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September 20th, 2006, 22:15
Chulalongkorn
King Chulalongkorn was the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty.Rama IV died in 1868, and was succeeded by his 15-year-old son Chulalongkorn, who reigned as Rama V and is now known as Rama the Great. Rama V was the first Siamese king to have a full western education, having been taught by an English governess, Anna Leonowens - whose place in Siamese history has been fictionalised as The King and I. At first Rama V's reign was dominated by the conservative regent, Chaophraya Si Suriyawongse, but when the king came of age in 1873 he soon took control. He created a Privy Council and a Council of State, a formal court system and budget office. He announced that slavery would be gradually abolished and debt-bondage restricted.
At first the princes and other conservatives successfully resisted the king's reform agenda, but as the older generation was replaced by younger and western-educated princes, resistance faded. The king could always argue that the only alternative was foreign rule. He found powerful allies in his brothers Prince Chakkraphat, whom he made finance minister, Prince Damrong, who organized interior government and education, and his brother-in-law Prince Devrawongse, foreign minister for 38 years. In 1887 Devrawonge visited Europe to study government systems. On his recommendation the king established Cabinet government, an audit office and an education department. The semi-autonomous status of Chiang Mai was ended and the army was reorganised and modernised.
Territorial claims abandoned by Siam in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesIn 1893 the French authorities in Indochina used a minor border dispute to provoke a crisis. French gunboats appeared at Bangkok, and demanded the cession of Lao territories east of the Mekong. The King appealed to the British, but the British minister told the King to settle on whatever terms he could get, and he had no choice but to comply. Britain's only gesture was an agreement with France guaranteeing the integrity of the rest of Siam. In exchange, Siam had to give up its claim to the Tai-speaking Shan region of north-eastern Burma to the British.
The French, however, continued to pressure Siam, and in 1906тАУ1907 they manufactured another crisis. This time Siam had to concede French control of territory on the west bank of the Mekong opposite Luang Prabang and around Champasak in southern Laos, as well as western Cambodia. The British interceded to prevent more French bullying of Siam, but their price, in 1909 was the acceptance of British sovereignty over of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu under Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909. All of these "lost territories" were on the fringes of the Siamese sphere of influence and had never been securely under their control, but being compelled to abandon all claim to them was a substantial humiliation to both king and country (historian David Wyatt describes Chulalongkorn as "broken in spirit and health" following the 1893 crisis). In the early 20th century these crises were adopted by the increasingly nationalist government as symbols of the need for the country to assert itself against the West and its neighbours.
Meanwhile, reform continued apace transforming an absolute monarchy based on relationships of power into a modern, centralised nation state. The process was increasingly under the control of Rama V's sons, who were all educated in Europe. Railways and telegraph lines united the previously remote and semi-autonomous provinces. The currency was tied to the gold standard and a modern system of taxation replaced the arbitrary exactions and labour service of the past. The biggest problem was the shortage of trained civil servants, and many foreigners had to be employed until new schools could be built and Siamese graduates produced. By 1910, when the King died, Siam had become at least a semi-modern country, and continued to escape colonial rule.
Vajiravhud and the ascent of elite nationalism
King Rama VI One of Rama V's reforms was to introduce a western-style law of royal succession, so in 1910 he was peacefully succeeded by his son Vajiravudh, who reigned as Rama VI. He had been educated at Sandhurst military academy and at Oxford, and was a thoroughly anglicised Edwardian gentleman. Indeed one of Siam's problems was the widening gap between the westernised royal family and upper aristocracy and the rest of the country. It took another 20 years for western education to extend to the rest of the bureaucracy and the army: a potential source of conflict.
There had been no political reform under Rama V: the king was still an absolute monarch, who acted as his own prime minister and staffed all the agencies of the state with his own relatives. Vajiravhud, with his British education, knew that the rest of the nation could not be excluded from government for ever, but he was no democrat. He applied his observation of the success of the British monarchy, appearing more in public and instituting more royal ceremonies. But he also carried on his father's modernisation programme. Polygamy was abolished, primary education made compulsory, and in 1916 higher education came to Siam with the founding of Chulalongkorn University, which in time became the seedbed of a new Siamese intelligentsia.
Another solution he found was to establish the Wild Tiger Corps, a paramilitary organisation of Siamese citizens of good character united to further the nation's cause. The King spent much time on the development of the movement as he saw it as an opportunity to create a bond between himself and loyal citizens; a volunteer corps willing to make sacrifices for the king and the nation.
At first the Wild Tigers were drawn from the king's personal entourage (it is likely that many joined in order to gain favour with Vajiravhud), but a genuine widespread enthusiasm rapidly arose.
Of the movement, a German observer wrote in September 1911:
This is a troop of volunteers in black uniform, drilled in a more or less military fashion, but without weapons. The British Scouts are apparently the paradigm for the Tiger Corps. In the whole country, at the most far-away places, units of this corps are being set up. One would hardly recognise the quiet and phlegmatic Siamese.
Vajiravhud's style of government differed greatly from that of his father. In the beginning of the sixth reign, the king continued to use his father's team and there was no sudden break in the daily routine of government. Much of the running of daily affairs was therefore in the hands of experienced and competent men. To them and their staff Siam owed many progressive steps, such as the development of a national plan for the education of the whole populance, the setting up of clinics where free vaccination was given against smallpox, and the continuing expansion of railways.
However, senior posts were gradually filled with one of the King's coterie when a vacancy occurred through death, retirement, or resignation. By 1915, half the cabinet consisted of new faces. Most notable was Prince Damrong's absence. He resigned from his post as Minister of the Interior officially because of ill health, but in actuality because of friction between himself and the king.
In 1917 Siam declared war on Germany, mainly to gain favour with the British and the French. Siam's token participation in World War I gained it a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Foreign Minister Devrawongse used this opportunity to argue for the repeal of the 19th century treaties and the restoration of full Siamese sovereignty. The United States obliged in 1920, while France and Britain delayed until 1925. This victory gained the king some popularity, but it was soon undercut by discontent over other issues, such as his extravagance, which became more noticeable when a sharp postwar recession hit Siam in 1919. There was also the fact that the king had no son; he obviously preferred the company of men to women (a matter which of itself did not much concern Siamese opinion, but which did undermine the stability of the monarchy).
Thus when Rama VI died suddenly in 1925, aged only 44, the monarchy was already in a weakened state. He was succeeded by his younger brother Prajadhipok.
Prajadhipok
Unprepared for his new responsibilities, all Prajadhipok had in his favour was a lively intelligence, a certain diplomacy in his dealings with others, a modesty and industrious willingness to learn, and the somewhat tarnished, but still potent, magic of the crown.
Unlike his predecessor, the king diligently read virtually all state papers that came his way, from ministerial submissions to petitions by citizens. Within half a year only three of Vajiravhud's twelve ministers stayed on, the rest having been replaced by members of the royal family. On the one hand, these appointments brought back men of talent and experience, on the other, it signalled a return to royal oligarchy.
The initial legacy that Prajadhipok received from his elder brother were problems of the sort that had become chronic in the Sixth Reign. The most urgent of these was the economy: the finances of the state were in chaos, the budget heavily in deficit, and the royal accounts an accountant's nightmare of debts and questionable transactions. That the rest of the world was in deep economic depression following World War I did not help the situation either.
Virtually the first act of Prajadipok as king entailed an institutional innovation intended to restore confidence in the monarchy and government, the creation of the Supreme Council of the State. This privy council was made up of a number of experienced and extremely competent members of the royal family, including the long time Minister of the Interior (and Chulalongkorn's right hand man) Prince Damrong. With the help of this council, the king managed to restore stability to the economy, although at a price of making a significant amount of the civil servants redundant and cutting the salary of those that remained. This was obviously unpopular among the officials, and was one of the trigger events for the coup of 1932.
Prajadhipok then turned his attention to the question of future politics in Siam. Inspired by the British example, the King wanted to allow the common people to have a say in the country's affair by the creation of a parliament. A proposed constitution was ordered to be drafted, but the King's wishes were rejected, perhaps wisely, by his advisers, who felt that the population was not yet ready for democracy.
In 1932, with the country deep in depression, the king made a speech in which he said: "I myself know nothing at all about finances, and all I can do is listen to the opinions of others and choose the best... If I have made a mistake, I really deserve to be excused by the people of Siam." This was not well received. Serious political disturbances were threatened in the capital, and in April the king agreed to introduce a constitution under which he would share power with a prime minister. This was not enough for the radical elements in the army, however. On June 24, 1932, while the king was holidaying at the seaside, the Bangkok garrison mutinued and seized power, led by a group of 49 officers known as "the Promoters." Thus ended 150 years of Siamese absolute monarchy.
History of Thailand (1932-1973)
The history of Thailand from 1932 to 1973 was dominated by the military dictatorship which was in power for much of the period. The main personalities of the period were the dictator Pibulsonggram (better known as Phibun), who allied the country with Japan during the Second World War, and the civilian politician Pridi Phanomyong, who founded Thammasat University and was briefly prime minister after the war. A succession of military dictators followed Pridi's ousting тАФ Phibun again, Sarit Dhanarajata and Thanom Kittikachorn тАФ under whom traditional, authoritarian rule combined with increasing modernisation and westernisation under the influence of the U.S. The end of the period was marked by Thanom's resignation, forced after a massacre of pro-democracy protesters who were led by Thammasat students.
Internal conflict
The military came to power in the bloodless Siamese coup d'├йtat of 1932, which transformed the government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok initially accepted this change but later surrendered the throne to his ten-year old nephew, Ananda Mahidol. Upon his abdication, King Prajadhipok said that the duty of a ruler was to reign for the good of the whole people, not for a select few. The military would retain this power, with intermittent periods of civilian rule, until the subsequent failed coup d'├йtat of 1992. The army's dominance can be attributed in part to its role as an avenue for advancement for ambitious young Siamese when the Chinese dominated the business world and the educated middle-class was still small.
The new regime of 1932 was led by a group of colonels headed by Phraya Phahol Pholphayuhasena and Phraya Songsuradej. In December they produced a constitution, Siam's first, with a National Assembly half appointed and half indirectly elected. Full democratic elections were promised when half the population had completed primary education - expected to be sometime in the 1940s. A prime minister and Cabinet were appointed and a facade of constitutional rule was maintained.
