massacre THE Thai army likes to present itself as the upholder of the nation's values - above the private interests that concern the world of business and free from the corruption of everyday politics. The massacre in Bangkok of dozens - probably hundreds — of people in the course of the big pro-democracy demonstrations of May 1720, 1992, has once more shown what such pretensions are really worth.
These dramatic days also highlighted the acute crisis of the regime, which had been concealed for a time by the euphoria of economic growth between 1987 and 1990. While the new urban middle classes have yet to find a place in the existing political structures, the political role of the armed forces is being challenged and lucrative alliances between high-ranking officers and corrupt politicians are under threat.
It is as yet impossible to precisely measure the impact of this crisis on the country's economic development, on the international position of the government, which is involved in the settlement of the Sino-Indochinese conflicts, or on the rebirth of popular movements which were hard hit by the previous massacres in 1976 and the sweeping repression that followed. PAUL PETITJEAN
T HANKS to the mas-
sive spread of videos, Thai citizens were able to see with their own eyes what they already knew, but which government censorship had kept off the TV screens; the extreme violence of the repression during those three dark days of May 1992. They saw soldiers armed with M16 assault rifles firing in bursts into an unarmed crowd, kicking and stamping on prisoners, the wounded or dead, laid out on the ground.
The Royal Hotel, turned into an improvised hospital, was invaded and the victims torn from the hands of their helpers, the rooms searched and mass arrests made of those who had sought refuge there. The number of victims cannot be known. At the end of May, the government admitted to 50 dead, but it is estimated that a thousand people are missing. The press has published pages and pages listing the names of people sought by family and friends.
Witnesses also watched while the army loaded trucks full of bodies to be taken away and hidden, as they did in 1976, and sharpshooters took aim at the leaders of demonstrations.
### Provoking a bloodbath
These events leave little doubt about the determination of the military chiefs to repeat their successful scenario of 16 years ago, provoking a bloodbath in order to bring the movement to an end within a few hours, terrorize and decapitate the opposition and consolidate their grip on power.
Fifteen months passed between the "cold" coup d'état of February 23, 1991 and the massacre of May 1992.
In February 1991 a military group known as Ro-So-Cho, lead by General Suchinda Kraprayoon, overthrew the civilian government of Chatichai Choonhavan in the name of the struggle against corruption and the "parliamentary dictatorship" of the corrupt parties. Concerned about its image, the junta promised elections for the start of 1992, set up a commission of inquiry entrusted with thoroughly investigating the previous regime's betrayal of its mandate and appointed a government mainly made up of "competent technocrats".
It also however pushed ahead with creating instruments to ensure the army's enduring political influence. It established an obedient parliament to adopt a new constitution enshrining a semi-elective regime; this includes a
270 member senate, nominated by the junta, which has significant powers, such as taking part in votes of no confidence, alongside the elected 360 member parliament. It created a new party, the Samakkhi Tham, and won over or placed trustworthy men at the head of the civilian parties such as the Social Action Party and the Chart Thai ("Thai Nation") of the ousted prime minister
The junta was able for a time to benefit from the previous government's unpopularity, but the prospect of a long period of military control aroused resistance. At the end of 1991, the junta was obliged to amend its draft constitution, but this was not enough to pacify its critics. The moral credit of the military high command was eroding fast. Apart from its evident will to cling to power, it had toned down its anti-corruption campaign to better negotiate a coalition government.
### Military majority
Backstairs manoeuvring ended after the March 22 election with the formation of a majority bloc of five pro-military parties, including the Samakkhi Tham (79 seats), the Chart Thai (74 seats) and the Social Action Party (31 seats). Suchinda, now prime minister, met the demands of these parties by bringing into the government 11 people who his own commission of inquiry had accused of betrayal of trust.
