Thailand: More Soft Spots

The government should realize that Communist infiltration in Thailand is expanding and worsening. It is making fantastic progress every day.

In a country where the press is usually polite and docile, that ominous warning was recently sounded by the Thai newspaper Siam Rath. A lot of Thais—and Americans—believe that the warning is not exaggerated. The country that once hoped to prevent rather than to fight a Communist insurgency now finds itself involved in an expanding guerrilla fight that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the early days of the Viet Nam war. In Thailand’s long-neglected Northeastern provinces, a growing, increasingly bold force of nearly 2,000 Communist terrorists is striking with guns and propaganda at a lengthening list of soft spots where there is no government presence.

Wrong Medicine. The regime of Premier Thanom Kittikachorn has not been idle. Over the past year, it has built up a force of 10,000 Royal Thai Army troops and police in the Northeast. More than two-thirds of the annual U.S. $60 million economic-aid package now goes to the impoverished area. U.S. Special Forces train Thai soldiers in counterinsurgency, and a few Americans work directly with troops in the field. While they leave problems at the village level to the Thais, U.S. advisers also help in road building, health and development projects.

So far all this has not been enough. Like a wound at first neglected, then treated with the wrong medicine, the Northeast continues to fester as the war flares on. It is no longer rare for a Communist band to take over a village for a propaganda session that is often climaxed by the execution of a local official. In 1967’s first nine months, 216 government officials and supporters were assassinated, more than double the total for the same period in 1966 and equal to the level of Viet Nam in 1959. Because there are not enough men or resources, security against terrorist attack remains a major problem; in one province, only one village out of ten has a permanent guard force.

Haughtiness & Bitterness. The Communists have more going for them than arms. Traditional Northeastern distrust of Bangkok in general and of haughty local officials and police in particular make the government’s task difficult. There is bitterness, too; though the rest of Thailand is relatively prosperous, years of neglect have kept the Northeast dirt poor. Bangkok too often obfuscates the Communist threat by claiming that Communist helicopters are landing in Thailand to supply the terrorists (there is no evidence of such) or that the insurgency is an invasion by thousands of Thai-born Chinese youths (the terrorists are mostly Thais). The Royal Thai Army has become jealous of the relatively successful pooling of military, police and civilian resources into a Communist Suppression Operations Command in the Northeast, and has, against American advice, persuaded the government to give it full control of the counterinsurgency program. Local military commanders now plan to invoke martial law, and some Thais and Americans feel that such harsh methods may alienate the Northeast peasantry even more.

There are, however, some hopeful signs. Volunteer Defense Corps units, a kind of local militia armed with bolt-action rifles, are taking up posts in remote villages that rarely saw a cop in the past. In a direct copy of efforts in Viet Nam, well-armed People’s Assistance Teams (PAT) are giving selected villages a measure of protection and some civic-action aid. Other cadres sound out local needs, gathering intelligence in the process. Nor is the government ignoring propaganda: it has put up posters in the Northeast showing Mao Tse-tung and Ho Chi Minh hovering over a map of Southeast Asia, stretching their fingers toward Thailand.