Red buffalo

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The Red Buffalo Movement ( Thai ขบวนการ กระทิงแดง , RTGS: Krathing Daeng, actually “Rote Gaur ”) was a nationalist, monarchist and anti-communist paramilitary organization in Thailand in the 1970s . You played a key role in the massacre of students and activists at Thammasat University on October 6, 1976.

Foundation and activities

Sudsai Hasdin, alleged initiator of the Red Buffalo

The movement was from the Command Operations Internal Security ( Internal Security Operations Command of) the Thai armed forces organized to the student movement after the democratic popular uprising in the fall of 1973 to meet. Major General Sudsai Hasadin was named as the main initiator of the movement. From mid-1974, the Red Buffalo units were armed with firearms and grenades and from then on appeared armed in public. They enjoyed practical immunity from prosecution and received no warning from the police or the army. The Red Buffalo violently attacked protesters during protests against individual articles of the 1974 constitution , against American military bases in Thailand, and against the return of the disempowered military dictators Thanom Kittikachorn and Praphas Charusathien .

In August 1975, the Red Buffalo attacked Thammasat University and tried to burn down its building. Murders of union and peasant officials and progressive politicians, as well as grenade attacks on crowds, were attributed to the red buffalo. Members of the organization often attacked photojournalists who tried to take pictures of them and their weapons, and injured them. The movement intervened in the 1976 parliamentary election campaign by attacking and harassing candidates and parties they perceived to be leftists. In addition, the red buffalo were used to protect road workers in areas with communist insurgents from attacks.

membership

The ultra-royalist vigilante group concentrated its activities primarily on Bangkok. Members of the Red Buffalo were mainly dissatisfied lower- middle class vocational students in Bangkok, young unemployed people and early school leavers. The key positions took former mercenaries of the CIA in Laos and Vietnam War veterans true, as well as former members of the army, who had been dismissed due to disciplinary offenses. The Krathing Daeng fighters were well paid from public funds, provided with free alcohol and invited to drinking bouts and visits to brothels.

Historical classification

In October 1973 the students had played an important role in the overthrow of the military government, but the civilian government that followed disappointed its expectations of economic development. The masterminds of the Red Buffalo cleverly exploited the social tensions between the vocational schoolchildren and the students and used them as street thugs in the style of the fascists . The aim was to intimidate political opponents and instigate terror. Its members were involved in the October 1976 massacre of students at Thammasat University , which led to the collapse of the government and the coup d'état by the military .

See also

  • Nawaphon , a right-wing extremist organization active at the same time

literature

  • Michael Leifer: Dictionary of the modern politics of South-East Asia . London: Routledge 1996. ISBN 0-415-13821-3 . Article: "Red Gaurs Movement".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The Revenge of the Red Buffalo", Stern No. 43/1976, p. 22
    Gabriele Venzky "Overthrow in Bangkok The Hunting of     the" Red Buffalo " ", Die Zeit October 15, 1976
    Gabriele Venzky "Overthrow attempt in Thailand - Colonel coup “, Die Zeit, April 10, 1981
  2. ^ Alan Klima: The Funeral Casino. Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) / Woodstock (Oxon) 2002, p. 71.
  3. ^ William Bradley et al. a .: Thailand, Domino by Default? The 1976 Coup and Implications for US Policy. Ohio University Center for International Studies, Athens (OH) 1978, p. 12.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Alex P. Schmid, Albert J. Jongman "Political Terrorism", 2005, p. 672
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Puey Ungphakorn : "Violence and the Military Coup in Thailand", Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol. 9 No. 3/1977, p. 10
  6. ↑ a b Giles Ji Ungpakorn "From the city, via the jungle, to defeat: the 6th Oct 1976 bloodbath and the CPT," in Radical Ising Thailand, New Political Perspectives, 2003, p 5
  7. ↑ a b Chris Baker , Pasuk Phongpaichit "A History of Thailand", 2009, p. 192
  8. ↑ a b Irene Stengs “Worshiping the Great Moderniser: King Chulalongkorn, Patron Saint of the Thai Middle Class”, 2009, p. 237
  9. ↑ a b Somboon Suksamran “Buddhism and Politics in Thailand”, 1982, p. 79
  10. ^ Benedict Anderson, “Withdrawal Symptoms: Social and Cultural Aspects of the October 6 Coup,” in: The Specter of Comparisons, Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, 1977, pp. 157-158
  11. ^ Leifer: Dictionary of the modern politics of South-East Asia. 1996.