THAILAND after the april 4 elections by PAUL PETITJEAN One year after the elections of January 1975 the Thai National Assembly was dissolved. Social and political tensions had gotten the better of an unstable parliament lacking real power. A caretaker government was formed to organize new elections. On April 4, 1976, these elections were held, the Democratic party (the only opposition party under the former dictatorship, whose leader, Seni Pramoj, had long enjoyed a reputation for honesty) winning 115 of the 279 seats; the Democratic party had held only 72 seats in the old parliament. While the Social Action party advanced from 18 to 45 seats, its leader, Kukrit Promoj, the prime minister, was defeated in his own district. As a whole, the parties of the traditional military right stagnated: The party of the Thai Nation (Chart Thai) doubled its number of seats (from 28 to 56); but the Social Justice party fell from 45 to 25 seats and the Social Nationalist party remains a negligible force. The left, even the moderate left, is now practically excluded from parliament. The Thai Socialist party declined from 15 seats to 2, the Socialist United Front from 10 to 1, and the New Force party from 12 to 3. A real campaign of terror had been unleashed against these parties. Bartering of influence and corruption remain the stock in trade of "civil and democratic" Thailand. More than 2,000 candidates presented by several dozen "parties" contested the 279 seats in the Assembly. According to Norman Peagan, votes were bought for anywhere between 50 and 100 baths, that is, about US$2.50-5.00. (Far Eastern Economic Review, April 9, 1976.) The
Democratic party, with the support of the military officers, is said to have mobilized the soldiers in Kukrit Pramoj's district to vote as a bloc in order to guarantee the defeat of the former prime minister. In his border district, Air Marshall Dawee Chullassapya, new leader of the Social Justice party, was said to have granted the right to vote to a number of Chinese from the Kuomintang army as well as to members of the Montagnard tribes who had fled Laos. So the elections were rigged, but significant nevertheless. The elimination of the legal left from parliamentary life in the wake of the terrorist campaign can have deep long-term effects. For the immediate future, the political center of gravity in the National Assembly is shifted clearly to the right. The new government coalition, built around the Democratic party (a pro-American bourgeois party), includes the three parties of the traditional military right, linked to the landed proprietors (Chart Thai, Social Justice, and Social Nationalist). But the meaning of the Seni Pramoj victory is nonetheless ambiguous. It tends to indicate that the population rejects the still present perspective of a military coup. In itself this is a very deformed reflection of the ongoing struggles in Thailand, which were not interrupted by the electoral campaign. The far-right offensive, unleashed about a year ago, was sharply intensified as a section of the military hierarchy continued to apply a "policy of tension. " In 1975 a series of murders were committed against the Federafion of Farmers of Thailand, while fascistic formations sought to gain a base in the countryside (Navapol) and among the high-school students (Red Buffaloes). (See INPRECOR, No.38, November 20, 1975.) This time, the individual murders took on new scope in Bangkok itself. The attacks were more murderous and the legal and moderate left was directly hit; in several provinces the effort to establish a base in the rural areas was more pronounced. There were more than thirty people killed, among them three candidates, and dozens wounded during the electoral campaign. On February 17 the headquarters of the New Force party (Palang Mai), a technocratic liberal party, was plastic-bombed. On February 18 a student leoder, Amares Chai-Saard, was killed, along with three other students. On February 27 Boonsanang Boonyothayan, secretary general of the Thai Socialist party, was murdered, as was one of the SP's mass leaders. On March 2 a TNT charge was planted in the foundations of a technical school where the left had hegemony. Five bodies were dug out of the ruins. On March 25 a grenade was thrown into an electoral rally of the New Force party, killing ten. Five days later, a bomb was thrown at an anti-American mass demonstration. Result: three dead and about eighty wounded. Many candidates had coffins delivered to their homes - as warnings. Since the overthrow of the military regime in October 1973 at least thirty-five leftist leaders and personalities have been murdered, including mass leaders, journalists, and a translator of Maxim Gorky. This "white terror" has not gone without effects. Fund
13
