Khattiya Sawasdipol

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Khattiya Sawasdipol , ( Thai : ขัตติยะ ส วัส ดิ ผล , RTGS : Sawatdiphon, pronunciation: [kʰàttìʔyáʔ sàʔwàtdìʔpʰǒn] ; * June 2, 1951 in the district ( Amphoe ) Photharam , Ratchaburi Province ; † May 17, 2010 in Bangkok ) was a Thai military man , political activist and author. The major general of the Thai army was better known under his battle name Seh Daeng ( Thai : เส ธ แดง ), in German "Commander Red".

In the 1970s he gained a special reputation in the fight against the communist guerrillas in the northeast of the kingdom ( Isan ). After the military coup that overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 , Khattiya joined the “red shirts” movement, whose uncompromising and militant wing he led. He was shot dead during the 2010 riots in Bangkok .

Private life

Seh Daeng was the son of an army captain and had three younger sisters. He was married to Captain ZS Janthra Sawasdipol, who died of cancer in 2006. Her daughter Khattiyah Sawasdipol, like her father, is involved with the “red shirts” and was elected to parliament in 2011 on the list of the Pheu-Thai party .

Military career

Khattiya Sawasdipol began serving in the Thai army in 1971. He belonged to the paramilitary unit of the Thahan Phran ("Ranger"), who brutally fought the rebellious communists in Thailand in the 1970s . Khattiya claims to have killed 20 communists in a skirmish in 1976. For his services in the fight against communism he was honored by King Bhumibol Adulyadej .

According to his memoir, Khattiya also served as a scout in the CIA's secret operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War and supported pro-American Hmong General Vang Pao in the Lao civil war . In the 1990s, he said, Khattiya infiltrated Islamist rebel groups in Aceh and Malaysia .

Political commitment

Khattiya Sawasdipol was close to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , who was deposed in 2006, and was an opponent of the September 19, 2006 military coup . He joined the movement of the "Red Shirts" ( United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship , UDD), close to Thaksin, who protested against the coup and the government subsequently installed by the military. After the government had to hand power back to a government close to Thaksin after the elections, Khattiya announced that he would fight his army colleagues with armed violence if they attempted another coup.

On October 18, 2008, Army Commander-in-Chief, General Anupong Paochinda deposed Khattiya from his post in the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC). Instead, he appointed him aerobics chief in the army, which Khattiya found humiliating. This then threatened that he had prepared a dance, the "throwing-hand grenade dance" . During the protests of the Thaksin-critical People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD; "yellow shirts"), Khattiya organized the "ronin warriors" who fought against the "yellow shirts". Khattiya boasted that his fighters had terrorized the “yellow” protesters with M79 grenade launchers, killed one of the PAD security guards and injured 40.

On January 14, 2010, General Anupong ordered the suspension of Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol. The reason was that he had repeatedly violated the instruction not to get involved in political movements, especially not for the red shirts. He had previously met ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Cambodia, who had fled law enforcement. The day after Khattiya was suspended, an M79 grenade launcher hit the Chief of Staff's office . However, the latter denied being responsible.

In February 2010 he said he wanted to set up an anti-government "people's army". He traveled to Dubai to visit Thaksin in his self-chosen exile. He then set up the group of "King Taksin's Warriors ", who trained Khattiya in paramilitary terms and who ensured security at UDD events. At the height of the red shirt protests in 2010, this "guard" had around 500 members. Its members were mainly active and former Thahan Phran fighters . Khattiya liked to compare himself to the main character of the film Braveheart , the Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace . Khattiya's harsh and eccentric character polarized the public: while his followers worshiped him as a hero, he was a dangerous criminal to his opponents.

After the Supreme Court of Thailand pronounced its ruling on the confiscation of parts of Thaksin's property on February 26, 2010, Khattiya indicated that a series of attacks could shake Bangkok. When grenade attacks were actually carried out afterwards against companies, government and military facilities, however, Khattiya denied his responsibility for these and instead claimed that the government had orchestrated them itself in order to discredit the actually peaceful "red shirts".

Riots 2010

During the " red shirt " riots in April and May 2010 , he organized the construction of barricades made of car tires and bamboo fences around the area occupied by the protest movement around the Ratchaprasong intersection and the city's central business district. Police suspected Khattiya of being responsible for a grenade attack on the headquarters of the ruling Democratic Party in April. He himself suggested that his people were responsible for the death of Colonel Romklao Thuwatham in the April 10 clashes.

Khattiya saw himself as "giants" in the epic of Thai history while despising government forces as homosexuals. He came into conflict with moderate sections of the political leadership of the UDD, who wanted to accept the compromise offer made by the government in early May 2010 in order to prevent further bloodshed. Khattiya, on the other hand, allegedly on behalf of Thaksin Shinawatra, refused to give in to the government. He stated that his "last mission" was to spark "total civil war" on the streets of Bangkok and that he would not give in until Thaksin ordered him to do so. He denounced the more moderate UDD leaders as collaborators and declared Veera Musikapong and Nattawut Saikua to be deposed as co-leaders of the movement. The red shirts were supposed to prepare 400 coffins for the coming battle with the government troops. Khattiya mainly gathered young men from the urban underclass who wanted to confront government forces and who, according to many observers, had little to do with the political goals and ideals of the majority of the “red shirt” demonstrators.

