Bangkok – Thailand’s junta held talks Wednesday with the political party it booted from office, in a much trumpeted but long-delayed reconciliation plan the generals say will heal political wounds in the bitterly divided nation.

Once one of Asia’s tiger economies, Thailand has been tarnished by more than a decade of political turbulence pockmarked by street protests, political violence and two military coups.

The latest putsch in 2014 brought the current junta to power and kicked out the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai party.

Senior Pheu Thai party leaders kicked off meetings with army officers on Wednesday, the latest political players involved in the talks that started on Valentine’s Day.

Observers and many of Thailand’s political parties remain sceptical the military can be an honest broker given its history of coups over the last seven decades.

But Pheu Thai officials struck an optimistic note after Wednesday’s talks.

“This initiative is good,” senior party leader Bhokin Barakula, told reporters.

“We are ready to cooperate with anyone who wants to bring peace and reconciliation to the country,” he said, adding all sides must be “free from bias”.

Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantravanich described the talks as “respectful, creative and friendly”.

Thailand’s protracted political conflict broadly pits a Bangkok-based middle class and royalist elite, backed by parts of the military and judiciary, against rural and working-class voters loyal to exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck.

Parties linked to the Shinawatras have won every poll since 2001. The clan is loved among rural supporters who have long complained of being ignored by the Bangkok elite.

Their detractors accuse them of corruption, cronyism and economically costly policies.

Since seizing power the junta have banned political rallies and brought a slew of cases against Pheu Thai leaders and their allies.

Ousted prime minister Yingluck faces up to ten years in jail in an ongoing negligence trial.

The generals have vowed to return power soon but promised elections dates keep slipping.

They are in the process of passing a new constitution that they say will end political turmoil but which detractors say entrenches unelected officials over political parties.

One incendiary reconciliation topic is a political amnesty for all sides.

Moves by Pheu Thai to bring about an amnesty in 2013 – something which could have seen Thaksin return from self-imposed exile – led to large street protests by their opponents who agitated for, and were eventually granted, a military takeover.

Asked whether the amnesty came up in talks, Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep said Pheu Thai simply spoke of the need to “forgive each other”.

Leaders of the pre-coup protests, who loathe the Shinawatras, will meet the military on Friday 17 March.

President Rodrigo Duterte wants plunder and rape to be next in line among the heinous crimes punishable with death penalty, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said on Wednesday.

In an ambush interview with reporters, Alvarez said he met with the President Tuesday night after the House in a vote of 217 passed House Bill 4727 seeking to restore capital punishment on final reading.

Duterte was pleased with the results of the House third reading vote on the death penalty, a campaign promise he vowed to fulfil as President, Alvarez said.

The death sentence in the bill however was limited to drug-related offences.

Alvarez said while Duterte was pleased death sentence on drug offences was approved, he wanted plunder, rape with homicide, and rape on children to be next under death row.

The majority caucus in the House agreed to limit the bill on drug-related offences to increase its chances of being approved in the lower House. Plunder and rape were among the heinous crimes removed.

“Well, masaya siya at nagpapasalamat kahit na ‘yung illegal drugs ‘yung naipasa at ‘yun ang sabi niya dapat mapasama ‘yung plunder, rape – especially ‘yung rape with homicide at ‘yung rape nung mga children,” Alvarez said.

(Well, he’s happy and he expressed gratitude that death penalty on illegal drugs was approved. He said hopefully plunder and rape would be included, especially rape with homicide and rape on children.)

Alvarez said he assured the President that plunder and rape would be next under death row. Alvarez and Duterte are close allies with their ties going back to the 11th Congress when they were both Davao representatives.

“Ang sabi ko naman na ito ay isusunod namin. Sa bagay, tapos na ito sa committee level, pag-uusapan na lang naming sa floor (What I told him was that plunder and rape would be next. After all, the death penalty on these crimes hurdled the committee level, we can talk about it on the floor),” Alvarez said.

The Speaker earlier said the House may tackle in the future other bills punishing rape and plunder with capital punishment.

He said that House leadership has to be realistic about imposing the death penalty on drug-related offences first before pursuing capital punishment on other offences.

