A New Accounting of Late Cold War State Violence in Thailand

• In Event: Without Account: State Violence, Law, and Impunity in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The 6 October 1976 massacre and coup in Thailand not only ended the nearly three years of prior open politics, but were also the beginning of an extended period of arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of citizens who came to be seen as dissident “dangers to society” or Communists, or who ran afoul of local influential state officials. During the years between 1976 and 1988, resonant with state practice following the 22 May 2014 coup, the Thai state authorities consistently refused to release information to the public about arrests, detentions, and other forms of violence. However, state violence and its denial during this period coincided with the strengthening of the international human rights movement and the emergence of the domestic Thai human rights movement, which made documenting violations one of its first tasks. Drawing primarily on the materials of new human rights organizations in Thailand, including the Coordinating Group on Religion in Society and the Union for Civil Liberty, and diaspora groups, such as the Union of Democratic Thais and the Thai Information Center, supplemented by newspaper reportage, I first create an account of the rights violations that took place during these years. Then, considering this account in the contexts of both the state’s denial of rights violations then and the present resurgence of dictatorship in Thailand, I reflect on how the writing of history may contribute to redressing impunity for state violence.

Author

• Tyrell Haberkorn, Australian National University