Once the new government had been established and the constitution put into effect, conflict began to erupt among the members of the new ruling coalition. There were basically four major factions competing for power. There were the older conservative civilians led by Phraya Manopakorn Nititada, the senior military faction led by Phraya Phahol; the junior army and navy faction led by Luang Phibunsongkhram; and the young civilian faction led by Pridi Phanomyong.
The first serious conflict arose in 1933 when Pridi was given the task of drafting a new economic plan for the nation. It was a radical plan which called for the nationalisation of large amounts of farmland as well as a policy of rapid industrialisation which would be directed by the government. His plan also called for the expansion of higher education so that entry into the bureaucracy would not be completely dominated by royalty and the aristocracy. Pridi's plan was instantly condemned by most of the factions in the government as being communist.
Because of its attack on private property, the conservative clique were the ones that were most alarmed by Pridi's economic plan. They urged the Mano government to adopt policies that would reverse the course of the "revolution". When Phraya Mano attempted to do this, Phibun and Phraya Phahol launched a second coup that toppled the Mano government. Phraya Pahon became prime minister, and the new government that was formed excluded all of the royalists.
A royalist reaction came in late 1933 when Prince Bovoradej, a grandson of Mongkut and one time Minister of Defence, led an armed revolt against the government. He mobilised various provincial garrisons and marched on Bangkok, capturing the Don Muang aerodome in the process. The Prince accused the government of disrespecting the King and of promoting communism, and demanded that the government leaders resign. He had hoped that some of the garrisons in the Bangkok area would join the revolt, but they remained loyal to the government. In the meanwhile, the navy declared itself neutral and left for its bases in the south. After heavy fighting in the northern outskirts of Bangkok, the royalists were finally defeated and Prince Bovoradej left for exile in Indochina.
A few months later in 1934, King Prajadhipok, whose relations with the new government had been deteriorating for some time, went abroad to receive medical treatment. While abroad, he still tried to retain some influence on the government's policies, but finally gave up when it became clear that the government would not relinquish its increasingly dogmatic nature. In March 1935, while still in Europe, he announced his abdication. The government then chose Prince Ananda Mahidol, who was then in school in Switzerland, to be the next king. For the first time in history, Siam was without a resident reigning monarch and was to remain so for the next fifteen years.
The new regime carried out some important reforms. The currency went off the gold standard, allowing trade to recover. Serious efforts were made to expand primary and secondary education. Elected local and provincial governments were introduced, and in 1937 democratic development was brought forward when direct elections were held for the National Assembly, although political parties were still not allowed. Thammasat University was founded, at Pridi's initiative, as a more accessible alternative to the elitist Chulalongkorn University. Military expenditure was also greatly expanded to 30% of the national budget.
Pursuit of Nationalism
The military, now led by Major General Phibun as Defence Minister, and the civilian liberals led by Pridi as Foreign Minister, worked together harmoniously for several years, but when Phibun became prime minister in December 1938 this co-operation broke down, and military domination became more overt. Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and his regime soon developed some fascist characteristics. In early 1939 forty political opponents, both monarchists and democrats, were arrested, and after rigged trials eighteen were executed, the first political executions in Siam in over a century. Many others, among them Prince Damrong and Phraya Songsuradej, were exiled. Phibun launched a demagogic campaign against the Chinese business class. Chinese schools and newspapers were closed, and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.
Phibun and Luang Wichitwathakan, the government's ideological spokesman, copied the propaganda techniques used by Hitler and Mussolini to build up the cult of the leader. Aware of the power of mass media, they used the government's monopoly on radio broadcasting to shape popular support for the regime. Popular government slogans were constantly aired on the radio and plastered on newspapers and billboards. Phibun's picture was also to be seen everywhere in society, while portraits of the ex-monarch King Prajadhipok, an outspoken critic of the autocractic regime, were banned. At the same time he passed a number of authoritarian laws which gave the government the power of almost unlimited arrest and complete press censorship. During the Second World War, newspapers were instructed to print only good news emanating form Axis sources, while sarcastic comments about the internal situation were banned.
Also in 1939, Phibun changed the country's name from Siam to Prathet Thai, or Thailand, meaning "land of the free." This was a nationalist gesture: it implied the unity of all the Tai-speaking peoples, including the Lao and the Shan, but excluding the Chinese. The regime's slogan became "Thailand for the Thai." Early in 1942 he issued a degree reserving twenty-seven occupations and professions exclusively for Thai citizens. These ranged from the legal profession to the makers of Buddha images.
Modernisation was also an important theme in Phibun's new Thai nationalism. From 1938 to 1942 he issued a set of 12 Cultural Mandates. In addition to requiring that all Thais salute the flag, know the National Anthem, and speak the national language, the mandates also encouraged Thais to work hard, stay informed on current events, and to dress in a western fashion. By 1941 it became unlawful, among other things, to ridicule those who attempted to promote national customs. The programme also encompassed the fine arts. Fiercely nationalistic plays and films were sponsored by the government. Often these depicted a glorious past when Thai warriors fearlessly gained freedom for the country, defended their honour, or sacrifice themselves. Patriotism was taught in schools and was a recurrent theme in song and dance.
At the same time, Phibun worked rigorously to rid society of its royalist influences - traditional royal holidays were replaced with new national events, royal and aristocratic titles were abandoned. Ironically, he retained his aristocratic surname. Even the Sangha was affected when the status of the royally sponsored Thammayuth sect was downgraded.
Meanwhile, all cinemas were instructed to display Phibun's picature at the end of every performance as if it were the King's portrait, and the audience were expected to rise and bow. Another aspect of Phibun's growing personality cult was becoming apparent in official d├йcor. He was born in the year of the cock, and this symbol began to replace the wheel. Similarly Phibun's auspicious birth-colour, green, was used in official decorations.
World War IIIn 1940 most of France was occupied by Nazi Germany, and Phibun immediately set out to avenge Siam's humiliations by France in 1893 and 1904 when the French limited the borders of Siam to the north by forcing a series of treaties. Luang Wichit wrote a number of popular dramas that glorified the idea of many ethnic groups belonging to one greater "Thai" empire and condemned the evils of European colonial rule. Irredentist and anti-French demonstrations were incessantly held around Bangkok, and in late 1940 border skirmishes erupted along the Mekhong frontier. In 1941, the skirmishes became a small scale war between Vichy France and Thailand. The Thai forces dominated the war on the ground and in the air, but suffered a crushing naval defeat at the battle of Koh Chang. The Japanese then stepped in to mediate the conflict. The final settlement thus gave back to Thailand a number of the disputed areas in Laos and Cambodia.
Phibun's prestige was so increased that he was able to bask in a feeling of being truly the nation's leader. As if to celebrate the occasion, he promoted himself to field marshal, skipping the ranks of lieutenant general and general.
This caused a rapid deterioration of relations with the United States and Britain. In April 1941 the United States cut off petroleum supplies to Thailand. Thailand's campaign for territorial expansion came to an end on December 8, 1941 when Japan invaded the country along its southern coastline. The Phibun regime allowed the Japanese to pass through the country in order to attack Burma and invade Malaya. Convinced by the Allied defeats of early 1942 that Japan was winning the war, Phibun decide to form an actual military alliance with the Japanese.
As a reward, Japan allowed Thailand to invade and annex the Shan States in northern Burma, and to resume sovereignty over the sultanates of northern Malaya which had previously been taken away in a treaty with Britain. In January 1942 Thailand actually declared war on Britain and the United States, but the Thai Ambassador in Washington, Seni Pramoj refused to deliver it to the State Department. Instead, Seni denounced the regime as illegal and formed a Seri Thai Movement in Washington. Pridi, by now serving in the role of an apparently powerless regent, led the resistance movement inside Thailand, while Queen Ramphaiphanni was the nominal head of the movement in Great Britain.
Secret training camps were set up, the majority of set up by the populist politician Tiang Sirikhanth in the northeast of the country. There were a dozen camps alone in Sakhon Nakhon Province. Secret airfields also appeared in the northeast, where Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force planes brought in supplies, as well as Special Operations Executive, Office of Strategic Services, and Seri Thai agents; while at the same time evacuating out prisoners of war. By early 1945, Thai air force officers were performing liaision duties with South East Asia Command in Kandy and Calcutta.
By 1944 it was evident that the Japanese were going to lose the war, and their behaviour in Thailand had become increasingly arrogant. Bangkok also suffered heavily from the Allied bombing raids. This, plus the economic hardship caused by the loss of Thailand's rice export markets, made both the war and Phibun's regime very unpopular, and in July Phibun was ousted by the Seri Thai-infiltrated government. The National Assembly reconvened and appointed the liberal lawyer Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister. The new government hastily evacuated the British territories that Phibun had occupied and surreptitiously aided the Seri Thai movement while at the same time maintained friendly relations with the Japanese.
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945. Immediately the allied military responsibilty for Thailand fell to the British. As soon as practicable British troops were flown in and these rapidly secured the release of surviving POWs. The British were surprised to find that the disarmament of the Japanese soldiers had already been largely completed by the Thais.
The British regarded Thailand as having been partly responsible for the immeasurable damage dealt upon the allied cause and favoured treating the kingdom as a defeated enemy, but the Americans had no great sympathy for British and French colonialism and decided to support the new government. Thailand thus received little punishment for its wartime role.
Postwar Thailand
Seni Pramoj became Prime Minister in 1945, and promptly restored the name Siam as a symbol of the end of Phibun's nationalist regime. However, he found his position at the head of a cabinet packed with PridiтАЩs loyalists quite uncomfortable. Northeastern populist politicians like Tiang Sirikhanth and Bangkok upstarts like Sanguan Tularaksa were not the sort that the aristocratic Seni preferred to associate with. They, in turn, viewed Seni as an elitist who was entirely out of touch with ThailandтАЩs political realities. Pridi continued to wield power behind the scenes as he had done during the Khuang government. The regentтАЩs looming presence and overarching authority rankled the proud, thin-skinned Seni, fuelling a personal animosity that would poison ThailandтАЩs postwar politics.
Democratic elections were subsequently held in January 1946. These were the first elections in which political parties were legal, and Pridi's People's Party and its allies won a majority. In March 1946 Pridi became Siam's first democratically elected Prime Minister. In 1947 he agreed to hand back the French territory occupied in 1940 as the price for admission to the United Nations, the dropping of all wartime claims against Siam and a substantial package of American aid.
