced the cancellation of community meetings, academic panels, issue seminars and public forums on political matters, especially issues related to dissent towards NCPO policies or the state of human rights in Thailand.

Frequently, these repressive interventions were based on the NCPO’s ban on public gatherings of more than five people, and orders outlawing public criticisms of any aspect of military rule, the group noted.

“Academics worldwide should call for the trumped-up charges against Professor Chayan and the four conference attendees to be dropped immediately,” Adams said. “Thailand faces a dim future if speech is censored, academic criticism is punished, and political discussions are banned even inside a university.”

Prayut’s visit to the White House became an issue after Trump invited him in April, but the schedule has not been fixed since then. Trump invited leaders from several Southeast Asia countries, including the Philippines and Singapore, but unlike in Thailand, those leaders did not seem prepared to go immediately. Bangkok first floated the idea that the visit would be in July, but later said it had been postponed.

Prayut said last week during a meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that he would go to the US in October, but Don then seemed ambivalent whether the trip could be arranged.

He said yesterday that the impending meeting would cover facets of cooperation between the two countries, such as security, the military, trade and investment, as well as Thailand’s large trade surplus with the US.

While Tillerson’s visit last week highlighted sanctions resulting from Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, Don said Washington had not conveyed specifics about a crackdown on North Korean companies as the media had reported.

According to an AFP report released hours before Tillerson met Prayut, the acting US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, Susan Thornton, said the US wanted Thailand to crack down on North Korean firms, tighten visa requirements for North Koreans entering Thailand and squeeze the country diplomatically.

Don denied the report. “The US stance is to denuclearise North Korea,” he said. “As an Asean member, we support further dialogue to work on the issue.”

An official with the US Department of State told The Nation that Washington was seeing unprecedented levels of cooperation from the international community in response to North Korea’s “unlawful and provocative” actions.

Responses by the international community include new sanctions, the reduction of diplomatic engagements, the expulsion of North Korean diplomats and workers, and the interdiction of arms and other shipments around the world, he said.

The international community had made clear that North Korea would face consequences for its continued circumvention of UN Security Council sanctions, the development of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, and violations of UN resolutions, the US official said.

SECURITY officers will be sent to guard judges in the high-profile case involving former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to maintain order ahead of the announcement of a verdict.

The panel of nine judges hearing the case in the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders, and their residences, will be under guard until after the court delivers its verdict on August 25.

The order came after Army chief General Chalermchai Sitthisart, who is also head of the Peace and Order Maintaining Command, yesterday called a meeting of security forces to assess expectations about the situation on the day of the verdict.

Yingluck has been charged with negligence in preventing corruption and irregularities related to her government’s rice-pledging scheme, which allegedly caused massive financial damage to the country.

Authorities have been closely monitoring movements by Yingluck’s supporters ahead of the verdict.

The meeting concluded that supporters would mainly come from outside Bangkok, including Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan and Ayutthaya provinces, where there are strong bases of Pheu Thai Party and red-shirt supporters, according to a source at the meeting. The source said security officers had been instructed to closely monitor local leaders in other areas in the North and Northeast who might mobilise supporters.

Security forces have estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 people will show up to support Yingluck at the court. However, authorities were not concerned about the supporters, but of a “third party” that might provoke chaos, the source said.

Officers would also consider the sources of funding for supporters’ trips to Bangkok, the source said, adding that the total cost of all the passengers in a single van visiting the capital would amount to Bt100,000.

Other modes of transport that might be used by Yingluck supporters include free train services provided by the government. People travelling by train would probably arrive a couple of days before the verdict and meet at assembly points in Don Muang and Lak Si districts near the Supreme Court, the source added.

Chalermchai said in the meeting that everyone should do their duty in ensuring peace and order, as well as to create an understanding with people regarding the issue, the source said.

Initially, government forces would stick with security measures referred to as “Korakot 52”, which was considered a “soft” security plan, to cope with the situation, the source said, adding that another meeting would be called next week to reassess the situation.

Meanwhile, a red-shirt leader in Chiang Mai, who asked not to be named, told The Nation that the movement was being closely monitored by security personnel, who had asked if supporters planned to be in Bangkok for the verdict.

Red-shirt leaders had told security personnel they would stay home but give Yingluck moral support, the source said, adding that leaders had not been in touch with one another or discussed politics recently.

Anyone travelling to Bangkok for the verdict would do so privately, the red-shirt source said.

Stern warning

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday he did not have a problem with people travelling independently and in good faith to support the former prime minister, but added that any third party that was involved would have to be scrutinised.

The premier last week issued a warning that he would have officers ask Yingluck’s supporters individually where they |were from and how they had travelled to |the court on the day of the verdict. Citing the necessity of law enforcement, Prayut warned that everyone had to obey all laws, including traffic laws that might be broken in the event of a road blockade.

“Everyone will be punished [if they break the law]. I will not let anyone violate the law,” Prayut said.

Authorities had not detected any suspicious movements or identified third parties that would create turmoil, Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan said yesterday.

However, despite saying that authorities would not block attempts by Yingluck’s supporters to show up at the court, Prawit said it would be better if they stayed at home.

“They can come [from the provinces]. But if too many people come, I’m afraid there will not be enough space for them,” he said.

In a related development, Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda said there had not been any irregularities found in the spending of local administration organisations in connection with possible trips to support Yingluck.

However, organisations across the country had been instructed that spending had to be in line with laws and regulations, the interior minister said.

The Office of the Auditor-General |had floated the idea that local administrative organisations could have misused |state budgets to fund trips in support of Yingluck.