Volume 8 | Issue 20 | Number 2 | Article ID 3360 | May 17, 2010 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Long Winding Red Road to Ratchaprasong and Thailand's Future ラチャプラソンへの長い曲がりくねった道とタイの将来 Philip J. Cunningham The Long Winding Red Road to Ratchaprasong and Thailand’s Future PHILIP J. CUNNINGHAM The sniper shooting of Seh Daeng, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, on May 13, 2010 by an unknown assailant while chatting with foreign reporters has brought to rupture the standoff between Reds and Yellows in the heart of Bangkok and signals a new stage in the movement and its repression. Seh Daeng, Seh Daeng shot whose nickname means “red commander”, was the reddest of the red shirts. His daughter, who sat at his bedside in the hospital until he The road to the red-shirt takeover of the succumbed to his grievous wounds on May 17, Ratchaprasong intersection in the heart of 2010, has been a staunch supporter of the Bangkok’s busiest shopping district is a long yellow shirts, illustrative of the convoluted and winding one. Political activists are not politics of the era. To better put in context the unlike historians in that they frequently point convoluted color-coded politics of the present to events in the past to understand what is day, and to identify some of the key heroes and happening in the present. Key milestones on villains and historic reference points being Thailand’s winding, bloody road to democracy talked about on both sides of the barricades in are introduced to illuminate the democratic and Bangkok, a brief review of Thai political revolutionary claims and historic pretensions of activism over the years will follow. the red and yellow shirted activists today. 1 8 | 20 | 2 APJ | JF communist who likewise enjoyed generous US support. Thai Radicalism in the 1960s The 1960’s saw Thailand grow under authoritarian rule, with a concomitant rise in the countryside of the Thai communist party, especially in the Isan region, which ironically was the homeland of Sarit. One of Thailand’s brightest thinkers, an independent scholar named Jit Phumisak, who was hired by the US embassy in Bangkok to translate the Communist Manifesto, but more Red shirt protest in Bangkok importantly was the author of numerous tracts on Thai feudalism and lyricist/composer of songs that are still sung by protesters today, The Origins of Thai Democracy was threatened, jailed and hounded by the Sarit regime until he joined the newly formed The bloodless coup of 1932 marked the end of Thai communist guerilla movement in the absolute monarchy and is regarded as the mountains of northeastern Thailand in the birthdate of Thai democracy. Pridi Panomyong, province of Sakol Nakorn. later forced into exile to China by co- conspirator Pibun Songkhram, remains a hero Jit was shot to death in the ricefields of a wronged by history to Thai leftists, while Pibun, contested area on the side of a dirt road on who yielded top-down authoritarian power for May 5, 1966, an event memorialized in the much of the 1940’s and 1950’s is viewed as a haunting and melancholy song, Jit Phumisak, bulwark of establishment power. sung by the folk rock group Caravan. Simply put, Jit Phumisak is the Che Guevera of Bhumibol Adulyadej, the present king, was Thailand. coronated while Pibun was prime minister, but given Pibun’s republican leanings and history 1970s Student Radicalism and the of participation in the 1932 coup, he was not Communist Movement particularly supportive of the monarchy. On October 14, 1973 student demonstrations Thanks in part to the US-stoked hysteria of the erupted over corruption and the constitution, Cold War, the chameleon-like Pibun, who leading to the fall of the hated Thanom welcomed the Japanese with open arms in government which inaugurated a three-year World War II, and then welcomed the US with freewheeling hiatus in which US troops were open arms in 1945, was not perceived as anti- asked to leave and a home-grown democracy communist enough and was replaced in a 1957 was tested and attempted but failed to sink coup by the self-styled “royalist” strongman deep roots. Sarit Thanarat. In the case of 1973 the King intervened on the Sarit, ruthless, authoritarian and exceedingly side of the students, but when the military rich, was succeeded by his close associate staged a coup three years later in the face of Thanom Kittakachorn, another staunch anti- Thammasat University student demonstrations 2 8 | 20 | 2 APJ | JF protesting the return of Thanom from exile, the and became academics, poets and writers. monarch sided with the military. Others still, with input from the 1976 class student leaders such as Sutham Saengpratum, After the brutal crackdown of October 1976, who were imprisoned until amnesty was offered many students went into exile or joined by Prime Minister Kriangsak Chomanon under guerillas in the Communist Party of Thailand in the urging of