However, the three main opposition parties succeeded in winning more than 150 seats; 72 for the New Aspiration led by former commander in chief Chavalit Yongchaiyut, 44 for the Democratic Party, and 41 for the Palang Daharma ("Buddhist Virtue") of the ascetic exgeneral and former governor of Bangkok, Chamlong Srimuang
The crisis rapidly came to head over the issue of the appointment of a nonelected prime minister (as the constitution allows "if the situation demands
THAILAND it"). The nomination to the post on April 7, 1992 of General Suchinda, the commander in chief of the army, symbolizing military domination, was the final straw. On April 20, 50,000 people held a demonstration in Bangkok, and on May 4 the charismatic leader of the Buddhist Virtue Party, Chamlong, went on hunger strike. Now there were between 100 and 150,000 protestors on the streets of the capital.
Inflammatory speeches
During the bloody days that followed, the high command made its choice: it would cling on at all costs and strike as hard as it had to to do this. The coalition government offered a compromise but then withdrew it. The General-Prime Minister Suchinda made an inflammatory speech, threatening the democratic movement with violent reprisals, making a barely disguised accusation that Chavalit, the architect of the coun ter-insurrection policies of the 1980s, was himself a Communist and claiming that Chamlong wanted to harm Buddhism, the state religion. He also later claimed that the demonstrators wanted to attack the royal family. Communism, like insulting Buddhism or the royal family, is a capital offence in Thailand; this speech thus gave the justification for the bloodbath to come.
The democratic movement responded swiftly; the demonstrations resumed, this time with 150 to 200,000 people. On May 17, the confrontations began. A police station was set on fire, Chamlong was arrested and the army opened fire.
In the minds of the militant generation of the 1970s, the May 1992 events evoked the sad memory of the killings on the campus of Thammassat University on October 6, 1976. Indeed, the high command wanted a repeat of the same scenario, in the hope of breaking the back of the movement in a few hours at the cost of hundreds of deaths. However 15 this time the mobilization continued,
International Viewpoint # 231 • June 22, 1992
THAILAND upsetting the military's expectations and sharpening conflicts within the regime, until, on the night of May 20 and 21, the king broke his silence on television to impose a compromise between Suchinda and Chamlong. The former undertook to release the arrested, the latter to put a stop to the street demonstrations. This is, in fact, just what happened in October 14, 1973, when the army wanted to forcibly disperse a huge student and popular demonstration against the military dictatorship. After two days of confrontation, the king intervened to force the generals to surrender the reigns of power.
The comparison between 1973, 1976 and 1992 is illuminating from several angles, both in terms of the similarities and the differences. Let us first of all note some continuities, apart from the use of a bloodbath, the persistence of military rule and the role of the royal palace. Today, as before, the army is at the centre of the crisis. The 1976 massacre was the prelude to the re-establishment of the military regime that had been overthrown three years previously. That of 1992, coming little more than a year after the 1991 coup, is intended to institutionalize military
This is not a simply a matter of the armed forces "taking power". For the past 60 years they have been entrenched within the institutional structures, a situation with which there are no strict comparisons in the region apart from Indonesia. The story began in 1932 when a coalition of officers, bureaucrats and liberal academics overthrew the absolute monarchy to replace it with a constitutional monarchy. A year later the military turned on their erstwhile allies and kept power for themselves for
16
This has had the effect of leaving the
Thai political landscape littered with (ex-) generals. Most prime ministers have been active or retired generals. This was true of Prem Tinsulanonda, prime minister from 1980 to 1988 and currently one of the influential "private advisers" of the king, and of Chatichai Choonhavan, who succeeded him from 1988 until the 1991 coup. Then there is Suchinda, the head of the junta, who became prime minister after the elections of March this year and finally Somboom Rahong, the governmental parties' new candidate. Just as symptomatically, the two main official opposition personalities are also former generals — Chamlong, who inspired the May demonstrations and Chavalit, nominated head of the parliamentary opposition by the king.
