Corrupt Fascism in Thailand
DEVERALL, RICHARD
CORRUPT FASCISM IN THAILAND The nation adjoining the Indo-Chinese battlefield is being despoiled by a semi-totalitarian regime By Richard Deverall China, now cast long shadows across the...
...The cartelization of industry and commerce by the armed forces and the growing corruption can best be combated by a strong and vigorous free trade-union movement...
...On the one hand, this could check profiteering...
...Thailand has been hailed as the bastion of anti-Communist democracy in Southeast Asia...
...Thailand is anti-Communist...
...The threat of Communist aggression against Thailand is real, of course...
...Deverall visited Thailand in his official capacity as roving Asian representative of the American Federation of Labor's Free Trade Union Committee...
...The Chinese Communist party of Siam numbers at best 3,000 members and is currently underground...
...American labor should demand a truly pro-democratic, anti-Communist policy in Thailand...
...Workers who went on strike in 1952 were kept in prison chains by the police for several months...
...When we mentioned that the Government had expressed interest in labor legislation, the Embassy asked us to lay off "because we do not want any labor laws in Thailand...
...What about the labor movement...
...When this writer worked in Thailand during 1951, the American Embassy seemed almost afraid of the word "labor...
...Yet, if any country-needs a strong and articulate labor movement, it is Siam...
...Thailand produces about 4.5 million tons of rice each year...
...Thanks to the state intervention and governmental greed, it is no longer easy to dispose of surplus rice...
...Premier Songgram is loud in his denunciations of Communist aggression, which he fears may come from Chinese Communists in Malaya, from Kuomintang remnants in Upper Burma, from Red China, and from the Communists of Indo-China...
...But, in the past few years, a tremendous military build-up and the widening corruption of the Pibul Songgram regime have practically done democracy to death...
...The police listen nowadays," a young man explained...
...The Government obligingly operates a steamship line between Bangkok and Red China's Swatow, which speeds up this long-range subversion of Thailand through Communized youth...
...Within the day...
...He made the further comment that "this time the revolt coincided with the arrival in Bangkok of our American Ambassador, General Bill Donovan...
...Flegel was and is anti-union...
...Chinese who once smiled when asked about Songgram now bitterly and openly attack the regime...
...Once Siam approached the definition of a democratic state...
...that public morality has deteriorated to the lowest depths...
...Thailand must now face a buyers' market and growing economic difficulties...
...He was also chief sparkplug for the Government-sponsored MRA movement...
...When the Thai Government declared it had smashed an attempted Communist coup d'etat backed by Red China and the Vietminh of Indo-China, a realistic American observer, Hugh G. Grant, formerly U.S...
...Along with the anti-Communist screams from his semi-fascist government come hints that more American aid would be useful in stemming Communist aggression...
...Government missions...
...Police General Phao also called for a buyers' strike...
...Minister to Siam, noted that "the so-called revolts in Bangkok come with amazing regularity...
...When Vice President Richard Nixon arrived in Siam, Nai Sangh used the columns of the Bangkok Tribune to berate the Lord Mayor of Bangkok for alleged "kowtowing'' to Americans...
...Pussy footing and floundering are only promoting fascism and may one day provide another satellite for an aggressive Red China...
...I found that Thais were fearful of being observed talking to me...
...An estimated 2,000 Chinese youth leave yearly for "higher education" in Red China...
...On the other hand, it gave the police an opportunity to squeeze more out of the merchants...
...The Songgram group detests the Chinese in Siam primarily because the Chinese, through their energy, have gained control of the tea and rice trade and most of the small and medium-scale industry of the country...
...Perhaps the most serious immediate economic problem is that, of the rice trade...
...Potentially, the greatest threat is from Siam's Chinese minority of 5 million, who make up 25 per cent of the population...
...Later, after the STEM group arrived, Director August Flegel made known his conviction that there was no "labor problem" in Siam...
...Chinese Communist irregular forces in Malaya recently were using Southern Siam as a base for operations against the British in Malawi...
...The old 1932 constitution (with its several revisions) was abolished, and, on March 8, 1952, Thailand received a new constitution police department not long ago decided that it would be well to issue a statement denying certain rumors, to wit, that the Songgram group "have made full preparations to flee the country...
...that there is no justice in the administration...
...The secretary-general of the TNTUC until recently was Nai Sangh, editor of the semi-governmental daily newspaper, the Bangkok Tribune...
...The violence and brutality of some Hollywood films may go over big here at home, but even the best of them have aroused considerable hostility in Europe...
...The thrust of Communist forces in Indo-China to the Thai border has pointed up the reality of the threat from Red China and its Vietminh puppet...
...CORRUPT FASCISM IN THAILAND The nation adjoining the Indo-Chinese battlefield is being despoiled by a semi-totalitarian regime By Richard Deverall China, now cast long shadows across the Buddhist kingdom whose last ruler was murdered in bed and whose present king relies on a pistol as a life-insurance policy...
...The same man imprisons workers at the slightest pretext...
...and that corruption is rife results from the impact of the large numbers of Americans employed by the Embassy and U.S...
...that the financial situation of the country is deteriorating to a situation similar to what the Chinese Nationalist Government was experiencing before the Communist Government took over the administration...
...Premier Songgram's major political rival, former Premier Nai Pridi, is a full-blooded Chinese...
...The TNTUC has hit a new low...
...A few years ago, the Government set up the Thai National Trade Union Congress...
...and competent observers in Siam report that the labor movement is now all but extinct...
...The police were authorized to inspect import orders, letters of credit and merchants' books...
...Ordinarily, the country would export at least 1.5 million tons at a good price, giving Thailand a favorable balance of trade...
...It has been either smashed or driven underground...
...Police General Phao Sriyanondh called for a sweeping crackdown on profiteering merchants...
...Most Chinese are vigorously anti-Songgram and anti-Thai because of the persecution of all Chinese by the armed forces...
...But it is far less democratic today than before the American aid program began...
...The United States has lost a golden opportunity in Thailand to spread trade-union principles...
...Nai Sangh had been fired from his newspaper position by Premier Songgram and shortly thereafter fled the country, reportedly for Calcutta...
...The Chinese make up the skilled labor force of Thailand as well as the backbone of its trade...
...The older Bangkok Labor Union was almost entirely Chinese and under Communist leadership...
...Siam revisited presents a grim and depressing picture...
...At last count, the TNTUC claimed 6.000 members...
...But thousands of non-Communist Chinese are a potential fifth column because of the persecution of the Chinese by the Songgram Government...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 24
