Thailand: Down South

For months the Thai government has been trying to come to grips with the sporadic Communist terrorism along the country’s northeast frontier with Laos. Bangkok has devoted less attention to a similar but smaller wave of trouble far to the south, along the thin isthmus of Thailand that forms part of the Malay Peninsula. There, a pattern of forced “tax” collections, Red propaganda leaflets and occasional clashes with police patrols has suggested the presence of a regular second front of Communist guerrillas.

Ambush in the Gorge. The activity stepped up two years ago, when, during the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation, agents from Indonesia’s now-decimated P.K.I. (Communist Party) were dropped into the area to foment a separatist movement among Moslems in southern Thailand and adjacent Malaysia. Though the confrontation has ended, the agitation in Thailand continues. Last year a native Thai Communist movement surfaced in five southern provinces, is today numbered at 300 armed guerrillas and 1,000 sympathizers. Though Thailand and Malaysia have arranged joint operations against Red guerrillas, things have simmered along pretty quietly until this year.

In January, Thai border police fought a gun duel with 57 Communist terrorists. In July, a Thai army unit, sweeping the region’s Route 5, reported killing 18 guerrillas and arresting 140 suspects. A few weeks later, a Thai-Malay patrol moving in Land Rovers through a jungle gorge in southern Thailand’s Betong district was ambushed, and ten of its 15 members killed. The attack shocked both Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur into action. Fortnight ago, Malaysian Home Minister Ismail bin Dato Abdul Rahman and Thailand’s Deputy Defense Minister Dawee Chullasapaya sat down in Bangkok for a series of conferences to strengthen joint cooperation—which was encouraged by another clash in the south last week between a Thai police patrol and five armed Chinese who fled into the bush.

Only Resting? Ironically, the most wanted leader of the terrorists is a Communist who was once awarded the Order of the British Empire. He is a Malay-born Chinese named Chin Peng. Son of a bicycle dealer who emigrated from China’s Fukien province, Chin, 44, made the Crown’s honors list for guerrilla resistance against the Japanese in World War II, led the Malay contingent in London’s victory parade. But in 1948 he launched Malaya’s Red “war of liberation” against Britain’s colonial regime, which cost nearly 18,000 dead and required 350,000 Commonwealth troops before it was crushed. (London took back his O.B.E.) In 1955, Chin and 600 ragged followers withdrew to southern Thailand, bided their time living in attap (palm leaf) huts.

Apart from extorting an estimated $15,000 a year from local rubber-plantation owners and workers, Chin’s gang appeared quiescent for almost a decade, but now is believed to be actively roaming Thailand’s four southernmost provinces in league with the native Thai Reds, who operate farther north. In his own propaganda, Chin insists that “we are only resting in Thailand,” but few Bangkok officials buy that. Says one: “Chin Peng worries us a little. But we will deal with him.”