Thailand remembers a
dictator By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - The death last week of Thanom
Kittikachorn, a former Thai prime minister who ruled the
country with an iron fist, has given Thais reason to
pause and reflect on the roots of their young democracy.
It was during Thanom's rule that Thailand
witnessed its first mass uprising against the tyranny of
a military dictatorship, and in the process its people
discovered the power of their right to political and
civil liberties.
That event, etched in the minds
of many people, occurred on October 14, 1973, when
hundreds of thousands of people led by university
students came out on to Bangkok's streets to oppose
Thanom.
Even Thanom's response - a military
crackdown over the next three days that resulted in the
deaths of more than 70 pro-democracy activists - failed
to contain the spirit of political freedom that had
burst forth.
Thanom, who died last Wednesday at
the age of 92, was forced to step down soon after and
was driven to exile in the United States.
"Thanom, like other military dictators before
him, wielded virtually unlimited political power,
presiding over a regime festooned with an elaborate form
of corruption woven from political power and strands of
personal interest," stated an editorial in Bangkok-based
The Nation newspaper.
But under its front page
lead story headlined, "Democracy's bitterest foe", The
Nation added that through "oppression, rampant political
corruption, political domination and greed, Thanom's
empire inadvertently gave birth to a collective spirit
of freedom".
Unlike much of the country's media,
Thai text books and official records have been rather
kind to the former military strongman. Yet those who
support Thailand's struggle for democracy "will remember
Field Marshal Thanom as a tyrant," Giles Ungpakorn,
associate professor of political science at Bangkok's
Chulalongkorn University, told Inter Press Service.
"The victory of the democratic movement in 1973
has had a profound effect on Thailand's political
culture," he added. "It resulted in the forces of
democracy being placed firmly on the map."
According to Gothom Arya, secretary general of
the regional human rights lobby Forum-Asia, the 1973
demonstration against Thanom is widely accepted as the
foundation on which the country built one of Southeast
Asia's most vibrant democracies.
"The democratic
ideals are more absorbed in society," Arya told IPS.
"Now they cannot be challenged easily."
What is
more, the 1973 uprising is viewed as a pivotal event in
Thailand's political history because it also succeeded
in bringing about another process: a steady rolling back
of the Thai military's grip on the country's political
culture.
"After October 1973, Thais discovered
that it was possible to separate the military from
politics," said Sunai Phasuk, a Thai representative of
the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Consequently, today, with the military removed from
the political role it enjoyed previously, Thais "may not
have to fear military dictatorships", Sunai added.
But that has stopped neither Sunai nor The
Nation from cautioning against the possible emergence of
dictators without military uniforms more than 30 years
after Thailand's march toward democracy began.
Since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy
in 1932, the country has experienced 17 military coups.
Moreover, military generals have served in the position
of prime minister for 48 of the past 72 years.
By the time Thanom took power in the 1960s, the
country had endured the military dictatorships of Phibun
Songkhram and Sarit Thanarat. Thanom's contemporaries in
the region were men whose capacity for oppression is
legendary: Myanmar's military leader Ne Win, Filipino
leader Ferdinand Marcos and Indonesian leader Suharto.
And like Suharto and Marcos, Thanom's regime,
like Sarit's before him, was amply aided by the US
government as part of its Cold War policies in Southeast
Asia.
Thanom first ascended to the post of prime
minister in 1958, though he resigned from that position
after only nine months in office. He was elected prime
minister again in 1963, 1969 and for the fourth and last
time in 1972. During those years, Thanom consolidated
his grip on power by appointing relatives and close
associates to high level posts and greatly curtailing
civil liberties and press freedoms.
In 1971,
Thanom removed all doubts about where he stood with
regards to democracy by revoking the constitution and
dissolving parliament, citing the need to suppress
communist infiltration.
Thanom had said his
self-appointed mission was to defend Thailand against
communism, and aside from relying on martial law to
suppress dissent, Thanom's regime resorted to more
ingenious ways of crushing its opponents, which included
Thais suspected of being members of the country's
Communist Party.
Among these moves were the Red
Drum massacres, where suspects were forced down
200-liter red drums divided by an iron grille, below
which was a fire. This form of torture began in 1972 and
resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 villagers in
southern Thailand, most of which took place in army
camps.
Yet in Thai high schools, text books are
kind to Thanom. So, too, are official records of the
period in which he ruled and the events that led to his
downfall.
"That period has been sidelined by
mainstream historians," said HRW's Sunai. "Not many
people like to talk about it besides saying that Thanom
was simply a dictator." Such an attitude, he added, is
due largely to Thai culture, which has a reverence for
the establishment and those in power.
"What
October 1973 showed was that the reverse was possible;
it undermined the belief in the top-down notion of
authority and culture."
(Inter Press Service)
Jun 22, 2004
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