In December 1945 the young king Ananda Mahidol had returned to Siam from Europe, but in July 1946 he was found mysteriously shot dead in the palace. Three palace servants were tried and executed for his murder, but Thai society has preferred not to dwell on the event rather than to investigate its causes. The king was succeeded by his younger brother Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was a schoolboy in Europe. In August Pridi was forced to resign amid suspicion that he had been involved in the regicide. Without his leadership, the civilian government floundered, and in November 1947 the army, its confidence restored after the debacle of 1945, seized power. After an interim Khuang-headed government, in April 1948 the army brought Phibun back from exile and made him Prime Minister. Pridi in turn was driven into exile, eventually settling in Beijing as a guest of the People's Republic of China.
Phibun's return to power coincided with the onset of the Cold War and the establishment of a Communist regime in North Vietnam. He soon won the support of the U.S., beginning a long tradition of U.S.-backed military regimes in Thailand (as the country was again renamed in July 1949, this time permanently). Once again political opponents were arrested and tried, and some were executed. During this time, several of the key figures in the wartime Free Thai underground тАУ including Thawin Udom, Thawi Thawethikul, Chan Bunnak, and Tiang Sirikhanth тАУ were eliminated in extra-legal fashion by the Thai police, run by PhibunтАЩs ruthless associate Phao Sriyanond. There were attempted counter-coups by Pridi supporters in 1948, 1949 and 1951, the second leading to heavy fighting between the army and navy before Phibun emerged victorious. In the navy's 1951 attempt, popularly known as the Manhattan Coup, Phibun was nearly killed when the ship he was held hostage aboard was bombed by the pro-government air force.
In 1949 a new constitution was promulgated, creating a Senate appointed by the king (in practice, by the government). But in 1951 the regime abolished its own constitution and reverted to the 1932 arrangements, effectively abolishing the National Assembly as an elected body. This provoked strong opposition from the universities and the press, and led to a further round of trials and repression. The regime was greatly helped, however, by a postwar boom which gathered pace through the 1950s, fuelled by rice exports and U.S. aid. Thailand's economy began to diversity, while the population and urbanisation increased.
By 1955 Phibun was losing his leading position in the army to younger rivals led by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat and General Thanom Kittikachorn. To shore up his position he restored the 1949 constitution and called elections, which his supporters won. But the army was not prepared to give up power, and in September 1957 it demanded Phibun's resignation. When Phibun tried to have Sarit arrested, the army staged a bloodless coup on September 17, 1957, ending Phibun's career for good. Thanom became Prime Minister until 1958, then yielded his place to Sarit, the real head of the regime. Sarit held power until his death in 1963, when Thanom again took the lead.
Sarit and Thanom were the first Thai leaders to have been educated entirely in Thailand, and were less influenced by European political ideas, whether fascist or democratic, than the generation of Pridi and Phibun had been. Rather, they were Thai traditionalists, who sought to restore the prestige of the monarchy and to maintain a society based on order, hierarchy and religion. They saw rule by the army as the best means of ensuring this, and also of defeating Communism, which they now associated with Thailand's traditional enemies the Vietnamese. The young King Bhumibol, who returned to Thailand in 1951, co-operated with this project. The Thai monarchy's present elevated status thus has its origins in this era.
The regimes of Sarit and Thanom were strongly supported by the U.S. Thailand had formally become a U.S. ally in 1954 with the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). While the war in Indochina was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Communists, Thailand committed itself strongly to the U.S. side, concluding a secret agreement with the U.S. in 1961, sending troops to Vietnam and Laos and allowing the U.S. to open airbases in the east of the country to conduct its bombing war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese retaliated by supporting the Communist Party of Thailand's insurgency in the north and northeast.
The Vietnam War hastened the modernisation and westernisation of Thai society. The American presence and the exposure to western culture that came with it had an effect on almost every aspects of Thai life. Before the late 1960s, full access to Western culture was limited to a highly educated elite in society, but the Vietnam War brought the outside world face to face with large segments of the Thai society as never before. With US dollars pumping up the economy, the service, transportation, and construction industries grew phenomenally. The traditional rural family unit was broken down as more and more rural Thais moved to the city to find new job. This led to a clash of cultures as Thais were exposed to Western ideas about fashion, music, values, and moral standards.
The population began to grow explosively as the standard of living rose, and a flood of people began to move from the villages to the cities, and above all to Bangkok. Thailand had 30 million people in 1965, while by the end of the 20th century the population had doubled. Bangkok's population had grown tenfold since 1945 and had trebled since 1970.
Educational opportunities and exposure to mass media increased during the Vietnam War years. As bright university students learned more about ideas related to Thailand's economic and political systems resulting in a revival of student activism. The Vietnam War period also saw the growth of the Thai middle class which gradually developed its own identity and consciousness.
Economic development certainly did not bring prosperity to all. During the 1960s many of the rural poor felt increasingly dissatisfied with their condition in society and disillusioned by their treatment by the central government in Bangkok. Efforts by the Thai government to develop poor rural regions often did not have the desired effect in that they contributed to the farmers' awareness of how bad off they really were. It is interesting to note that it was not always the poorest of the poor who joined the anti-government insurgency. Increased government presence in the rural villages did little to improve the situation. Villagers became subject to increased military and police harassment and bureaucratic corruption. Villagers often felt betrayed when government promises of development were frequently not fulfilled. By the early 1970s rural discontent had manifested itself into a peasant's activist movement.
The peasant's movement got started in the regions just north of the central plains and the Chiang Mai area (not the areas where the insurgency was most active) When these regions had been organised into the centralised Siamese state in King Chulalongkorn's reign, the old local nobility had been allowed to grab large tracts of land. The end result was that by the 1960s close to 30% of the households were landless. In the early 1970s university students helped to bring some of the local protests out on to the national stage. The protests focused on land loss, high rents, the heavy handed role of the police, corruption among the bureaucracy and the local elite, poor infrastructure, and overwhelming poverty. The government agreed to establish a committee to hear peasant grief. Within a short time the committee was flooded with more than 50,000 petitions, way more that it could possibly handle. Officials called many of the peasants' demands unrealistic and too far-reaching.
The political environment of Thailand changed little during the middle '60s. Thanom and his chief deputy Praphas maintained a tight grip on power. The alliance between these two was further cemented by the marriage of Praphas's daughter to Thanom's son Ranong. By the late 1960s, however, more elements in Thai society had become openly critical of the military government which was seen as being increasingly incapable of dealing with the country's problems. It was not only the student activists, but also the business community that had begun to question the leadership of the government as well as its relationship with the United States. Thanom came under increasing pressure to loosen his grip on power when the King commented that it was time for parliament to be restored and a new constitution put into effect. After Sarit had suspended the constitution in 1958, a committee was established to write a new one, but almost ten years later, it had still not been completed. Finally in 1968 the government issued a new constitution and scheduled elections for the following year. The government party founded by the military junta won the election and Thanom remained prime minister.
Surprisingly, the Assembly was not totally tame. A number of MPs (mostly professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and journalists) began to openly challenge some of the government's policies, producing evidence of widespread government corruption on a number of large projects. As a new budget was being debated in 1971, it actually appeared that the military's demand for more funds might be voted down. Rather than suffer such a loss of face, Thanom carried out a putsch against his own government, suspended the constitution and dissolved the Parliament. Once again Thailand had been returned to absolute military rule.
This strongman approach which had worked for Phibun in 1938 and 1947, and for Sarit in 1957-58 would prove to be unsuccessful. By the early 1970s Thai society as a whole had developed a level of political awareness where it would no longer accept such unjustified authoritarian rule. The King, using various holidays to give speeches on public issues, became openly critical of the Thanom-Praphas regime. He expressed doubt on the use of extreme violence in the efforts to combat insurgency. He mentioned the widespread existence of corruption in the government and expressed the view that coups should become a thing of the past in the Thai political system. Furthermore, the junta began to face increasing opposition from within the military itself. Being preoccupied with their political roles, Thanom and Praphas had become more removed from direct control of the army. Many officers felt outraged by the rapid promotion of Narong and the fact that he seemed destined to be Thanom's successor. To these officers, it appeared that a political dynasty was being created.
The 1973 democracy movement
In the end it was the students that played the decisive role in the fall of the junta. Student demonstrations had started in 1968 and grew in size and numbers in the early 1970s despite the continued ban on political meetings. In June 1973, nine Ramkhamhaeng University students were expelled for publishing an article in a student newspaper that was critical of the government. Shortly after, thousands of students held a protest at the Democracy Student demanding the reenrollment of the nine students. The government ordered the universities shut, but shortly after backed down and allowed the students to be reenrolled.
In October the situation became more serious when another 13 students were arrested on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. This time the student protesters were joined by workers, businessmen and other ordinary citizens. The demonstrations swelled to several hundred thousand and the issue broadened from the release of the arrested students to demands for a new constitution and the replacement of the current government.
On October 13, the government yielded to the public's demand and the detainees were released. Leaders of the demonstrations, among them Saeksan Prasertkul, called off the march in accordance with the wishes of the King.
As the crowds were breaking up the next day, the historic October 14th, many students found themselves unable to leave because the police had attempted to control the flow of the crowd by blocking the southern route to Rajavithi Road. Cornered and overwhelmed by the hostile crowd, the police soon responded with violence by lauching barrages of teargas and gunfire. Within minutes, a full scale riot had erupted.
The military was called in, and Bangkok witnessed the horrifying spectacle of tanks rolling down Rajdamnoen Avenue and helicopters firing down at Thammasat University. A number of students commandeered buses and fire engines in an attempt to halt the progress of the tanks by ramming into them, with disastrous results.
With chaos reigning on the streets, King Bhumibol, ignoring the safety concerns of his immediate security staff, ordered the gates of Chitralada Palace opened to the students who were being gunned down by the army.
Despite orders from Thanom that the military action be intensified, army commander Kris Sivara had the army withdrawn from the streets.
Then, for the first time in modern history, Thailand's constitutional monarch openly involved himself in the transition of political power. He condemned the government's inability to handle the demonstrations and ordered Thanom, Praphas, and Narong to leave the country.
At 06:10PM, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from his post as Prime Minister.
An hour later, the King appeared on national television, broadcasting the following speech:
"Today is a day of great sorrow that will be. . . recorded with the utmost grief in the history of our Thai nation. For the past six or seven days, there have been various demands and negotiations that have culminated in an agreement between the students and the government. But then bottle bombs were thrown and tear-gas was fired, causing some clashes in which many people were injured. Violence then escalated all over the city until it became a riot that has not ended until now, with over a hundred of our Thai compatriots having lost their lives.
