Activists Urges Textbooks To Include 'Oct 6 Massacre'

Khaosod Online

A prominent activist has called for inclusion of the brutal 1976 crackdown on student activists in school textbooks in order to teach the younger generation of Thais about one of the darkest episodes of Thailand′s political history.

Mr. Jaran Dittapichai was speaking after a memorial service, which Mr. Jan helped organise with other activists, held at Thammasat University to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the crackdown.

Dubbed ′October 6 Massacre′, the incident saw right-wing militias and heavily-armed police force laying siege and later storming into Thammasat University where thousands of students were rallying for an overnight political protest.

The students, branded as Communists or North Vietnamese by the attackers, were accused of plotting to overthrow the monarchy. Official sources listed 46 deaths in the attacks; many suffered gunshot wounds while some others were hanged or burned alive by cheering mobs just outside the university.

It proved to be an end to the triumph of the student activists who had led the ouster of military dictators in October 1973. A military coup followed the massacre at Thammasat University on 6 October 1976, and the subsequent government has effectively reversed the political freedom in the country that had been blossoming for three years.

Mr. Jaran, who was one of the leading student activists in 1970s, said the October 6 Massacre shows how "Thai democracy is always crushed under the boots whenever it has signs of growing. That is why it is not going anywhere up to this day".

He lamented that it is difficult for the lessons from October 14 Uprising and October 6 Massacre to be learned by the public, as Thailand has not yet concluded or studied about the incidents in serious ways.

"Many people don′t even know what both incidents are," said Mr. Jaran, "I believe many people under 40 don′t know about it. They even confuse the 2 events together into 16 October".

The activist said he will submit a letter to the Ministry of Education, demanding that the history of political violence be included in school textbooks, such as the uprising in 1973, the student massacre in 1976, the ′Black May′ of 1992 - in which the military cracked down on pro-democracy protesters - and the Redshirts protests of 2010.

"Textbooks on Thai history said very little about 14 October and 6 October," said Mr. Jaran, adding that the teaching of these incidents in history classes would help Thailand learn about the lessons of its disastrous past.

Earlier in the day, flowers and wreaths were laid down, and poems and eulogies to the dead read, at the monument of the October 6 Massacre, which is situated at the eastern gate of Thammasat University.

Speaking during the memorial service, Mr. Wat Wanlayangoon, a former student activist who was active during the turbulent years of 1973-1976, expressed his view that "the only one thing that has never changed" since October 1976 is the dictatorship in Thailand which continued to kill its own citizens.

He cited the Redshirts protests in 2010, which was ended by a prolonged military operation, as an example.

"The victory that the students and the people achieved on 14 October 1973 was in fact a tiny victory, and the freedom they had won was short-lived," Mr. Wat said, "The structure of political power is far from a complete democracy".

Source: http://www.khaosod.co.th/en/view_newsonline.php?newsid=TVRNNE1URTBPVFF5TkE9PQ==&sectionid=TURVd01BPT0=

--KHAOSOD English 2013-10-07

Wow, that will cause some turmoil in some parts of society.....

Maybe the end off this government is coming nearby..

And nobody ever charged! for this in the military. Even the exact numbers of students killed is not known!

At the same time, maybe they could put something in the textbooks about the world outside Thailand?

To change the perception of Hitler as superhero or a fried chicken brand!

Well, I didn't know about students being taken out and hanged / burned. That's horrific. I've just read the wiki report on it, taking into account that Wiki can be manipulated, it's disgraceful reading in it's current form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_October_1976_Massacre

I would like to say that mature countries face up to their past, however there are plenty of Western countries that play down their roles in genocides and the like. I support the idea of history being accurate ( obviously ), and history should be known.

This should be on the curriculum, I fear though that the same forces that were at the centre of this atrocity then are still active now. Dangerous ground.

When Thailand becomes an open society it will rewrite it's history books.

Until then Thais, like others before them, should look abroad if they wish to learn the truth.

I've met people from both sides of the pickets. There came a point where I was being told in rather graphic detail about the beatings and gang rapes of students, both dead and alive, by troops and assorted right wing paramilitary / militant political activists who were allowed to run rampant. I had to get up and pace around for a bit before I could sit back down and change the subject.

I don't mean to be trite by using an emoticon, but truly :

I doubt that any mention in the history books (any time soon) would do the event justice.

I may be flying quite close to forum rule limits here, but the sickest thing about what I was hearing was this :

Both the students and those who stormed the barricades (troops, police, right wing political groups) believed that they were in accordance with a certain power. Throughout the ordeal the students actually thought that they would be saved by the aforesaid power.

Well, I didn't know about students being taken out and hanged / burned. That's horrific. I've just read the wiki report on it, taking into account that Wiki can be manipulated, it's disgraceful reading in it's current form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_October_1976_Massacre

I would like to say that mature countries face up to their past, however there are plenty of Western countries that play down their roles in genocides and the like. I support the idea of history being accurate ( obviously ), and history should be known.

This should be on the curriculum, I fear though that the same forces that were at the centre of this atrocity then are still active now. Dangerous ground.

Thailand really does need to start looking outside of the immediate present and study history more, and also further afield with topics outside of Thailand.

However, as for facing up to the past, it's gonna be a while before that happens. How many Thai's do you know that take responsibility for much of anything? For them, if they don't acknowledge it, it never happened.

Students from different universities were demonstrating against the return to Thailand of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, a former military ruler. Neal Ulevich won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for a “series of photographs of disorder and brutality in the streets of Bangkok, Thailand”.

Hmmmm...The hub of history...

I was in Bangkok during the October 14 "Uprising". Believe me - massacre is a more descriptive word..

Response from the army would read: Don't expose nasty things or the country will fall in chaos (again)

we have to remember the times that this occurred cambodia was communist, laos was communist, vietnam was getting ready to invade the south, the americans had pulled out and entrenched themselves in thailand, this was the last domino in south east asia, so there was fear everywhere in thailand . i am not condoning what they did but they should face their history even if is dark.

we have to remember the times that this occurred cambodia was communist, laos was communist, vietnam was getting ready to invade the south, the americans had pulled out and entrenched themselves in thailand, this was the last domino in south east asia, so there was fear everywhere in thailand . i am not condoning what they did but they should face their history even if is dark.

America had already left and South Vietnam was no more by 1976.

The students were largely pro-democracy and pro-monarchy but they were willfully branded as communists by the right-wing and pro-monarchy media who were egged on by the likes of Samak (among others who were much more powerful at the time) because the Army needed a cover story under which it could come out and flex it's political muscles in ways that were largely unseen.

The massacre was just the tip of the ice berg, in terms of the political maneuvers and machinations which surrounded the event.

Troll post and replies to it removed.

It has been said that "history is written by the winners."

Ironically, no one is certain who said this, though it is often attributed to either Napoleon or Churchill.