The death penalty bill has been amended to limit its coverage to drug-related offences, in a bid to support the administration’s bloody narcotics crackdown that has claimed over 7,000 lives.

The bill as it has been amended excluded plunder, rape and treason from the death sentence.

The bill will not impose a mandatory death sentence, giving the judge the leeway whether to impose life sentence or the maximum penalty of death on convicts.

The bill will punish with death or life imprisonment the following drug-related offences:

• importation of dangerous drugs
• sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of dangerous drugs maintenance of a den, dive or resort
• manufacture of dangerous drugs and/or controlled precursors and essential chemicals
• misappropriation, misapplication or failure to account for confiscated, seized or surrendered dangerous drugs
• planting of evidence

Possession of drugs will only be penalized with the maximum offence of life imprisonment.

The bill stated that the death penalty should not be imposed on children below 18 years old or senior citizens over 70 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime.

The penalty will be carried out by hanging, firing squad or lethal injection.

Now that the bill has hurdled the lower House, the ball is now in the hands of the Senate, where the deliberations over the bill face a gridlock over discussions on the country’s treaty obligations to abolish the death sentence.

Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Wednesday expressed her support for this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) campaign theme of “Be Bold for Change”, urging all to start by respecting one another, solving gender inequity, and opposing violence against women.

On her personal Facebook page, Yingluck said the world had changed a lot but there were still some social issues related to gender inequity and violence against women, hence this IWD should be the starting point for everyone to change that.

“I want to be one more person to push for visible change. Let’s #BeBoldForChange by giving importance to serious tackling of gender inequity and opposing the violence against women …

“I invite my fans and [members of the public] to start by giving opportunities to women around you to express their full potentials for the better change in our society towards a gender-equal status. Do tell and share in this page about what you have done today to create gender equity.”

Yingluck also urged that Thailand, although it had made much progress in allowing women better access to education and public health, must promoting more female participation in economic and labour issues and work towards a higher ratio of women in politics.

IWD, celebrated on March 8 every year, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Visit www.internationalwomensday.com to find out more.

Among the various programmes planned for International Women’s Day, to be observed on Wednesday, there is also going to be the Paxi, which is the first women-exclusive taxi – “for women and by women”.

By this the Paxi Pakistan Company means that the taxis will be driven by women and they will have women passengers only. And this service will be introduced in Karachi on Women’s Day, helping women feel safe when hailing a cab. Women face a lot of issues during transit owing to the unfriendly environment in buses or any other form of public transport. But having a mode of public transport catering to them alone can solve many of their transport issues.

According to Sheikh Mohammad Zahid, Paxi Pakistan’s CEO, they are starting with 10 drivers, referred to as ‘pilots’, but intend to expand to Lahore and Islamabad in the next three to four months followed by other parts of the country. “Our pilots are housewives, young women, students, too,” he said.

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Asked if the women required commercial licences to drive the cabs, the CEO said that was only needed for driving heavy vehicles. “But we do train our pilots. Although we have 10 female pilots to begin with, there are many more enrolled with us for training. They, too, will be inducted soon,” he said.

The CEO also explained that the service could be accessed through four modes such as hailing a cab on the road, the phone app, call centre and SMS service. The latter two involve providing one’s name and phone number so that the dispatcher is able to verify the call or message and issue a four-digit PIN so that when the cab reaches the customer she can ask the pilot the code to book or initiate a ride. She will also have to provide her name and number when hailing a cab on the road in order for the pilot to be able to feed it in the system.

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“It only takes a few seconds,” he said. “And the call centre, SMS and just stopping a cab are options for those who may not have smartphones,” he added.

He said that the verification would also help as they have accident insurance though each vehicle has a medical kit and a fire extinguisher.

Other than the women-exclusive service, Paxi is also going to launch a motorbike taxi for single commuters who don’t have to be female and a normal cab service on the lines of Uber and Careem that anyone can access. The date for their formal launch is said to be March 23 but there will be an orientation ceremony for the pink taxi and its pilots at the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides’ Headquarters here on Wednesday.

Earlier, in December 2016, Careem had also added about seven women captains to their ride-sharing service in Karachi and Lahore.