I beseech all sides and all people to eliminate the causes of violence by decidedly suspending any action leading in that direction, in order that our country can return to a state of normalcy as soon as possible.
Furthermore, in order to remedy the present disaster, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from the post of prime minister earlier tonight. I have consequently appointed Nai Sanya Dharmasakti as prime minister. . . ."''
The junta had fallen, at the cost of 1,577 lives.
History of Thailand since 1973
The history of Thailand since 1973 has seen a difficult and sometimes bloody transition from military to civilian rule, with several reversals along the way, including the most recent military coup of September 2006. The revolution of 1973 inaugurated a brief, unstable period of democracy, with military rule being reimposed after a bloody coup in 1976. For most of the 1980s, Thailand was ruled by Prem, a democratically-inclined strongman who restored parliamentary politics. Thereafter the country remained a democracy apart from a brief period of military rule from 1991 to 1992. The populist Thai Rak Thai party, led by prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, governed from 2001 until the 2006 coup.
Revolution
The events of October 1973 amounted to a revolution in Thai politics. For the first time the urban middle class, led by the students, had defeated the combined forces of the old ruling class and the army, and had gained the apparent blessing of the king for a transition to full democracy, symbolised by a new constitution which provided for a fully elected unicameral legislature.
However, Thailand had not yet produced a political class able to make this bold new democracy function smoothly. The January 1975 elections failed to produce a stable party majority, and fresh elections in April 1976 produced the same result. The veteran politician Seni Pramoj and his brother Kukrit Pramoj alternated in power, but were unable to carry out a coherent reform programme. The sharp increase in oil prices in 1974 led to recession and inflation, weakening the government's position. The democratic government's most popular move was to secure the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand.
The wisdom of this move was soon questioned, however, when Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fell to communist forces in 1975. The arrival of communist regimes on ThailandтАЩs borders, the abolition of the 600-year-old Lao monarchy, and the arrival of a flood of refugees from Laos and Cambodia, swung public opinion in Thailand back to the right, and conservatives did much better in the 1976 elections than they had done in 1975.
A Return to Military Rule
By late 1976 moderate middle class opinion had turned away from radicalism as the students, with their base at Thammasat University, grew more militant. The army and the right-wing parties fought back against the radicals through paramilitary groups such as the Village Scouts and the Red Gaurs. Matters came to a head in October when Thanom returned to Thailand to enter a monastery. Violent student protests were met by equally violent counter-protests. On October 6 1976 the army unleashed the paramilitaries, and used the resultant orgy of violence, in which hundreds of students were tortured and killed, to suspend the constitution and resume power.
The army installed Thanin Kraivixien, an ultra-conservative former judge, as prime minister, and carried out a sweeping purge of the universities, the media and the civil service. Thousands of students, intellectuals and other leftists fled Bangkok and joined the Communist Party's insurgent forces in the north and north-east, operating from safe bases in Laos. Others left for exile, including Dr. Puey Ungphakorn, the respected economist and Rector of Thammasat University. The economy was also in serious difficulties, in no part due to Thanin's policies, which frightened foreign investors. The new regime proved as unstable as the democratic experiment had been. In October 1977 the army staged another "coup" and replaced Thanin with General Kriangsak Chomanand.
By this time, Thai forces had to deal with the situation resulting from the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. There was another flood of refugees, and both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces periodically crossed into Thai territory, sparking clashes along the borders. A 1979 visit to Beijing earned Deng Xiaoping's agreement to end support for Thailand's communist movement; in return, the Thai authorities agreed to give safe haven to the Khmer Rouge forces fleeing west following the invasion of Cambodia. Revelations of the crimes of the defeated Khmer Rouge also sharply reduced the appeal of communism to the Thai public. Kriangsak's position as prime minister soon became untenable and he was forced to step down in February 1980 at a time of economic troubles. Kriangsak was succeeded by the army commander-in-chief, General Prem Tinsulanonda, a staunch royalist with a reputation for being uncorruptible.
Coups and elections
Much of the 1980s saw a process of democratisation overseen by the King and Prem. The two preferred constitutional rule, and acted to put an end to violent military interventions.
In April 1981 a clique of junior army officers popularly known as the "Young Turks" staged a coup, taking control of Bangkok. They dissolved the National Assembly and promised sweeping social changes. But their position quickly crumbled when Prem accompanied the royal family to Khorat. With the King's support for Prem made clear, loyalist units under the palace favourite General Arthit Kamlangek managed to recapture the capital in a bloodless counterattack.
This episode raised the prestige of the monarchy still further, and also enhanced PremтАЩs status as a relative moderate. A compromise was therefore reached. The insurgency ended and most of the ex-student guerillas returned to Bangkok under an amnesty. The army returned to its barracks, and yet another constitution was promulgated, creating an appointed Senate to balance the popularly elected National Assembly. Elections were held in April 1983, giving Prem, now in the guise of a civilian politician, a large majority in the legislature (an arrangement which came to be known as "Premocracy").
Prem was also the beneficiary of the accelerating economic revolution which was sweeping south-east Asia. After the recession of the mid 1970s, economic growth took off. For the first time Thailand became a significant industrial power, and manufactured goods such as computer parts, textiles and footwear overtook rice, rubber and tin as ThailandтАЩs leading exports. With the end of the Indochina wars and the insurgency, tourism developed rapidly and became a major earner. The urban population continued to grow rapidly, but overall population growth began to decline, leading to a rise in living standards even in rural areas, although the Isaan continued to lag behind. While Thailand did not grow as fast as the "Asian tigers" like Taiwan and South Korea, it achieved sustained growth.
Prem held office for eight years, surviving two more general elections in 1983 and 1986, and remained personally popular, but the revival of democratic politics led to a demand for a more adventurous leader. In 1988 fresh elections brought former General Chatichai Choonhavan to power. But Chatichai proved both incompetent and corrupt. By allowing one faction of the military to get rich on government contracts, he provoked a rival faction, led by Generals Sunthorn Kongsompong and Suchinda Kraprayoon, to stage a coup in February 1991. The military brought in a civilian prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, who was still responsible to the military in the form of the National Peacekeeping Council with General Sunthorn as chairman. Anand's anti-corruption measures proved popular. Another general election was held in 1992, as is customary after a coup in Thailand.
In March 1992, the military strongman General Suchinda accepted the invitation from a coalition of parties to become Prime Minister, in effect breaking a promise he had made earlier to the King and confirming the widespread suspicion that the new government was going to be a military regime in disguise. However, the Thailand of 1992 was not the Siam of 1932. SuchindaтАЩs action brought hundreds of thousands of people out in the largest demonstrations ever seen in Bangkok, led by the former governor of Bangkok, Major-General Chamlong Srimuang. Suchinda brought military units personally loyal to him into the city and tried to suppress the demonstrations by force, leading to a massacre in the heart of the city in which hundreds died. The Navy mutinied in protest, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war. In May the King intervened: he summoned Suchinda and Chamlong to a televised audience. The result of this was the resignation of Suchinda.
Democracy
The King re-appointed the liberal royalist Anand as interim prime minister until elections could be held in September 1992, which brought the Democrat Party under Chuan Leekpai to power, mainly representing the voters of Bangkok and the south. Chuan was a competent administrator who held power until 1995, when he was defeated at elections by a coalition of conservative and provincial parties led by Banharn Silpa-acha. Tainted by corruption charges from the very beginning, BanharnтАЩs government was forced to call early elections in 1996, in which General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh's New Aspiration Party managed to gain a narrow victory.
Soon after coming into office, Prime Minister Chavalit was confronted by the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. After coming under strong criticsm for his handling of the crisis, Chavilit resigned in November 1997 and Chuan returned to power. Chuan came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund which stabilised the currency and allowed IMF intervention on Thai economic recovery. In contrast to the country's previous history, the crisis was resolved by civilian rulers under democratic procedures.
Since 2001 Thai politics has been dominated by the populist Thai Rak Thai ("Thais Love Thais") party of telecommunications millionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. ChuanтАЩs agreement with IMF and use of injection fund to the economy stir various stream of opinion, meanwhile ThaksinтАЩs demagogic appeal to the mass electorate. Thaksin campaigned effectively against the old politics, corruption, organized crime, and drugs. In January 2001 he had a sweeping victory at the polls, winning a larger popular mandate than any Thai prime minister has ever had in a freely elected National Assembly.
While Thaksin himself owned a large portion of shares in Shin Corporation (formerly Shinawatra Computer and Communications), one of Thailand's major telecommunications companies, he moved his holding to under the names of his servants and driver until his children were old enough to able to hold shares. The shares eventually transferred to family members. The share issue went to court and the court ruled in his favor, acquitting him from the legal clause that a prime minister cannot hold shares. Even though this legally freed him, political opposition parties and many Thai people did not accept the court ruling on this matter.
In power, Thaksin has presided over the rapid recovery of the Thai economy and repaid all debts borrowed from IMF before due time. By 2002 Thailand, and Bangkok in particular, was once again booming. As low-end manufacturing moved to China and other low-wage economies, Thailand moved upscale into more sophisticated manufacturing, both for a rapidly expanding domestic middle class market and for export. Tourism, and particularly sex tourism, also remained a huge revenue earner despite intermittent "social order" campaigns by the government to control the country's nightlife.
Thus by 2004 Thai democracy and prosperity seemed firmly established, but the dominance of Thaksin, whose rule was highly personalised and somewhat authoritarian (private company CEO-style), was seen by many commentators as an unhealthy development. Thaksin won an even bigger majority at elections in February 2005, securing his second consecutive term.
In December 2005 media proprietor Sonthi Limthongkul launched an anti-Thaksin campaign based on accusations of corruption and immorality. Accusations included the improper handling of privatization of PTT and EGAT, the unfairness of the U.S.-Thailand free trade agreement, and the corruption in the Suvarnabhumi Airport project. In January 2006, the 73,000 million baht tax free buy-out of his family holding in Shin Corporation, while legal, brought on more accusations by Sonthi and opposition parties on the grounds of what they said was immorality and conflict of interest. Mass rallies were held by Sonthi outside Parliament House, at which 40 people were arrested for trespassing but later released. In February Thaksin responded by calling a snap election in April.
