Doubt still fosters division 40 years on

Forty years ago today, security forces massacred scores of protesters at Thammasat University. Rightist mobs lynched some of them. The most haunting of the many terrible photos taken that day shows the corpse of a man hung from a tree in adjacent Sanam Luang, being struck by a man wielding a chair. A crowd of people appears to be cheering in the background.

The brutal suppression of the pro-democracy demonstration remains a grievous stain on Thai history and an unending nightmare for the families of those killed or maimed. 

The massacre culminated more than a week of protests during which thousands of students from various universities demanded that Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn remain banished from Thailand after they’d successfully thrust the former prime minister from office in October 1973. Thanom, ousted in disgrace with his son and a fellow field marshal – they were collectively known as the “Three Tyrants” – had returned from exile in the autumn of 1976, having been ordained overseas as a novice monk, but the students were in no mood to forgive him.

Fear of communism ran high in 1976, with most of the Kingdom’s neighbours having turned red or facing red insurgencies. For weeks prior to October 6, military-run radio had decried left-leaning Thammasat University as a communist pit of vipers. A rumour circulated that the students, during their anti-Thanom demonstration, had staged a mock hanging of a member of the Royal Family. In fact the students had re-enacted a police lynching of two fellow activists, but the right-wing mob remained convinced that the monarchy had been insulted.

When the violence erupted, some protesters were shot dead at point-blank range, others beaten and stabbed. Security forces used a grenade launcher. The video evidence is still readily available online. There were also reports of protesters being burned alive and raped.

The state maintains that 46 people died, 167 others were injured and around 3,000 were arrested, all students. Survivors insist the dead in fact numbered well over 100. The official record commands precedence, however, so the tragedy is referred to meekly as “the October 6 incident”.

After four decades, many details remain shrouded in mystery, such as the exact number of people killed, and, even though specific parties, both officials and civilians, have been identified as being responsible for the violence, no one has ever been punished.

The anniversary of that awful day affords another opportunity to point out that it’s never too late to establish a fact-finding committee – comprised of citizens we can genuinely trust – to review the events of October 1976. Obviously many of the people involved are dead by now and memories will have faded, but the record still needs to be set straight in the hope that the dreadful mistakes of the past will not be repeated. The same can be said of other dark, murky, murderous events in recent history – in Black May 1992, in 2009 and 2010, and in the tumult spread across 2012 and 2013. 

Too many questions persist about these occurrences for anyone to obtain a proper perspective. When truth is 

elusive, misconceptions prevail, fomenting suspicion, mistrust and division.

For the surviving relatives of the students killed in 1976, the loss cannot be assuaged without a clear understanding of what took place and why. The wounds in their hearts remain unhealed.

There will always be differences in political opinion, but only by accepting such ideological diversity and tolerating beliefs that diverge from our own can we maintain peace in society. To cast the dissidents among us as threats that must be eradicated is to incite hatred and violence and invite a repeat of that ghastly day 40 years ago.