Masacre en la Universidad de Thammasat ( Rangsit ),1976

Descripcion de los hechos :

"Remembering 6 October 1976
the forgotten massacre

6 October 1976 was another black mark in Thai politics. After 14 October 1973, a new PM, new constitution and fresh elections gave hope for a change for the better. But from 1973 – 1976, a series of weak coalition governments floundered in a chain of musical chairs.

By 1976 the political mood was somber. A unified Vietnam after the Communist victory and the killing fields in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge hung like a haunting specter over the region. With the withdrawal of US forces from Asia, South East Asian countries were living in apprehension.

This was also a period of newfound freedom for the students and intellectuals.

Still heady from their moral victory three years earlier, they engaged in open expression, organized demonstrations, strikes and demands for reform.

But by 6 October 1976, the winds of political change have shifted. The very people who backed the students three years ago were skeptical of them now in the light of the communist threat.

The conservative middle class found the strident left wing radicalism unsettling. There was a strong anti-communist sentiment in Thailand with an insurgency in the south. The proximity of communist neighbors in Vietnam and Cambodia compounded the fears.

There was a rise of right wing groups at the village level and among technical and vocational students to counter the left-wing groups, with frequent clashes between the two. The weak government torn by factional strife was unable to rein in the two extremes.

In the midst of all this, Field Marshall Thanom Kittikachorn, the deposed dictator in 1973, returned to Thailand and was ordained as a monk.

With the bitter memories of 14 October 1973 still fresh in their minds, the students were incensed. They massed for a huge protest in Thammasat University. By now, the students, with their left wing liberal attitudes, were treated with suspicion.

As in some other South East Asian countries it was easy to be tarred a communist just by opposing the establishment.

The spark that fired the pogrom was the burning by students of an effigy that allegedly resembled a member of royal family. In the eyes of the common people and the right wing groups the students had gone too far.

On evening of the 6 October 1976, right-wing groups, police and the military stormed the campus in an orgy of killings and unspeakable atrocities to the living and the dead. Hopes for a dawn of a new democracy were quickly crushed. Many intellectuals fled to the hills.

For a more detailed account, please see Forgetting and Remembering 6 October 1976. Relatives of the dead and missing bemoan the lack of public concern for the victims of the 6 October 1976 who were not held in the same regard as the martyrs of 14 October 1973.

6 October was like a nightmare society preferred to forget.

The only memorial for those who died on 6 October is in the grounds Thammasat University, near the 14 October memorial.

It's a simple sculpture, a stone slab with letters and numerals in Thai forming the date, 6 October 2519 (1976). What's even more significant are the words in English and Thai inscribed around the base of the sculpture.


6 October 2519 (1976)

"What is most regrettable is the fact that young people now have no third choice. If they cannot conform to the government, they must run away. Those interested in peaceful means to bring about freedom and democracy must start from square one."

Dr Puey Ungphakorn"

Every year on 6 October, relatives, sympathetic academics and politicians gather at the 6 October 1976 memorial in Thammasat University to honor the memory of the unfortunate victims in the hope that they won't be completely forgotten."

http://www.tour-bangkok-legacies.com/6-october-1976.html

 

Organizaciones paramilitares que estuvieron implicadas en la masacre:

"(.....)Several right-wing militia groups played major roles as perpetrators of the Thammasat student massacre. These groups were armed and trained by the army and by the Border Patrol Police beginning in late 1974 in preparation for a crackdown. Paul Handley, author of The King Never Smiles, a controversial biography of the king, describes the situation as "royal vigilantism".^[19] Thai Marxist writer Giles Ji Ungpakorn compared these groups to the fascist paramilitary groups of 1930s Europe.^[16]

Nawaphon (Thai: นว พล, power of nine)^[20] was founded in 1974 by Wattana Kiewvimol and used the slogan "Nation-Religion-Monarchy".^[21] The name also refers to King Bhumibol, the ninth king of the Chakri Dynasty.^[20] This secretive group had about 50,000 members in mid-1975.^[8] The group received covert military assistance from ISOC and conducted advanced military training for its members at Jittiphawan College, a Buddhist seminary in Chonburi Province founded by the rightwing monk Kittivudho.^[20] This was said to include training in assassination, and the killing of a number of left-wing activists was attributed to Nawaphon.^[22] Tanin, the post-coup prime minister, was a senior member of this group.^[11]

The Red Gaur (กระทิงแดง, Krating Daeng) was founded in 1974 by Special Colonel Sudsai Hasadin, an ISOC officer.^{[nb 1][23]} In mid-1975, it numbered 25,000 members, mainly vocational students, a group which had played a major part in the demonstrations against Field Marshal Thanom, but had now broken with the leftist students over their apparent embrace of communism.^[8] The Red Gaur was Nawaphon's youth division.^[24] Red is the colour of the former Thai national flag and is considered to represent a patriotism on the present banner. A gaur is a kind of wild buffalo. The group's slogan proclaimed it to be the "Anti-Communist Imperialism United Front".^[24] Like the SA in Germany in the 1930s, Red Gaur members provoked fights with left-wing activists and trade unionists.^[6] In February 1976, Red Gaurs threw bombs at a leftist protest, killing four students.^[15] At a highly publicized event, the king test-fired Red Gaur weapons.^[25]

The Volunteer Defense Corps or VDC (the Or Sor, also called the Village Scouts ลูกเสือชาวบ้าน,) formed in 1954 to provide law and order and emergency or natural disaster response, was expanded in 1974 when ISOC gained control,.^[26] It was extended to urban areas to counter left-wing political activism.^[27] A member of the royal family (often the queen) would present the identifying VDC kerchief to each village scout.^[27] At one point, 1 in every 5 Thai adults was a member of the Village Scouts.^[16]

When the leftist demonstrators took over the Thammasat University campus, the main organizations coordinating the activities were the National Student Centre and the Federation of Trade Unions.^[24]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thammasat_University_massacre