BY WIKIPEDIA.ORG
King Chulalongkorn was the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty.Rama IV died in 1868, and was succeeded by his 15-year-old son Chulalongkorn, who reigned as Rama V and is now known as Rama the Great. Rama V was the first Siamese king to have a full western education, having been taught by an English governess, Anna Leonowens - whose place in Siamese history has been fictionalised as The King and I. At first Rama V's reign was dominated by the conservative regent, Chaophraya Si Suriyawongse, but when the king came of age in 1873 he soon took control. He created a Privy Council and a Council of State, a formal court system and budget office. He announced that slavery would be gradually abolished and debt-bondage restricted.
At first the princes and other conservatives successfully resisted the king's reform agenda, but as the older generation was replaced by younger and western-educated princes, resistance faded. The king could always argue that the only alternative was foreign rule. He found powerful allies in his brothers Prince Chakkraphat, whom he made finance minister, Prince Damrong, who organized interior government and education, and his brother-in-law Prince Devrawongse, foreign minister for 38 years. In 1887 Devrawonge visited Europe to study government systems. On his recommendation the king established Cabinet government, an audit office and an education department. The semi-autonomous status of Chiang Mai was ended and the army was reorganised and modernised.
Territorial claims abandoned by Siam in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesIn 1893 the French authorities in Indochina used a minor border dispute to provoke a crisis. French gunboats appeared at Bangkok, and demanded the cession of Lao territories east of the Mekong. The King appealed to the British, but the British minister told the King to settle on whatever terms he could get, and he had no choice but to comply. Britain's only gesture was an agreement with France guaranteeing the integrity of the rest of Siam. In exchange, Siam had to give up its claim to the Tai-speaking Shan region of north-eastern Burma to the British.
The French, however, continued to pressure Siam, and in 1906тАУ1907 they manufactured another crisis. This time Siam had to concede French control of territory on the west bank of the Mekong opposite Luang Prabang and around Champasak in southern Laos, as well as western Cambodia. The British interceded to prevent more French bullying of Siam, but their price, in 1909 was the acceptance of British sovereignty over of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu under Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909. All of these "lost territories" were on the fringes of the Siamese sphere of influence and had never been securely under their control, but being compelled to abandon all claim to them was a substantial humiliation to both king and country (historian David Wyatt describes Chulalongkorn as "broken in spirit and health" following the 1893 crisis). In the early 20th century these crises were adopted by the increasingly nationalist government as symbols of the need for the country to assert itself against the West and its neighbours.
Meanwhile, reform continued apace transforming an absolute monarchy based on relationships of power into a modern, centralised nation state. The process was increasingly under the control of Rama V's sons, who were all educated in Europe. Railways and telegraph lines united the previously remote and semi-autonomous provinces. The currency was tied to the gold standard and a modern system of taxation replaced the arbitrary exactions and labour service of the past. The biggest problem was the shortage of trained civil servants, and many foreigners had to be employed until new schools could be built and Siamese graduates produced. By 1910, when the King died, Siam had become at least a semi-modern country, and continued to escape colonial rule.
Vajiravhud and the ascent of elite nationalism
King Rama VI One of Rama V's reforms was to introduce a western-style law of royal succession, so in 1910 he was peacefully succeeded by his son Vajiravudh, who reigned as Rama VI. He had been educated at Sandhurst military academy and at Oxford, and was a thoroughly anglicised Edwardian gentleman. Indeed one of Siam's problems was the widening gap between the westernised royal family and upper aristocracy and the rest of the country. It took another 20 years for western education to extend to the rest of the bureaucracy and the army: a potential source of conflict.
There had been no political reform under Rama V: the king was still an absolute monarch, who acted as his own prime minister and staffed all the agencies of the state with his own relatives. Vajiravhud, with his British education, knew that the rest of the nation could not be excluded from government for ever, but he was no democrat. He applied his observation of the success of the British monarchy, appearing more in public and instituting more royal ceremonies. But he also carried on his father's modernisation programme. Polygamy was abolished, primary education made compulsory, and in 1916 higher education came to Siam with the founding of Chulalongkorn University, which in time became the seedbed of a new Siamese intelligentsia.
Another solution he found was to establish the Wild Tiger Corps, a paramilitary organisation of Siamese citizens of good character united to further the nation's cause. The King spent much time on the development of the movement as he saw it as an opportunity to create a bond between himself and loyal citizens; a volunteer corps willing to make sacrifices for the king and the nation.
At first the Wild Tigers were drawn from the king's personal entourage (it is likely that many joined in order to gain favour with Vajiravhud), but a genuine widespread enthusiasm rapidly arose.
Of the movement, a German observer wrote in September 1911:
This is a troop of volunteers in black uniform, drilled in a more or less military fashion, but without weapons. The British Scouts are apparently the paradigm for the Tiger Corps. In the whole country, at the most far-away places, units of this corps are being set up. One would hardly recognise the quiet and phlegmatic Siamese.
Vajiravhud's style of government differed greatly from that of his father. In the beginning of the sixth reign, the king continued to use his father's team and there was no sudden break in the daily routine of government. Much of the running of daily affairs was therefore in the hands of experienced and competent men. To them and their staff Siam owed many progressive steps, such as the development of a national plan for the education of the whole populance, the setting up of clinics where free vaccination was given against smallpox, and the continuing expansion of railways.
However, senior posts were gradually filled with one of the King's coterie when a vacancy occurred through death, retirement, or resignation. By 1915, half the cabinet consisted of new faces. Most notable was Prince Damrong's absence. He resigned from his post as Minister of the Interior officially because of ill health, but in actuality because of friction between himself and the king.
In 1917 Siam declared war on Germany, mainly to gain favour with the British and the French. Siam's token participation in World War I gained it a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Foreign Minister Devrawongse used this opportunity to argue for the repeal of the 19th century treaties and the restoration of full Siamese sovereignty. The United States obliged in 1920, while France and Britain delayed until 1925. This victory gained the king some popularity, but it was soon undercut by discontent over other issues, such as his extravagance, which became more noticeable when a sharp postwar recession hit Siam in 1919. There was also the fact that the king had no son; he obviously preferred the company of men to women (a matter which of itself did not much concern Siamese opinion, but which did undermine the stability of the monarchy).
Thus when Rama VI died suddenly in 1925, aged only 44, the monarchy was already in a weakened state. He was succeeded by his younger brother Prajadhipok.
Prajadhipok
Unprepared for his new responsibilities, all Prajadhipok had in his favour was a lively intelligence, a certain diplomacy in his dealings with others, a modesty and industrious willingness to learn, and the somewhat tarnished, but still potent, magic of the crown.
Unlike his predecessor, the king diligently read virtually all state papers that came his way, from ministerial submissions to petitions by citizens. Within half a year only three of Vajiravhud's twelve ministers stayed on, the rest having been replaced by members of the royal family. On the one hand, these appointments brought back men of talent and experience, on the other, it signalled a return to royal oligarchy.
The initial legacy that Prajadhipok received from his elder brother were problems of the sort that had become chronic in the Sixth Reign. The most urgent of these was the economy: the finances of the state were in chaos, the budget heavily in deficit, and the royal accounts an accountant's nightmare of debts and questionable transactions. That the rest of the world was in deep economic depression following World War I did not help the situation either.
Virtually the first act of Prajadipok as king entailed an institutional innovation intended to restore confidence in the monarchy and government, the creation of the Supreme Council of the State. This privy council was made up of a number of experienced and extremely competent members of the royal family, including the long time Minister of the Interior (and Chulalongkorn's right hand man) Prince Damrong. With the help of this council, the king managed to restore stability to the economy, although at a price of making a significant amount of the civil servants redundant and cutting the salary of those that remained. This was obviously unpopular among the officials, and was one of the trigger events for the coup of 1932.
Prajadhipok then turned his attention to the question of future politics in Siam. Inspired by the British example, the King wanted to allow the common people to have a say in the country's affair by the creation of a parliament. A proposed constitution was ordered to be drafted, but the King's wishes were rejected, perhaps wisely, by his advisers, who felt that the population was not yet ready for democracy.
In 1932, with the country deep in depression, the king made a speech in which he said: "I myself know nothing at all about finances, and all I can do is listen to the opinions of others and choose the best... If I have made a mistake, I really deserve to be excused by the people of Siam." This was not well received. Serious political disturbances were threatened in the capital, and in April the king agreed to introduce a constitution under which he would share power with a prime minister. This was not enough for the radical elements in the army, however. On June 24, 1932, while the king was holidaying at the seaside, the Bangkok garrison mutinued and seized power, led by a group of 49 officers known as "the Promoters." Thus ended 150 years of Siamese absolute monarchy.
History of Thailand (1932-1973)
The history of Thailand from 1932 to 1973 was dominated by the military dictatorship which was in power for much of the period. The main personalities of the period were the dictator Pibulsonggram (better known as Phibun), who allied the country with Japan during the Second World War, and the civilian politician Pridi Phanomyong, who founded Thammasat University and was briefly prime minister after the war. A succession of military dictators followed Pridi's ousting тАФ Phibun again, Sarit Dhanarajata and Thanom Kittikachorn тАФ under whom traditional, authoritarian rule combined with increasing modernisation and westernisation under the influence of the U.S. The end of the period was marked by Thanom's resignation, forced after a massacre of pro-democracy protesters who were led by Thammasat students.
Internal conflict
The military came to power in the bloodless Siamese coup d'├йtat of 1932, which transformed the government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok initially accepted this change but later surrendered the throne to his ten-year old nephew, Ananda Mahidol. Upon his abdication, King Prajadhipok said that the duty of a ruler was to reign for the good of the whole people, not for a select few. The military would retain this power, with intermittent periods of civilian rule, until the subsequent failed coup d'├йtat of 1992. The army's dominance can be attributed in part to its role as an avenue for advancement for ambitious young Siamese when the Chinese dominated the business world and the educated middle-class was still small.
The new regime of 1932 was led by a group of colonels headed by Phraya Phahol Pholphayuhasena and Phraya Songsuradej. In December they produced a constitution, Siam's first, with a National Assembly half appointed and half indirectly elected. Full democratic elections were promised when half the population had completed primary education - expected to be sometime in the 1940s. A prime minister and Cabinet were appointed and a facade of constitutional rule was maintained.