Armed forces take key ministries
Traditionally the military take certain key ministries, including defence, internal affairs and foreign affairs. They directly or indirectly control, via the state, a significant part of the country's television and radio. On top of their family ties with business, they have other ways of enriching themselves, through heading nationalized enterprises, control of banks, exactions on export revenues and commissions on arms purchases (as is the case with
Factional conflicts in the army have an impact on the whole political system, and play a role in the present crisis. General Suchinda, now 58 years old, graduated in 1953 from the Chulachamklao military academy. He finished his studies in the USA, saw action in Vietnam and worked in Washington where he cemented his friendships in the Pentagon. When he became prime minister he was controlling the whole military hierarchy with his graduation class, the "Class five" of around 130 officers, including his brother-in-law, General Issarapong Noonpakdi, head of the army and the air marshal Kaset Rojananin, who succeeded him as head of the armed forces. The situation is made volatile by the fact that the highranking officers from classes three and four resent the monopoly on power of class five, while even within the latter there are competitive tensions.
The Thai system of power is based on a balance and a certain level of interchange between business circles, the summits of the administrative bureaucracy, the higher officer corps and the royal family. The balance is renewed through a perpetual round of unstable alliances and overlapping relations of patronage.
Although stripped of most of its formal power, the royal family has carefully cultivated its real power. The latter is not so much a function of its fortune (which is, however, substantial, particularly in land and property) as of its sanctified authority. The legitimacy of this 200-year old dynasty was never undermined by the humiliations of colonization as in neighbouring countries.
Thailand, located between French controlled Indochina and English controlled Malaysia, exploited inter-imperialist competition to avoid becoming a direct colony, with all the political, ideological and social traumas that would have meant. The royal family understands the modern world perfectly well, but it also knows how to use patronage, religion, traditional ceremonies and legislation - all relayed on the television - to underpin its moral authority. Even today, the "crime" of lèse-majesté (for example, making a joke about a member of the royal family) is punishable by death.
A political monarchy
The king is, however, far from being all powerful. He has to know how to compromise in the light of the balance of forces. The royal family is itself often divided, but plays a full part in political life. Little can be done in Thailand against the categorical opposition of the palace. The king steps in to solve crises, in 1973 against the generals in power, in 1976 by tacitly supporting a coup, or by imposing a compromise as in 1992.
The military remains entrenched at the heart of the regime and the authority of the royal family is intact. But the coun try is changing. The current crisis has shown that social change is having a growing political impact, as was already perceptible twenty years ago at the time of the student mobilizations. Running against the tide of economic development, the alliance between the army and the bourgeoisie seems increasingly hard to maintain. Since 1973 the system of patronage between senior officers and business people has been dissolving. The bourgeoisie, socially stronger, wants to give most formal powers to the civilian parliament, cutting back the prerogatives of the military. The latter, however, are not inclined to go back to barracks; this was the basic reason for the 1991 coup.
The mixed bag of urban forces descri-
June 22, 1992 bed as the middle class also feels itself less powerful than in the past. It does not feel represented either by the traditional clientilist parties nor the military. The Party of Buddhist Virtue, led by the ascetic Chamlong, in sober peasant garb and known as Mister Clean on account of his struggle against corruption, won 32 of Bangkok's 35 seats at the recent elections.
The democratic movement - which is not restricted to the capital - that has come to the fore in recent months is complex. Shantytown dwellers took part in the demonstrations and one often found technical high-school students, known as the "mobsters", , forming motorcycle columns and launching attacks on soldiers using iron bars and Molotov cocktails — not without being disowned by the leaders of the movement.
The Confederation for Democracy embodied in Chamlong brings together academics, students, unionists, members of the liberal professions, human rights' defence groups, non-governmental organizations, religious communities and so on.
### Sociological changes
Reflecting the sociological changes in the country - growing urbanization (Bangkok has ten million of the country's 55 million inhabitants), explosive development of the service sector, including tourism, development of education and so on - the democratic mobilizations of 1991-92 have borne the stamp of the middle class. But political factors are also important, and it is here perhaps that the deepest differences between the crises of 1973, 1976 and 1992 are to be found.
