Coups Remembered

[Guest BKKvisitor]

Thailand's fall classic: a coup in the streets

By Peter Kneisel | October 2, 2006

(Peter Kneisel was an adviser to the Royal Research & Development Institute in Thailand from 1973 to 1989 who survived six coups)

 

NEVER LEAVE home in autumn.

 

In Thailand, it is a dangerous time for an embattled leader to travel outside the kingdom and a surprising oversight by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that led to his overthrow. He had used his fortune to consolidate power, but neglected to firm up his popularity as he fiddled with the military promotion lists. The lists are leaked in September and published in October. Generals get restless in October, particularly if their careers are at risk.

 

Ranking coups was a popular sport at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in the 1970s. Around an Indian buffet laid on by the Oriental Hotel, journalists, spies, diplomats, and expatriates would compare the latest coup with the one from the previous October. There was plenty to work with because every fall there was the possibility of tanks in the street.

 

It was not a frivolous exercise.

 

Some coups were unspeakably violent. Some were comic ripples. Many had names -- the Navy coup, the April Fool's coup, the coup of the Young Turks. The elegant Radio coup was a morning broadcast: the National Assembly has been dismissed, the Cabinet sent home, the constitution abrogated. Back to normal programming. Like the present coup, it was bloodless. Western democracies wring their hands and chide Thailand for resorting to the ham-handed power grabs that characterized a bygone era. The Thai people breathe a sign of relief.

 

The first coup was in 1932. It was a peaceful enterprise, considering that it ended the absolute monarchy. King Prajadhipok was invited to return to Bangkok to reign as a constitutional monarch, which he did, since it was his idea. Two years later, he abdicated and retired to London, where he became the first former monarch to collect unemployment insurance.

 

The modern era began in 1971 when Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn staged a coup against his own government. Along with his bully-boy son, Colonel Narong, and the corpulent Field Marshal Praphat Charusathien, they dissolved the government and declared martial law. They became known as the father, the son, and the wholly gross. Because they controlled the lucrative leases to American bases in Thailand, the US Embassy was pretty much ``sabai" -- OK -- with the move. That changed in 1973.

 

Oct. 14 is remembered as the ``Day of Great Sorrow." The ``terrible trio" resisted a popular uprising against their regime with small arms, tanks, and helicopter gunships. Officially, 41 people died. The unofficial number was in the hundreds. King Bhumipol advised the trio to leave and they departed. Three years of fractious civilian rule followed, which ended in another bloody coup on Oct. 11, 1976, when Thanom tried to return from exile in the robes of a monk.

 

It was these two coups -- violent book ends for three men desperate to retain power -- that give a weary Thai population pause when normal radio programming is interrupted.

 

For every bloody enterprise, there were two or three coups of small consequence. The complicated calculus of the military coup involves the old-fashioned game of picking up sides. A general is not going to risk moving troops into town if he is in line for a plum assignment. Once the sides are firmed up, most coups proceed without resistance.

 

This is not a day of great sorrow for Thailand. It is a setback, but one from which the country will recover.

 

Thais were saddled with an elected dictator. They got rid of him. Thaksin owned the countryside the way that the Democrats use to own Chicago. He was unbeatable.

 

Forced to step down as prime minister, Thaksin made himself the caretaker prime minister. He sold his communications empire to Singapore for $2 billion and avoided paying taxes through a loophole in a law he promulgated. He had an open spat with General Sondhi Boonyaratklin, tried to promote him to oblivion, then flew to New York. Thaksin is now in London, enjoying a ``well-deserved rest."

 

The Thai people have known the sound of gunfire in the capital, the acrid stink of tear gas, the makeshift morgues, and the missing children. This is not that. The new government of General Sondhi issued an order to the troops in Bangkok to smile. Sondhi has promised a quick return to democracy. He has promised to hold elections. He has scheduled the elections for next October.

 

 

[Gaybutton]

Thank you for posting this excellent article. There was much that I never knew and it also provides plenty of food for thought.

[Guest Hedda]

I would be very careful about blindly accepting some of the sweeping characterizations in that article. Thai history is often written as if three blind men were feeling different parts of the elephant and writing their impressions based on where they stand or feel.

 

If there is food for thought there, it may be just an entree for other more detailed and differing version of the same events, that have not yet been written - or at least published here.

[khaolakguy]

I would be very careful about blindly accepting some of the sweeping characterizations in that article.

 

How does your recall of these events differ? It seemed a well written and accurate account, given the anount of ground covered in a short article.

[Guest Hedda]

How does your recall of these events differ?

 

I'm not that old, dear, to personally recall events since 1932.

 

If you mean my understanding of these events, then it seems to me that trying to encapsule 70 years of politics into six paragraphs of gross generalizations is a miraculous achievement in literary miniaturization, but which hardly qualifies as well-written or accurate history.

 

From what I have read, there are other interpretations of the same events, but the internet is hardly the place to discuss them under current circumstances. You can ask Mr. Thaksin about that.

[Guest A Rose By Any Other Name]

I would be very careful about blindly accepting some of the sweeping characterizations in that article. Thai history is often written as if three blind men were feeling different parts of the elephant and writing their impressions based on where they stand or feel.

 

If there is food for thought there, it may be just an entree for other more detailed and differing version of the same events, that have not yet been written - or at least published here.

 

If I were you Hedda Darling, I would be careful about throwing your usual pessimistic spin on a very different coup than Thailand has seen in the past. Indeed, this one shows all signs of being peaceful, and though I do not condone the concept of coups, it also seems to have taken care of a very big problem. Now, whether or not it will cause bigger problems has yet to be seen, but let's not assume anything either way. Alright, dear?

 

TR The Rose

[khaolakguy]

I'm not that old, dear, to personally recall events since 1932.

 

If you mean my understanding of these events, then it seems to me that trying to encapsule 70 years of politics into six paragraphs of gross generalizations is a miraculous achievement in literary miniaturization, but which hardly qualifies as well-written or accurate history.

 

From what I have read, there are other interpretations of the same events, but the internet is hardly the place to discuss them under current circumstances. You can ask Mr. Thaksin about that.

 

Only one paragraph of the article relates to the 1932 coup, or coups prior to the 1970s.

 

I hardly think that the current censorship applies to events of twenty and thirty years ago, but if you wish to use this as the justification to keep your "understanding" and "other interpretations" to yourself, I daresay we will all have to survive without your special insights.

[Guest Hedda]

I hardly think that the current censorship applies to events of twenty and thirty years ago, but if you wish to use this as the justification to keep your "understanding" and "other interpretations" to yourself, I daresay we will all have to survive without your special insights.

 

Think again, dear. The folks running things now were all around then too. Some even sponsored coups of their own and most have had a hand in writing what you call Thai history for even longer.

 

...as for dear Rose, who seems to think that this coup is different because it's peaceful, who suggested that killing a constitutional democracy is not a violent act ?

 

Some of us may be far too cynical . . . or others far too naive.

[Guest A Rose By Any Other Name]

Some of us may be far too cynical.

 

Yes Hedda. You are far too cynical. That's the most intelligent thing you've said yet!

 

TR The Rose