Once the new government had been established and the constitution put into effect, conflict began to erupt among the members of the new ruling coalition. There were basically four major factions competing for power. There were the older conservative civilians led by Phraya Manopakorn Nititada, the senior military faction led by Phraya Phahol; the junior army and navy faction led by Luang Phibunsongkhram; and the young civilian faction led by Pridi Phanomyong.
The first serious conflict arose in 1933 when Pridi was given the task of drafting a new economic plan for the nation. It was a radical plan which called for the nationalisation of large amounts of farmland as well as a policy of rapid industrialisation which would be directed by the government. His plan also called for the expansion of higher education so that entry into the bureaucracy would not be completely dominated by royalty and the aristocracy. Pridi's plan was instantly condemned by most of the factions in the government as being communist.
Because of its attack on private property, the conservative clique were the ones that were most alarmed by Pridi's economic plan. They urged the Mano government to adopt policies that would reverse the course of the "revolution". When Phraya Mano attempted to do this, Phibun and Phraya Phahol launched a second coup that toppled the Mano government. Phraya Pahon became prime minister, and the new government that was formed excluded all of the royalists.
A royalist reaction came in late 1933 when Prince Bovoradej, a grandson of Mongkut and one time Minister of Defence, led an armed revolt against the government. He mobilised various provincial garrisons and marched on Bangkok, capturing the Don Muang aerodome in the process. The Prince accused the government of disrespecting the King and of promoting communism, and demanded that the government leaders resign. He had hoped that some of the garrisons in the Bangkok area would join the revolt, but they remained loyal to the government. In the meanwhile, the navy declared itself neutral and left for its bases in the south. After heavy fighting in the northern outskirts of Bangkok, the royalists were finally defeated and Prince Bovoradej left for exile in Indochina.
A few months later in 1934, King Prajadhipok, whose relations with the new government had been deteriorating for some time, went abroad to receive medical treatment. While abroad, he still tried to retain some influence on the government's policies, but finally gave up when it became clear that the government would not relinquish its increasingly dogmatic nature. In March 1935, while still in Europe, he announced his abdication. The government then chose Prince Ananda Mahidol, who was then in school in Switzerland, to be the next king. For the first time in history, Siam was without a resident reigning monarch and was to remain so for the next fifteen years.
The new regime carried out some important reforms. The currency went off the gold standard, allowing trade to recover. Serious efforts were made to expand primary and secondary education. Elected local and provincial governments were introduced, and in 1937 democratic development was brought forward when direct elections were held for the National Assembly, although political parties were still not allowed. Thammasat University was founded, at Pridi's initiative, as a more accessible alternative to the elitist Chulalongkorn University. Military expenditure was also greatly expanded to 30% of the national budget.
Pursuit of Nationalism
The military, now led by Major General Phibun as Defence Minister, and the civilian liberals led by Pridi as Foreign Minister, worked together harmoniously for several years, but when Phibun became prime minister in December 1938 this co-operation broke down, and military domination became more overt. Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and his regime soon developed some fascist characteristics. In early 1939 forty political opponents, both monarchists and democrats, were arrested, and after rigged trials eighteen were executed, the first political executions in Siam in over a century. Many others, among them Prince Damrong and Phraya Songsuradej, were exiled. Phibun launched a demagogic campaign against the Chinese business class. Chinese schools and newspapers were closed, and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.
Phibun and Luang Wichitwathakan, the government's ideological spokesman, copied the propaganda techniques used by Hitler and Mussolini to build up the cult of the leader. Aware of the power of mass media, they used the government's monopoly on radio broadcasting to shape popular support for the regime. Popular government slogans were constantly aired on the radio and plastered on newspapers and billboards. Phibun's picture was also to be seen everywhere in society, while portraits of the ex-monarch King Prajadhipok, an outspoken critic of the autocractic regime, were banned. At the same time he passed a number of authoritarian laws which gave the government the power of almost unlimited arrest and complete press censorship. During the Second World War, newspapers were instructed to print only good news emanating form Axis sources, while sarcastic comments about the internal situation were banned.
Also in 1939, Phibun changed the country's name from Siam to Prathet Thai, or Thailand, meaning "land of the free." This was a nationalist gesture: it implied the unity of all the Tai-speaking peoples, including the Lao and the Shan, but excluding the Chinese. The regime's slogan became "Thailand for the Thai." Early in 1942 he issued a degree reserving twenty-seven occupations and professions exclusively for Thai citizens. These ranged from the legal profession to the makers of Buddha images.
Modernisation was also an important theme in Phibun's new Thai nationalism. From 1938 to 1942 he issued a set of 12 Cultural Mandates. In addition to requiring that all Thais salute the flag, know the National Anthem, and speak the national language, the mandates also encouraged Thais to work hard, stay informed on current events, and to dress in a western fashion. By 1941 it became unlawful, among other things, to ridicule those who attempted to promote national customs. The programme also encompassed the fine arts. Fiercely nationalistic plays and films were sponsored by the government. Often these depicted a glorious past when Thai warriors fearlessly gained freedom for the country, defended their honour, or sacrifice themselves. Patriotism was taught in schools and was a recurrent theme in song and dance.
At the same time, Phibun worked rigorously to rid society of its royalist influences - traditional royal holidays were replaced with new national events, royal and aristocratic titles were abandoned. Ironically, he retained his aristocratic surname. Even the Sangha was affected when the status of the royally sponsored Thammayuth sect was downgraded.
Meanwhile, all cinemas were instructed to display Phibun's picature at the end of every performance as if it were the King's portrait, and the audience were expected to rise and bow. Another aspect of Phibun's growing personality cult was becoming apparent in official d├йcor. He was born in the year of the cock, and this symbol began to replace the wheel. Similarly Phibun's auspicious birth-colour, green, was used in official decorations.
World War IIIn 1940 most of France was occupied by Nazi Germany, and Phibun immediately set out to avenge Siam's humiliations by France in 1893 and 1904 when the French limited the borders of Siam to the north by forcing a series of treaties. Luang Wichit wrote a number of popular dramas that glorified the idea of many ethnic groups belonging to one greater "Thai" empire and condemned the evils of European colonial rule. Irredentist and anti-French demonstrations were incessantly held around Bangkok, and in late 1940 border skirmishes erupted along the Mekhong frontier. In 1941, the skirmishes became a small scale war between Vichy France and Thailand. The Thai forces dominated the war on the ground and in the air, but suffered a crushing naval defeat at the battle of Koh Chang. The Japanese then stepped in to mediate the conflict. The final settlement thus gave back to Thailand a number of the disputed areas in Laos and Cambodia.
Phibun's prestige was so increased that he was able to bask in a feeling of being truly the nation's leader. As if to celebrate the occasion, he promoted himself to field marshal, skipping the ranks of lieutenant general and general.
This caused a rapid deterioration of relations with the United States and Britain. In April 1941 the United States cut off petroleum supplies to Thailand. Thailand's campaign for territorial expansion came to an end on December 8, 1941 when Japan invaded the country along its southern coastline. The Phibun regime allowed the Japanese to pass through the country in order to attack Burma and invade Malaya. Convinced by the Allied defeats of early 1942 that Japan was winning the war, Phibun decide to form an actual military alliance with the Japanese.
As a reward, Japan allowed Thailand to invade and annex the Shan States in northern Burma, and to resume sovereignty over the sultanates of northern Malaya which had previously been taken away in a treaty with Britain. In January 1942 Thailand actually declared war on Britain and the United States, but the Thai Ambassador in Washington, Seni Pramoj refused to deliver it to the State Department. Instead, Seni denounced the regime as illegal and formed a Seri Thai Movement in Washington. Pridi, by now serving in the role of an apparently powerless regent, led the resistance movement inside Thailand, while Queen Ramphaiphanni was the nominal head of the movement in Great Britain.
Secret training camps were set up, the majority of set up by the populist politician Tiang Sirikhanth in the northeast of the country. There were a dozen camps alone in Sakhon Nakhon Province. Secret airfields also appeared in the northeast, where Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force planes brought in supplies, as well as Special Operations Executive, Office of Strategic Services, and Seri Thai agents; while at the same time evacuating out prisoners of war. By early 1945, Thai air force officers were performing liaision duties with South East Asia Command in Kandy and Calcutta.
By 1944 it was evident that the Japanese were going to lose the war, and their behaviour in Thailand had become increasingly arrogant. Bangkok also suffered heavily from the Allied bombing raids. This, plus the economic hardship caused by the loss of Thailand's rice export markets, made both the war and Phibun's regime very unpopular, and in July Phibun was ousted by the Seri Thai-infiltrated government. The National Assembly reconvened and appointed the liberal lawyer Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister. The new government hastily evacuated the British territories that Phibun had occupied and surreptitiously aided the Seri Thai movement while at the same time maintained friendly relations with the Japanese.
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945. Immediately the allied military responsibilty for Thailand fell to the British. As soon as practicable British troops were flown in and these rapidly secured the release of surviving POWs. The British were surprised to find that the disarmament of the Japanese soldiers had already been largely completed by the Thais.
The British regarded Thailand as having been partly responsible for the immeasurable damage dealt upon the allied cause and favoured treating the kingdom as a defeated enemy, but the Americans had no great sympathy for British and French colonialism and decided to support the new government. Thailand thus received little punishment for its wartime role.
Postwar Thailand
Seni Pramoj became Prime Minister in 1945, and promptly restored the name Siam as a symbol of the end of Phibun's nationalist regime. However, he found his position at the head of a cabinet packed with PridiтАЩs loyalists quite uncomfortable. Northeastern populist politicians like Tiang Sirikhanth and Bangkok upstarts like Sanguan Tularaksa were not the sort that the aristocratic Seni preferred to associate with. They, in turn, viewed Seni as an elitist who was entirely out of touch with ThailandтАЩs political realities. Pridi continued to wield power behind the scenes as he had done during the Khuang government. The regentтАЩs looming presence and overarching authority rankled the proud, thin-skinned Seni, fuelling a personal animosity that would poison ThailandтАЩs postwar politics.
Democratic elections were subsequently held in January 1946. These were the first elections in which political parties were legal, and Pridi's People's Party and its allies won a majority. In March 1946 Pridi became Siam's first democratically elected Prime Minister. In 1947 he agreed to hand back the French territory occupied in 1940 as the price for admission to the United Nations, the dropping of all wartime claims against Siam and a substantial package of American aid.