Although somewhat later than in the neighbouring countries, the 1973 uprising in Thailand violently revealed an overall social crisis, combining strictly national elements - the crisis of the regime, of political references, of the agrarian social structure and so on — and the impact of the imperialist war in Indochina which had transformed the kingdom into a land airbase and a holiday camp for GIs. The fall of the dictatorship set free a considerable democratic potential for popular self-organization; the student movement naturally turned towards the new workers' unions and peasant associations. Despite its political and organizational weakness, the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) enjoyed great moral prestige.
The 1976 coup d'etat did not only represent the military's desire to regain power. It also had a clear counter-revolutionary significance, that of halting the development of a new generation of the radical left far more able than the traditional leadership of the CPT — old and mostly in exile in China — to understand and inspire the struggles of contemporary Thailand. Thousands of students and worker and peasant cadres then fled the repression to join the Communist guerilla movement.
The new dictatorship was unable to smash the revolutionary movementat least before the CPT entered into crisis on its own account, unable to politically integrate new forces or break the umbilical cord with Beijing in response to the Sino-Indochinese conflict of 1979-80. In the mid1980s, the CPT disappeared as a real political force, under the impact of its own internal crisis, the Thai government's counter-insurrection policy and the unfavourable development of the international situation.
The militant generation of the 1970s disintegrated, although some turned to humanitarian, environmental and social activity, and although many of the former 1970's students participated in the 1992 demonstrations. The military regained control of many unions and the independent peasant movement became weaker. The organized political left was thus absent from the scene during the current crisis. Indeed this has been one of its distinguishing features, despite
THAILAND General Suchinda's rantings about the hand of Communism, which he clearly felt was sufficient reason to murder several hundred people. The void on the left is filled by outfits such as General Chamlong's. But it is quite possible that the 1990s will see a resumption of social, worker and rural struggles. Will these allow the reformation of an organized left? And what lessons will the new militant generation, which has just gone through a bloody test, draw?
General Suchinda has had to resign as prime minister. In two readings Parliament has voted through four constitutional amendments limiting the power of the military - the prime minister must be an elected representative, the Senate will no longer take part in no confidence votes, the president of the National Assembly will be that of the Parliament not the Senate and the second annual sitting of the Assembly will deal with all questions. It requires a vote at a third sitting, planned for June 10, to finally make these amendments law.
However, the governmental five-party coalition has not yet broken up. They have even provocatively proposed another general, Somboom Rahong, leader of the Chart Thai party, for prime minister. The parliamentary opposition has rejected his candidacy and there is talk of a possible dissolution of the Assembly.
The most serious remaining issue is that of the reaction of the army brass. 190 senior army officers met in Bangkok on May 28, among them the heads of all the country's military regions, to reaffirm their support to the high com-
Far from trying to make amends, the army violently rejected the condemnations directed at it. General Kaset even claimed that "certain forces" wanted to destroy the military institution and
The kingdom has again been subjected to the threat of a coup, should the opposition try to gain too much out of the situation or should the self-amnesty of those responsible for the massacre be
Before resigning, Suchinda prepared an amnesty decree, signed by the king, for all the protagonists of the bloody days of May 17-20.
This was at once an insult to the demonstrators, who had done nothing to apologize for, and a scandal insofar as it lets off the butchers responsible for the
It is an unacceptable manoeuvre, which tries to put an equals sign between the victims and the murderer and 17 put those in power beyond the law. *
• # 231 International Viewpoint
Poisonous gifts
THE environmental organization Greenpeace has sounded the alarm. Along lines seen in other Third World never warned the workers of the risks they faced and furnished no pro-
International Viewpoint # 231 • June 22, 1992
CENTRAL AMERICA were generated - nearly 70% from the chemical industry. The methods used by different countries to rid themselves of these dangerous residues are as diverse as they are unreliable: treatment factories, which is the most widespread system, used countries, more than thirty-five plans for the commercialization of toxic waste have been proposed to