Jimmy Carter, became politicians the “jungle.” Typical of this generation,in their own right. Caravan lead singer Surachai Chantimatorn and his fellow band members who started out Perhaps to atone for this historic misjudgment, as bards of the 1970’s protests, thenChamlong studied Buddhism, lived an ascetic radicalized and went into exile in China and lifestyle and became a key activist in the anti- Laos where they joined the United Front of the coup and anti General Suchinda Kraprayong Thai Communist Party after the October 6, demonstrations of 1992, which culminated in 1976 military crackdown. Things had gotten so the Ratchadamnern street killings of “Black bad in Bangkok that for Caravan, and hundreds May.” of other “Ocotober people,” the hardship of life in the jungle seemed a reasonable choice. Again the monarchy intervened, reprimanding both parties. Chamlong and Suchinda crouched Chamlong Srimuang and Samak Sundaravej, for the cameras at the King’s feet, then both of whom later served respective terms as withdrew from the struggle. A royalist interim mayor of Bangkok, and eventually became PM was appointed, and eventually elections bitter archrivals during the Thaksin years, were were held, effectively neutralizing Suchinda’s on the wrong side of history, the military side, military faction, which, after all, had been in 1976. entirely responsible for massacre of the demonstrators. Neutralized, perhaps, but not General Prem Tinsulanonda, who ruledaccounted for. The disgraced General Suchinda Thailand with a steady hand for much of the took a profitable sinecure position in the 1980’s after replacing military factions directly telecoms industry. responsible for the 1976 coup, bought peace and a measure of prosperity through aThe interim PM, Anand Panyarachun, helped successful amnesty deal that brought the restore normalcy, especially to jittery markets, activist youth of the 1970’s back into the fold of and willingly stepped down as soon as elections society. Since then, Prem has come towere scheduled. But the democratic period that represent the pinnacle of a supplefollowed has been full of fits and starts, establishment, serving as an elder statesman resulting in a series of short-lived coalition and a leading member of the Privy Council governments, the most accomplished of which serving the monarchy. was led by Chuan Leekpai of the Democrat Party, where the young Abhisit was being Seventies activists dropped the revolution as groomed for a future leadership role. the CPT withered as a result of the Sino-Soviet split within the fledgling movement andThe Historical Origins of the Red-Yellow amnesty offers from General Prem. Theirs is a Divide lost generation, characterized by wild extremes. Many willingly gave up the armed During the Chuan years, and then the Thaksin struggle, which did not suit Bangkok’s best and years, there were scattered protests, most of brightest student leaders anyway, but they had them peaceful and some involving sustained nowhere to go. Some gave up hope and idled camp-outs in public places. Many leftists of the in drugs or drink, others reinvented themselves October generation (1970’s activists) and the 3 8 | 20 | 2 APJ | JF veteran activists of Black May (1992) were Thaksin-turncoat Newin Chitchob, while the supportive of such street activism regardless of more northerly Isan towns such as Udon and who was premier. Caravan, in particular, has a Khonkhaen in the north can be more fairly decades-old tradition of supportingdescribed as redshirt strongholds. demonstrations, especially on behalf of the poor, and they have played tirelessly at student There is ample evidence of vote-buying and commemorations of democratic milestones and rent-a-mob activity, but there is also compelling at countless street gatherings, including mass evidence of poor people getting sick and tired demonstrations of the Assembly of the Poor, of the status quo and joining the fray, which in held in front of Government House, which recent years means putting on a color coded created the template for long-term protests at shirt and joining a demonstration. public intersections, complete with food Isan has a rebel tradition which goes back at service, stage and security. The predominantly least to the 1950’s, when its politicians, at the rural demonstrators adapted quickly to life in risk of their careers and very life, opposed the the open, and created vital tent cities of the Bangkok dictators, a pattern repeated in the kind that yellow shirts and red shirts have since 1960’s with Jit Phumisak’s generation of emulated. guerilla activists (he was born in what is now Cambodia but most of the guerillas were from To say the red-yellow divide represents a class Isan) and in the 1970’s with the students who struggle is fundamentally inaccurate, a willful went into the jungle along with the Caravan interpretation that plays into the hands of a generation.