Phuket reporter and former official summoned by army

PHUKET: A Phuket reporter and a former provincial official have been summoned to the Royal Thai Army base in Nakhon Sri Thammarat.

The two men ordered to report to the base are Watchara Malikaew, a journalist with the Inside Phuket magazine, and Wisut Santikul, a former deputy vice-president of the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organization (PPAO).

Mr Watchara said soldiers appeared at his house yesterday and politely asked him to accompany them to the base.

“I have no idea why I was called,” he said, answering questions from the base today via a mobile messaging application.

“When I arrived in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, they explained the purpose and process of the National Council for Peace and Order [NCPO]. They said they would make Thailand peaceful.”

Mr Watchara said that he was healthy and in a comfortable house on the base that had a television and air conditioning.

“I’m being well treated by the army,” he said, adding that he expected to be back in Phuket tomorrow.

The whereabouts of the second man, Mr Wisut, are unknown.

Mr Wisut left the PPAO to enter politics, but failed to win a seat in the national MP election in 2006, when he ran as a candidate for Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai Party (story here).

He also considered running for the post of PPAO President in 2012, but declined to file his application for candidacy at the last minute (story here).