THAILAND raisers for the Thai Socialist party ceased operating; the left virtually gave up campaigning; the Federation of Farmers of Thailand seems to be having trouble in some districts; some student or worker cadres have preferred to leave the capifal. The killers have gone unpunished. But the responsibility of the Red Buffaloes and Navapol in the attacks and murders is known. Their links with the upper reaches of the military hierarchy have been advertised publicly (see INPRECOR, No.38, November 20, 1975). The far-right is continuing to organize openly. Navapol has just founded a political party, Dhammat Patai (Moral Sovereignty). Its secretary general, Watana Keovimal, has support among the Buddhist hierarchy. This party puts forward a mystical, plebeian, fascistic program. An Anti Communist Imperialism United Front (ACIUF) has arisen. The existence of a series of parallel paramilitary formations is now a permanent feature of Thai political life. The defeat of the legal left, its eviction from the parliamentary game, makes its initial democratic liberal project less and less credible. Power remains in the hands of the army in Thailand. After the murder of the secretary general of the Thai Socialist party, a division appeared within the SP as to the utility and opportunity of participation in the electoral campaign. The results of the election should bolster the solutions called for by the Thai CP or the most radical currents in Bangkok: continuation or preparation of armed struggle. The vice secretary general of the SP has revealed that Boonsanong had been on a blacklist of the Internal Security Operational Command (ISOC), the "countersubversion center. " Workers leaders (like Prasit Chayo of the textile unions), student leaders (notably Thirayuth Boonmee, present adviser of the National Student Center of Thailand), the new secretary gene: al of the SP (Somk id Srisangkom), and others also figure on this list. Under these conditions, the "parliomentary solution" seems
Kukeit Pramoj empty of meaning, especially since deep popular dissatisfaction with the electoral game was manifested throughout the campaign and the rate of abstention was high, Continuation of social struggles The shift to the right of the political center of gravity in the National Assembly does not reflect a subsiding of the social struggles that have been going on since 1973. The conditions under which the Assembly was dissolved in January confirm this. The political class in Bangkok knows that it has to put forward some remedies for the agrarian crisis, which is hitting the Thai peasantry severely, increasingly ousting the peasants from the land. The Sanya and Kukrit governments attempted some very timid reforms. But their application - when there was any application - was carried out in such a way as to benefit the middlemen or the landed proprietors. In December 1975 Kukrit Pramoj, who was then prime minister, decided on a big increase in the price of rice, especially important for the prices in the state stores, where rice had been sold much more cheaply than on the free market. Officially, the point was to help the farmers, whose income is extremely low compared to that of the urban workers. The left replied that this measure would essentially serve the millers (who process paddy rice into white rice), the middlemen, and the big landlords and that on the other hand it would strike hard at a poor urban population for whom rice purchases often account for more than 50 percent of monthly income. On January 2 the Federation of Labor Unions of Thailand, supported by the NSCT (National Student Center of Thailand), called for a general strike to demand that the previous prices be maintained and for financial aid to the formers. Some 10,000 people demonstrated on January 5. The parliamentary opposition then threatened to censure the government; Kukrit reshuffled the government and then, on January 12, dissolved the Assembly, after accepting the demands of the general strike. The Federation of Labor Unions of Thailand (FLUT) is a union that has broken with collaboration with the State Department for Social Affairs. Its base is in the publie sector, which has been ultra-collaborationist. This time, the workers of the public enterprises took to the streets. Joint social pressure, urban and rural, is now also a permanent feature of Thai political life. New experiences in workers struggles, sometimes very advanced, are being accumulated. This is particularly the case in textiles, where the "reformist" and "radical" trade unions are contesting for influence among a young proletariat composed essentially of women. As far back as May 1975 there was a very tough strike at Standard Garment, with a factory occupation and the formation of self-defense pickets against the attacks of the official and employers' police. This strike ended in victory.