The government suspected that Khattiya was also an instructor for the "Men in Black" who appeared armed with AK-47 , HK33 and M16 assault rifles and M79 grenade launchers , and shot soldiers and bystanders, and also for smaller ones , during the 2010 riots in Bangkok Bomb attacks on power poles were blamed. Khattiya denied it, however, and the red shirts later claimed that the government itself was behind the "Men in Black" to justify a return of fire on the red shirt camp. The "Men in Black", who showed signs of great military professionalism, differed significantly from Khattiya's volunteer troops of "Ronin" or "King Taksin Warriors", most of whom had poor paramilitary training.

death

Memorial shrine to Khattiya Sawasdipol

Sawasdipol was shot at on May 13, 2010 during an interview with a New York Times journalist . He was hit in the head by a .308 Winchester projectile . His last words before the shot were: "The army cannot enter our area." He died four days later in Vajira Hospital as a result of the injury. Khattiya's injury and death further escalated violence between red shirts and security forces. From May 14, supporters of the red shirts aggressively attacked government troops, using burning tires, Molotov cocktails , slingshots and homemade explosives. The "men in black" also intensified their attacks on the army. By the time the unrest was finally put down by the military on May 19, a total of over 90 people had died and over 2,000 were injured.

On May 15, Sansern Kaewkamnerd of the Center for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES for short; a government-appointed “Center for Resolving the Emergency Situation ”) emphasized that the CRES had not commissioned an assassination attempt on Khattiya Sawasdipol. In addition, a team from the Central Institute of Forensic Science , led by Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, was ordered to investigate the crime scene as soon as the protests ended.

On May 19, the royal family announced that they would cover the burial costs. No further explanations followed.

After the unrest, a red shirt activist, Jatuporn Prompan , was accused by Suthep Thaugsuban , among others , of conspiracy to murder Khattiya Sawasdipol and arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Shortly after the shooting at Khattiya, rumors had been circulating that his own comrades-in-arms wanted to get him out of the way after internal disputes.

After the investigation had been suspended, Interior Minister Chalerm Yubamrung ordered the investigation into the assassination attempt on Khattiya Sawasdipol to be reopened on January 13, 2012.

The " Truth and Reconciliation Commission " (TRCT) set up by the government to investigate the events of the unrest came to the conclusion in its final report published on September 18, 2012 that Khattiya Sawasdipol was shot by army snipers.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d The red commander is dead ( Memento from May 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Frankfurter Rundschau from May 18, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol . In: The Telegraph , May 19, 2010
  3. ↑ a b Street battle in Thailand. Fiery surrender. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . May 19, 2010, archived from the original on May 22, 2010 ; Retrieved January 8, 2013 .
  4. ↑ a b From now on you will shoot sharply . Der Tagesspiegel from May 15, 2010.
  5. ↑ a b Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol, Thailand's Braveheart, injured in riots . In: The Times of May 13, 2010 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c Descent into Chaos. Thailand's 2010 Red Shirt Protests and the Government Crackdown. (PDF; 6.0 MB) Human Rights Watch, May 2011, ISBN 1-56432-764-7 , p. 77.
  7. ↑ a b c Tom Fawthrop: Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol obituary. In: The Guardian , May 17, 2010.
  8. ↑ Naruemon Thabchumpon and Duncan McCargo : Urbanized Villagers in the 2010 Thai Redshirt Protests. Not Just Poor Farmers? In: Asian Survey , Volume 51, No. 6, November / December 2011, pp. 993-1018, at p. 997.
  9. ↑ HRW: Descent into Chaos. 2011, pp. 43-44.
  10. ^ Shawn W. Crispin: Thailand's Classless Conflict. In: Bangkok May 2010. Perspectives on a Divided Thailand. ISEAS Publishing Singapore 2012, p. 112.
  11. ↑ Shot hits the leader in the head ( Memento from May 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Frankfurter Rundschau from May 13, 2010.
  12. ↑ Another M79 attack aimed at Anupong's office in Army HQ ( Memento from January 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). The Nation, April 8, 2010 (English).
  13. ↑ HRW: Descent into Chaos. 2011, pp. 13, 75.
  14. ↑ HRW: Descent into Chaos. 2011, pp. 13, 79-80.
  15. ↑ HRW: Descent into Chaos. 2011, pp. 13, 79.
  16. ↑ a b https://www.asiaone.com/print/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100515-216367.html
  17. ↑ Gunfire in Bangkok - Red Shirt military chief seriously injured . Spiegel Online from May 13, 2010.
  18. ↑ See Daeng pronounced dead . Bangkok Post of May 17, 2010 (English).
  19. ↑ HRW: Descent into Chaos. 2011, p. 76.
  20. ↑ 'Conspiracy' behind 'Seh Daeng death. In: Bangkok Post . June 23, 2011, accessed November 8, 2011 .
  21. ↑ See Daeng case to be re-opened. In: Bangkok Post . January 13, 2012, accessed March 16, 2012 .
  22. ↑ Marco Kauffmann Bossart: Sober view of the Bangkok riots. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 18, 2012, accessed September 18, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Khattiya Sawasdipol
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Se Daeng, Seh Daeng
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Thai general, politician and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Photharam Amphoe , Ratchaburi Province
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 2010
Place of death Bangkok