Thai on Thailand

Concerning your article on Thailand of March 21. I would like to point out that many important points have been left out (intentionally or not). October '73 was a united reaction towards the military regime and together with the factionalization of the top section of the military and finally the intervention of the king, resulted in the "tyrant trio" being kicked out.

However October 76 was quite different this time the students were factionalized. They were divided into the rightist faction of mostly vocational students, "redguars" who have played a very significant part in October '73. The other faction was the more socialist learning but by no way communistic, composing mainly of university students.

One taboo in Thai society is the monarchy and the mistake of the university students was here, in one of their satirical protest play featured a man being hanged, he happened to look very much like the crown prince. The monarchy is held in very high respect in Thai society. The military and the right leaning newspapers lost no time in branding this act as evidence of the students being infiltrated by communist elements out to destroy the monarchy. The reaction was blood thirsty, mobs of vocational students and some members of the public stormed the university. The military took that opportunity to stage a coup, and crushed down on the students. Thus the sad end to Thai democracy.