This time if was the women workers of the Hara factory who engaged in a long struggle with an occupation. After fruitless negotiations, they rechristened the factory and restarted production for their own benefit. As tims of a cold wave. Then they organized sales on the market, at very low prices: jeans that had been worth 190 baths were now sold for 50 baths. In spite of this, the workers earned much more than before. This experiment was quite educational in regard to the superexploitation to which the Thai proletariat is subject. Other mobilizatiors have taken place this year: three tin mines owned by the Anglo-Oriental Company which account for 27 percent of Thai mineral production, were paralyzed; two gunny sack factories, one in Bangkok, the other in the provinces, went on strike, drawing 5,000 workers into struggle around wages and working conditions and against the privatization of a factory in the capital; the Bangkok docks were also completely paralyzed. The electoral campaign did not halt social struggles. But while the strike of the women workers at the Hara factory indicated the extraordinary progress that has been made in social struggles in two years, it also conFirmed the weakness of the movement as a whole. There was difficulty in organizing central responses, Of course, student solidarity was asserted on a regular basis; common meetings and educational courses were held with the aid of militants of the NSCT. But when the impending police intervention was announced, the demonstration organized in front of the prime minister's house was not sufficient. The factory was reoccupied by the police. In 1975 one of Bangkok's longest strikes, that of the Dusit Thani Hotel, had also been broken because of difficulties in broadening the response (see INPRECOR, No. 38, November 20, 1975.) Rural and urban social tension goes hand in hand with the struggles of the ethnic and religious minorities. In the southern provinces of the country the situation has deteriorated sharply. The population there is 80 percent Muslim. But the Buddhist minority has the upper hand in the administration, the police, and the army. In November 1975 "marines" murdered Five villagers in a "countersubversion" operation. For a period of fortyfive days several thousand Muslims occupied the central mosque in Pattani before winning their demands: arrest of the guilty parties, removal of the governor, a visit by Kukrit. Tension between the two communities remains high and the Buddhist right, linked to the administration, is becoming more active. The offensive of the military right comes above all as a response to this rise of class struggles and of the struggles of minorities. But the military right does not presently command the means by which to suddenly break this social mobilization. It has to try to gather these means, especially since the weight of the victorious Indochinese revolution remains very great.
Seni Pramoj "U.S. Go Home" Thailand's geopolitical situation continues to dominate both Thai political life and American choices. Thailand is both a forward post in western positions against the development of the Asian revolution and the country in which the social and political repercussions of the Indochinese victory are most immediate. Although class struggles take priority over any other consideration during periods of workers or peasants conflicts, on the eve of the April 4 elections the presence of American forces once again became the question of the hour. According to the accords reached with the Kukrit government just after it came to power, the last Gls were supposed to leave Thailand on March 20. But slightly before that deadline 4,000 troops were still left and the Thai military high command indicated that a contingent of 3,500 soldiers would remain indefinitely. A test of strength was then engaged. The government made its conditions known: effective withdrawal of the troops and control of all Americon military installations. The American Embassy refused and demanded diplomatic status for the American personnel of the various bases. Kukrit replied: "We have to decide. Do we want 4,000 American ambassadors in Thailand? " (Far Eastern Economic Review, April 2, 1976.) An agreement was reached with the student movement and demonstrations were announced for April 20. The Anti Communist Imperialism United Front threatened a counterdemonstration. The army was placed on alert. The U.5. Embassy obligingly translated a communiqué by a "People's Action Center of Thailand, " which "exposed" a supposed plot of the Thai Communist party aimed ot seizing power. A military coup seemed to be in the works when Washington suddenly backed down: between now and July 20 the troops will leave the country; 270 "advisers will remain and the American military installations will come under the government's jurisdiction.