In December 1945 the young king Ananda Mahidol had returned to Siam from Europe, but in July 1946 he was found mysteriously shot dead in the palace. Three palace servants were tried and executed for his murder, but Thai society has preferred not to dwell on the event rather than to investigate its causes. The king was succeeded by his younger brother Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was a schoolboy in Europe. In August Pridi was forced to resign amid suspicion that he had been involved in the regicide. Without his leadership, the civilian government floundered, and in November 1947 the army, its confidence restored after the debacle of 1945, seized power. After an interim Khuang-headed government, in April 1948 the army brought Phibun back from exile and made him Prime Minister. Pridi in turn was driven into exile, eventually settling in Beijing as a guest of the People's Republic of China.
Phibun's return to power coincided with the onset of the Cold War and the establishment of a Communist regime in North Vietnam. He soon won the support of the U.S., beginning a long tradition of U.S.-backed military regimes in Thailand (as the country was again renamed in July 1949, this time permanently). Once again political opponents were arrested and tried, and some were executed. During this time, several of the key figures in the wartime Free Thai underground тАУ including Thawin Udom, Thawi Thawethikul, Chan Bunnak, and Tiang Sirikhanth тАУ were eliminated in extra-legal fashion by the Thai police, run by PhibunтАЩs ruthless associate Phao Sriyanond. There were attempted counter-coups by Pridi supporters in 1948, 1949 and 1951, the second leading to heavy fighting between the army and navy before Phibun emerged victorious. In the navy's 1951 attempt, popularly known as the Manhattan Coup, Phibun was nearly killed when the ship he was held hostage aboard was bombed by the pro-government air force.
In 1949 a new constitution was promulgated, creating a Senate appointed by the king (in practice, by the government). But in 1951 the regime abolished its own constitution and reverted to the 1932 arrangements, effectively abolishing the National Assembly as an elected body. This provoked strong opposition from the universities and the press, and led to a further round of trials and repression. The regime was greatly helped, however, by a postwar boom which gathered pace through the 1950s, fuelled by rice exports and U.S. aid. Thailand's economy began to diversity, while the population and urbanisation increased.
By 1955 Phibun was losing his leading position in the army to younger rivals led by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat and General Thanom Kittikachorn. To shore up his position he restored the 1949 constitution and called elections, which his supporters won. But the army was not prepared to give up power, and in September 1957 it demanded Phibun's resignation. When Phibun tried to have Sarit arrested, the army staged a bloodless coup on September 17, 1957, ending Phibun's career for good. Thanom became Prime Minister until 1958, then yielded his place to Sarit, the real head of the regime. Sarit held power until his death in 1963, when Thanom again took the lead.
Sarit and Thanom were the first Thai leaders to have been educated entirely in Thailand, and were less influenced by European political ideas, whether fascist or democratic, than the generation of Pridi and Phibun had been. Rather, they were Thai traditionalists, who sought to restore the prestige of the monarchy and to maintain a society based on order, hierarchy and religion. They saw rule by the army as the best means of ensuring this, and also of defeating Communism, which they now associated with Thailand's traditional enemies the Vietnamese. The young King Bhumibol, who returned to Thailand in 1951, co-operated with this project. The Thai monarchy's present elevated status thus has its origins in this era.
The regimes of Sarit and Thanom were strongly supported by the U.S. Thailand had formally become a U.S. ally in 1954 with the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). While the war in Indochina was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Communists, Thailand committed itself strongly to the U.S. side, concluding a secret agreement with the U.S. in 1961, sending troops to Vietnam and Laos and allowing the U.S. to open airbases in the east of the country to conduct its bombing war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese retaliated by supporting the Communist Party of Thailand's insurgency in the north and northeast.
The Vietnam War hastened the modernisation and westernisation of Thai society. The American presence and the exposure to western culture that came with it had an effect on almost every aspects of Thai life. Before the late 1960s, full access to Western culture was limited to a highly educated elite in society, but the Vietnam War brought the outside world face to face with large segments of the Thai society as never before. With US dollars pumping up the economy, the service, transportation, and construction industries grew phenomenally. The traditional rural family unit was broken down as more and more rural Thais moved to the city to find new job. This led to a clash of cultures as Thais were exposed to Western ideas about fashion, music, values, and moral standards.
The population began to grow explosively as the standard of living rose, and a flood of people began to move from the villages to the cities, and above all to Bangkok. Thailand had 30 million people in 1965, while by the end of the 20th century the population had doubled. Bangkok's population had grown tenfold since 1945 and had trebled since 1970.
Educational opportunities and exposure to mass media increased during the Vietnam War years. As bright university students learned more about ideas related to Thailand's economic and political systems resulting in a revival of student activism. The Vietnam War period also saw the growth of the Thai middle class which gradually developed its own identity and consciousness.
Economic development certainly did not bring prosperity to all. During the 1960s many of the rural poor felt increasingly dissatisfied with their condition in society and disillusioned by their treatment by the central government in Bangkok. Efforts by the Thai government to develop poor rural regions often did not have the desired effect in that they contributed to the farmers' awareness of how bad off they really were. It is interesting to note that it was not always the poorest of the poor who joined the anti-government insurgency. Increased government presence in the rural villages did little to improve the situation. Villagers became subject to increased military and police harassment and bureaucratic corruption. Villagers often felt betrayed when government promises of development were frequently not fulfilled. By the early 1970s rural discontent had manifested itself into a peasant's activist movement.
The peasant's movement got started in the regions just north of the central plains and the Chiang Mai area (not the areas where the insurgency was most active) When these regions had been organised into the centralised Siamese state in King Chulalongkorn's reign, the old local nobility had been allowed to grab large tracts of land. The end result was that by the 1960s close to 30% of the households were landless. In the early 1970s university students helped to bring some of the local protests out on to the national stage. The protests focused on land loss, high rents, the heavy handed role of the police, corruption among the bureaucracy and the local elite, poor infrastructure, and overwhelming poverty. The government agreed to establish a committee to hear peasant grief. Within a short time the committee was flooded with more than 50,000 petitions, way more that it could possibly handle. Officials called many of the peasants' demands unrealistic and too far-reaching.
The political environment of Thailand changed little during the middle '60s. Thanom and his chief deputy Praphas maintained a tight grip on power. The alliance between these two was further cemented by the marriage of Praphas's daughter to Thanom's son Ranong. By the late 1960s, however, more elements in Thai society had become openly critical of the military government which was seen as being increasingly incapable of dealing with the country's problems. It was not only the student activists, but also the business community that had begun to question the leadership of the government as well as its relationship with the United States. Thanom came under increasing pressure to loosen his grip on power when the King commented that it was time for parliament to be restored and a new constitution put into effect. After Sarit had suspended the constitution in 1958, a committee was established to write a new one, but almost ten years later, it had still not been completed. Finally in 1968 the government issued a new constitution and scheduled elections for the following year. The government party founded by the military junta won the election and Thanom remained prime minister.
Surprisingly, the Assembly was not totally tame. A number of MPs (mostly professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and journalists) began to openly challenge some of the government's policies, producing evidence of widespread government corruption on a number of large projects. As a new budget was being debated in 1971, it actually appeared that the military's demand for more funds might be voted down. Rather than suffer such a loss of face, Thanom carried out a putsch against his own government, suspended the constitution and dissolved the Parliament. Once again Thailand had been returned to absolute military rule.
This strongman approach which had worked for Phibun in 1938 and 1947, and for Sarit in 1957-58 would prove to be unsuccessful. By the early 1970s Thai society as a whole had developed a level of political awareness where it would no longer accept such unjustified authoritarian rule. The King, using various holidays to give speeches on public issues, became openly critical of the Thanom-Praphas regime. He expressed doubt on the use of extreme violence in the efforts to combat insurgency. He mentioned the widespread existence of corruption in the government and expressed the view that coups should become a thing of the past in the Thai political system. Furthermore, the junta began to face increasing opposition from within the military itself. Being preoccupied with their political roles, Thanom and Praphas had become more removed from direct control of the army. Many officers felt outraged by the rapid promotion of Narong and the fact that he seemed destined to be Thanom's successor. To these officers, it appeared that a political dynasty was being created.
The 1973 democracy movement
In the end it was the students that played the decisive role in the fall of the junta. Student demonstrations had started in 1968 and grew in size and numbers in the early 1970s despite the continued ban on political meetings. In June 1973, nine Ramkhamhaeng University students were expelled for publishing an article in a student newspaper that was critical of the government. Shortly after, thousands of students held a protest at the Democracy Student demanding the reenrollment of the nine students. The government ordered the universities shut, but shortly after backed down and allowed the students to be reenrolled.
In October the situation became more serious when another 13 students were arrested on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. This time the student protesters were joined by workers, businessmen and other ordinary citizens. The demonstrations swelled to several hundred thousand and the issue broadened from the release of the arrested students to demands for a new constitution and the replacement of the current government.
On October 13, the government yielded to the public's demand and the detainees were released. Leaders of the demonstrations, among them Saeksan Prasertkul, called off the march in accordance with the wishes of the King.
As the crowds were breaking up the next day, the historic October 14th, many students found themselves unable to leave because the police had attempted to control the flow of the crowd by blocking the southern route to Rajavithi Road. Cornered and overwhelmed by the hostile crowd, the police soon responded with violence by lauching barrages of teargas and gunfire. Within minutes, a full scale riot had erupted.
The military was called in, and Bangkok witnessed the horrifying spectacle of tanks rolling down Rajdamnoen Avenue and helicopters firing down at Thammasat University. A number of students commandeered buses and fire engines in an attempt to halt the progress of the tanks by ramming into them, with disastrous results.
With chaos reigning on the streets, King Bhumibol, ignoring the safety concerns of his immediate security staff, ordered the gates of Chitralada Palace opened to the students who were being gunned down by the army.
Despite orders from Thanom that the military action be intensified, army commander Kris Sivara had the army withdrawn from the streets.
Then, for the first time in modern history, Thailand's constitutional monarch openly involved himself in the transition of political power. He condemned the government's inability to handle the demonstrations and ordered Thanom, Praphas, and Narong to leave the country.
At 06:10PM, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from his post as Prime Minister.
An hour later, the King appeared on national television, broadcasting the following speech:
"Today is a day of great sorrow that will be. . . recorded with the utmost grief in the history of our Thai nation. For the past six or seven days, there have been various demands and negotiations that have culminated in an agreement between the students and the government. But then bottle bombs were thrown and tear-gas was fired, causing some clashes in which many people were injured. Violence then escalated all over the city until it became a riot that has not ended until now, with over a hundred of our Thai compatriots having lost their lives.