15
THAILAND The abandoning of the complex of Thai military bases is irritating for U.S. imperialism on more than one count, but Washington has very probably already planned on a regional redeployment: the military and air bases will be shifted to South Korea, Japan, the Philippines (Clark Airfield and Subic Base), Guam, and the Mariana Islands; the Utapao radio communications center (which links Diego Garcia and the Philippines) and the Sattahip naval base will be shifted to Singapore or Indonesia. The Ramasum electronics base (a listening station), the air force sysmological station at Chiang Mai, and the Kuh Hua satellite station will also have to be replaced. The "nuclear umbrella" of the region will be maintained by the Seventh Fleet, or even Australia, as well as by the various island bases. Nevertheless, in view of the strategic importance of Thailand and the example it has set, which may be echoed tomorrow in the Philippines or Japan, U.S. imperialism is not happy about dismantling its Thai military network. If it is being done, it is only because it has been forced. Washington cannot allow itself to become mired in a new confrontation on the continent, and Indochinese pressure, as well as that of the mass movement, is too strong to be ignored. Of course, the new government can overturn the decisions of the previous government, but it would then immediately appear as a fool of the United States. In order to remain in Thailand (through the "advisers" and the links between the Thai military hierarchy and the Pentagon), Washington will probably have to accept this limited withdrawal. But under this same hypothesis, Thailand will remain a base of aggression against Indochina, It is from Bangkok that the Molinak (a so-called Khmer Liberation Movement) asserts its existence. It is in the North and Northeast of Thailand that commandos have been formed to organize aftacks and sabotage in Laos. It is in Thailand that the essential part of the Indochinese refugees are assembled, and it is from there that the international anticommunist slander campaign has been launched. The Vietnamese are making no mistake when they reiterate their warnings. The anti-imperialist question will rema in one of the keys to the mass struggles in Thailand. Preparing a «constitutional coup» The latest legislative elections can give the Thai bourgeoisie grounds to hope for a minimum of temporary political stability. The prospect of a possible military coup is thus postponed. But a policy of deep social reform, whether by a "civilian" government or by a group of officers, seems very difficult, because of the weight of the landed bourgeoisie, the direct interests of the military hierarchy in the imperialist enterprises, the links between the military high command and the Pentagon, the importance of smuggling (drugs and other items), and the Communist pressure. Consequently, the possibility of a coup continues to hang over the country, pecially since the social movements are slowly ripening and the Thai CP is gradually gaining in strength. 16
Several armed clashes occurred during the electoral compaign. The guerrilla forces have expanded at a rate of about 15-20 percent a year. Absolute figures on the number of CP partisans vary considerably according to the source. In the February 27, 1976, Far Eastern Economic Review Anders Tandrup attempted an estimate based on the three categories of villages defined by the CP (combat villages controlled 80 percent by the CP, expansion villages in which between 50 and 60 percent are partisans of the CP, confact villages in which CP influence affects less than half the inhabitants) and the figures advanced by government agencies and special services. Tandrup puts forward the figure of 10,000 guerrillas and a million organized partisans (out of a fotal population of 42 million). The CP's base clearly remains extremely uneven according to region, the Northeast being the zone of greatest influence and the Center the weakest area. But it is precisely in the Northeast that the American withdrawal threatens to have the most immediate social consequences (unemployment), and the CP's audience has undeniably grown among the most radical inhabitants of Bangkok. Imperialism has not overcome its dilemma: wait and allow new revolutionary forces to organize or precipitate a "coup" and throw many militants now far from the CP into the arms of the CP. In this context it is probable that the American services and the Thai military command are now trying to assemble the conditions for a "constitutional military coup, " which, without challenging the foreign policy of détente with Chine, would allow for government by decree and the strengthening of the repressive apparatus. The threat of a coup has been affirmed on various occasions. When Kukrit leff the conference of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), there was a reported attempt by some young officers, General Boonchai Bamrungphong, commander-in-chief of the army, "admitted" that there is a group of officers "discontented with the indecision of the government who feel they should do something about it. " (Far Eastern Economic Review, February 27, 1976.) In March a special "cocktail party" was held in Bangkok. The military high command had invited Admiral Sa-Ngad Chalawyoo, head of the three branches of the armed forces. At this party, he is reported to have sfated that the officers "will play their role if the leftists start moving," and that they were able to wait: "I'll tell you when the time comes, (Voice of the Nation, March 14, 1976.) The dissolution of the National Assembly in January had been desired by the officers. The crisis of the Kukrit government was raising the possibility of the formation of a coalition "toward the left." They can hope that the new team will have better means by which to govern "toward the right." Under these conditions, the coup could take the form of a decree of martial law, with the moral support of the king (who has already accused Vietnam of committing "direct aggression against the country" - Far Eastern Economic Review, January 2, 1976), the consent of the Democratic party and Seni Pramoj, and American support. E
BOLIVIA
TWO