I beseech all sides and all people to eliminate the causes of violence by decidedly suspending any action leading in that direction, in order that our country can return to a state of normalcy as soon as possible.
Furthermore, in order to remedy the present disaster, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from the post of prime minister earlier tonight. I have consequently appointed Nai Sanya Dharmasakti as prime minister. . . ."''
The junta had fallen, at the cost of 1,577 lives.
History of Thailand since 1973
The history of Thailand since 1973 has seen a difficult and sometimes bloody transition from military to civilian rule, with several reversals along the way, including the most recent military coup of September 2006. The revolution of 1973 inaugurated a brief, unstable period of democracy, with military rule being reimposed after a bloody coup in 1976. For most of the 1980s, Thailand was ruled by Prem, a democratically-inclined strongman who restored parliamentary politics. Thereafter the country remained a democracy apart from a brief period of military rule from 1991 to 1992. The populist Thai Rak Thai party, led by prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, governed from 2001 until the 2006 coup.
Revolution
The events of October 1973 amounted to a revolution in Thai politics. For the first time the urban middle class, led by the students, had defeated the combined forces of the old ruling class and the army, and had gained the apparent blessing of the king for a transition to full democracy, symbolised by a new constitution which provided for a fully elected unicameral legislature.
However, Thailand had not yet produced a political class able to make this bold new democracy function smoothly. The January 1975 elections failed to produce a stable party majority, and fresh elections in April 1976 produced the same result. The veteran politician Seni Pramoj and his brother Kukrit Pramoj alternated in power, but were unable to carry out a coherent reform programme. The sharp increase in oil prices in 1974 led to recession and inflation, weakening the government's position. The democratic government's most popular move was to secure the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand.
The wisdom of this move was soon questioned, however, when Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fell to communist forces in 1975. The arrival of communist regimes on ThailandтАЩs borders, the abolition of the 600-year-old Lao monarchy, and the arrival of a flood of refugees from Laos and Cambodia, swung public opinion in Thailand back to the right, and conservatives did much better in the 1976 elections than they had done in 1975.
A Return to Military Rule
By late 1976 moderate middle class opinion had turned away from radicalism as the students, with their base at Thammasat University, grew more militant. The army and the right-wing parties fought back against the radicals through paramilitary groups such as the Village Scouts and the Red Gaurs. Matters came to a head in October when Thanom returned to Thailand to enter a monastery. Violent student protests were met by equally violent counter-protests. On October 6 1976 the army unleashed the paramilitaries, and used the resultant orgy of violence, in which hundreds of students were tortured and killed, to suspend the constitution and resume power.
The army installed Thanin Kraivixien, an ultra-conservative former judge, as prime minister, and carried out a sweeping purge of the universities, the media and the civil service. Thousands of students, intellectuals and other leftists fled Bangkok and joined the Communist Party's insurgent forces in the north and north-east, operating from safe bases in Laos. Others left for exile, including Dr. Puey Ungphakorn, the respected economist and Rector of Thammasat University. The economy was also in serious difficulties, in no part due to Thanin's policies, which frightened foreign investors. The new regime proved as unstable as the democratic experiment had been. In October 1977 the army staged another "coup" and replaced Thanin with General Kriangsak Chomanand.
By this time, Thai forces had to deal with the situation resulting from the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. There was another flood of refugees, and both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces periodically crossed into Thai territory, sparking clashes along the borders. A 1979 visit to Beijing earned Deng Xiaoping's agreement to end support for Thailand's communist movement; in return, the Thai authorities agreed to give safe haven to the Khmer Rouge forces fleeing west following the invasion of Cambodia. Revelations of the crimes of the defeated Khmer Rouge also sharply reduced the appeal of communism to the Thai public. Kriangsak's position as prime minister soon became untenable and he was forced to step down in February 1980 at a time of economic troubles. Kriangsak was succeeded by the army commander-in-chief, General Prem Tinsulanonda, a staunch royalist with a reputation for being uncorruptible.
Coups and elections
Much of the 1980s saw a process of democratisation overseen by the King and Prem. The two preferred constitutional rule, and acted to put an end to violent military interventions.
In April 1981 a clique of junior army officers popularly known as the "Young Turks" staged a coup, taking control of Bangkok. They dissolved the National Assembly and promised sweeping social changes. But their position quickly crumbled when Prem accompanied the royal family to Khorat. With the King's support for Prem made clear, loyalist units under the palace favourite General Arthit Kamlangek managed to recapture the capital in a bloodless counterattack.
This episode raised the prestige of the monarchy still further, and also enhanced PremтАЩs status as a relative moderate. A compromise was therefore reached. The insurgency ended and most of the ex-student guerillas returned to Bangkok under an amnesty. The army returned to its barracks, and yet another constitution was promulgated, creating an appointed Senate to balance the popularly elected National Assembly. Elections were held in April 1983, giving Prem, now in the guise of a civilian politician, a large majority in the legislature (an arrangement which came to be known as "Premocracy").
Prem was also the beneficiary of the accelerating economic revolution which was sweeping south-east Asia. After the recession of the mid 1970s, economic growth took off. For the first time Thailand became a significant industrial power, and manufactured goods such as computer parts, textiles and footwear overtook rice, rubber and tin as ThailandтАЩs leading exports. With the end of the Indochina wars and the insurgency, tourism developed rapidly and became a major earner. The urban population continued to grow rapidly, but overall population growth began to decline, leading to a rise in living standards even in rural areas, although the Isaan continued to lag behind. While Thailand did not grow as fast as the "Asian tigers" like Taiwan and South Korea, it achieved sustained growth.
Prem held office for eight years, surviving two more general elections in 1983 and 1986, and remained personally popular, but the revival of democratic politics led to a demand for a more adventurous leader. In 1988 fresh elections brought former General Chatichai Choonhavan to power. But Chatichai proved both incompetent and corrupt. By allowing one faction of the military to get rich on government contracts, he provoked a rival faction, led by Generals Sunthorn Kongsompong and Suchinda Kraprayoon, to stage a coup in February 1991. The military brought in a civilian prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, who was still responsible to the military in the form of the National Peacekeeping Council with General Sunthorn as chairman. Anand's anti-corruption measures proved popular. Another general election was held in 1992, as is customary after a coup in Thailand.
In March 1992, the military strongman General Suchinda accepted the invitation from a coalition of parties to become Prime Minister, in effect breaking a promise he had made earlier to the King and confirming the widespread suspicion that the new government was going to be a military regime in disguise. However, the Thailand of 1992 was not the Siam of 1932. SuchindaтАЩs action brought hundreds of thousands of people out in the largest demonstrations ever seen in Bangkok, led by the former governor of Bangkok, Major-General Chamlong Srimuang. Suchinda brought military units personally loyal to him into the city and tried to suppress the demonstrations by force, leading to a massacre in the heart of the city in which hundreds died. The Navy mutinied in protest, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war. In May the King intervened: he summoned Suchinda and Chamlong to a televised audience. The result of this was the resignation of Suchinda.
Democracy
The King re-appointed the liberal royalist Anand as interim prime minister until elections could be held in September 1992, which brought the Democrat Party under Chuan Leekpai to power, mainly representing the voters of Bangkok and the south. Chuan was a competent administrator who held power until 1995, when he was defeated at elections by a coalition of conservative and provincial parties led by Banharn Silpa-acha. Tainted by corruption charges from the very beginning, BanharnтАЩs government was forced to call early elections in 1996, in which General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh's New Aspiration Party managed to gain a narrow victory.
Soon after coming into office, Prime Minister Chavalit was confronted by the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. After coming under strong criticsm for his handling of the crisis, Chavilit resigned in November 1997 and Chuan returned to power. Chuan came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund which stabilised the currency and allowed IMF intervention on Thai economic recovery. In contrast to the country's previous history, the crisis was resolved by civilian rulers under democratic procedures.
Since 2001 Thai politics has been dominated by the populist Thai Rak Thai ("Thais Love Thais") party of telecommunications millionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. ChuanтАЩs agreement with IMF and use of injection fund to the economy stir various stream of opinion, meanwhile ThaksinтАЩs demagogic appeal to the mass electorate. Thaksin campaigned effectively against the old politics, corruption, organized crime, and drugs. In January 2001 he had a sweeping victory at the polls, winning a larger popular mandate than any Thai prime minister has ever had in a freely elected National Assembly.
While Thaksin himself owned a large portion of shares in Shin Corporation (formerly Shinawatra Computer and Communications), one of Thailand's major telecommunications companies, he moved his holding to under the names of his servants and driver until his children were old enough to able to hold shares. The shares eventually transferred to family members. The share issue went to court and the court ruled in his favor, acquitting him from the legal clause that a prime minister cannot hold shares. Even though this legally freed him, political opposition parties and many Thai people did not accept the court ruling on this matter.
In power, Thaksin has presided over the rapid recovery of the Thai economy and repaid all debts borrowed from IMF before due time. By 2002 Thailand, and Bangkok in particular, was once again booming. As low-end manufacturing moved to China and other low-wage economies, Thailand moved upscale into more sophisticated manufacturing, both for a rapidly expanding domestic middle class market and for export. Tourism, and particularly sex tourism, also remained a huge revenue earner despite intermittent "social order" campaigns by the government to control the country's nightlife.
Thus by 2004 Thai democracy and prosperity seemed firmly established, but the dominance of Thaksin, whose rule was highly personalised and somewhat authoritarian (private company CEO-style), was seen by many commentators as an unhealthy development. Thaksin won an even bigger majority at elections in February 2005, securing his second consecutive term.
In December 2005 media proprietor Sonthi Limthongkul launched an anti-Thaksin campaign based on accusations of corruption and immorality. Accusations included the improper handling of privatization of PTT and EGAT, the unfairness of the U.S.-Thailand free trade agreement, and the corruption in the Suvarnabhumi Airport project. In January 2006, the 73,000 million baht tax free buy-out of his family holding in Shin Corporation, while legal, brought on more accusations by Sonthi and opposition parties on the grounds of what they said was immorality and conflict of interest. Mass rallies were held by Sonthi outside Parliament House, at which 40 people were arrested for trespassing but later released. In February Thaksin responded by calling a snap election in April.
BY WIKIPEDIA.ORG