INSURGENCY IN THAILAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001100130105-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 35
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 18, 2008
• Sequence Number: 105
• Publication Date: October 30, 1972
• Content Type: IM

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
Insurgency in l "nailand
Secret
89
30 October 1972
No. 2080/72
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
30 October 1972
Ensurgency in Thailand
Twenty years have passed since the Thai Commu-
nist Party, over thr objections of some of its lead-
ers, chose the path if revolutionary warfare as a
means of gaining power in Thailand. It has been
seven years since the first ragged bands of insur-
gents in the northeast fired the opening shots of
what some called the struggle for the next domino in
Southeast Asia. Today the Communist insurgent effort
remains small, vulnerable, and, for the most part,
limited to the periphery of thq Thai nation and so-
ciety. During the past few years the Communists
have been unable to end their dependency upon
tribal people in remote areas of the north nor have
they made any dramatic inroads among ethnic Thai who
make up the great majority of the population. The
Communists likewise have made only scant headway in
coming to grips with some serious internal weaknesses.
The leadership of the party remains shrouded in mystery;
the group of faceless Sino-Thai at the top have never
generated the charismatic leadership of a Ho Chi Minh,
or for that matter a Souphanouvong. At the lower lev-
els the organization remains plagued by a chronic short-
age of young well--educated political cadre. On the
few occasions the party has been subjected to sustained
government pressure, it has not performed particularly
well.
Nonetheless, the Communists have managed not only
to survive within this seemingly bleak context of ad-
versity, but also gradually to increase in both numbers
and capabil.ty. Such persistence and progress can be
credited in part to the assistance received from
Note: This memorandum was prepared by the Office, of
Current Intelligence and coordinated within CIA. The
Department of State and the Department of Defense
concu2 with its general findings.
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China and North Vietnam; external factors will no
doubt continue to have a major bearing on future in-
surgent capability and morale. Essentially, however,
the success or failure of the insurgency has always
rested in the hands of the Thai themselves. Moreover,
insurgent momentum already developed can in large part
be attributed to woeful neglect on the part of govern-
ment leaders, who have found it difficult to credit
the insurgency as a serious threat.
More recently, there have been signs of improve-
ment in the government's attitude. Indeed, some ele-
ments in the army now appear convinced--as they were
not a few years ago--that they have a real problem on
their hands, but several key political leaders remain
skeptical. The Thai Government has yet to demonstrate
that it will abandon its sporadic and reactive strat-
egy in favor of an aggressive, sustained campaign to
deny the Communist insurgents the time they need to
refit and recover from government operations.
This could change in the near future; the govern-
ment appears to be on the threshold of implementing a
new countrywide counterinsurgency program. If Bang-
kok does what is clearly within its capability to
do, the insurgent apparatus will be hard-pressed to
maintain its strongth am initiative. If, on the
other hand, the government does not measurL::. up to
this test of will and determination, the insurgency
will gain time and opportunity to entrench itself
further::. : This could easily happen, for example, if
the current Thai leadership should become completely
preoccupied with internal political maneuvering.
Over the longer term, if the Thai insurgents are
permitted to develop their capabilities relatively
unhampered and can sort out their internal problems
they will become a threat that Bangkok would find
extremely difficult to contain.
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Thailand: Insurgency Areas
Kun
Nakhon
N.tchadms
C (` I. I'
O F
T II :1 l C,1 ;\' U
Communist insurponts
eno....? AA./ ....4
NORTH
VIETNAM
\.. Vlnh onp~
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The Current Situation
Communist insurrection does not by any stretch
of the imagination represent an immediate threat
to the viability of the Bangkok regime. At the same
time, it is no longer possible to dismiss the danger
out of hand. There is no question but that at this
juncture the insurgents are making relative gains
vis-a-vis the government. As imprecise and unsophis-
ticated as they may be, all the statistical indicators
In Thailand point to higher levels of Communist-ini-
tiated attacks, ambushes, assassinations, and propa-
ganda inroads than two years ago. Because of re-
gional differences in topography, population, Commu-
ni3t leadership, and government administration, the
growth of the insurgency in Thailand has been uneven,
varying considerably between the north, northeast,
and south. Over all, there are estimated to be be-
tween 5,500 and 6,000 armed insurgents, about 2,000
more than in 1969. In addition, the insurgents' mil-
itary capabilities have grown as a consequence of
better training, more experience, and, above all,
the acquisition of better weapons.
Tribal Insurgency in the North
Most of the insurgent gain has occurred in the
north--the only region in the country where the Commu-
nists have never lost the initiative and where they
have chalked up a steady record of victories over gov-
ernment forces. The difficult terrain--dense forest
and rugged mountains--and proximity to Laotian base
areas provide ideal conditions for guerrilla opera-
tions; the lack of an adequate road system offers
the insurgents an added measure of security.
The ethnic character of the insurgency in the
north also distinguishes it from that in other areas
,of Thailand. Although an integral part of the country-
wide Thai Communist movement, the insurgency in the
north is based on people not ethnically Thai, the
Meo hill tribesmen. Traditionally neglected and
treated with disdain by the Thai, the Meo were flat-
tered by, and quickly responded to, Communist bland-
ishments. Contacts with the hill tribesmen date
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from the early 1960s; young recruits were sent to
training schools in Laos and in some cases North Viet-
nam. Encountering little opposition from the govern-
ment, the Communists began to extend their influence
from the Laos border ;Into the adjacent ridges in
Thailand. By 1966,. they were organizing and recruit-
ing in earnest on the Thai side of the border.
The insurgency in this area is directed by the
Communist Party of Thailand's (CPT) Northern Regional
Committee, which reportedly has its headquarters in
northwestern Sayaboury Province in Laos. The grow-
ing military strength of the insurgents in the north
is distributed in three distinct areas--along the
eastern border of Chiang Rai and Nan provinces (where
the Communists have proclaimed a "liberated area"); in
the "tri-province area" straddling Phitsanulok,
Phetchabun, and Loei provinces; and in Tak Province
along ':he Burma border. The insurgents have managed
to push the government out of most of its lightly
defended border posts between Chiang Rai and Loei
provinces.
In the least .secure region, the so-called "lib-
erated" area along the border in Nan Province, gov-
ernment authority has been severely eroded by systematic
Communist terrorism and propaganda. District officials
rarely leave the confines of the towns for fear of
being ambushed; when the army moves, it travels in
convoys, and these have been attacked on a number
of occasions. To date the insurgent grip in this
area has not been seriously challenged; the govern-
ment judges that the costs of a sustained campaign
to clear the border area of insurgents would far ex-
ceed the possible benefits. On the few occasions
when the army has conducted small-scale forays, the
insurgents' firepower, aggressiveness, and tactics
have proved too much to handle.
Aside from the obvious necessity of keeping
Thai security forces at arm's length, the Communists
have two basic missions to fulfill if the tribal in-
surgency in the north is ever to sFrvc as a rpring
board for nationwide revolution. First, a solid base
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of popular support must be created among the Meo pop-
ulation of the northern highlands. Second, the insurgent
movement must somchhow be extended to the ethnic Thai
population dwelling in the adjacent lowland areas. To
date, the insurgents have not achieved significant suc-
cesses in either of these endeavors. In the mid-1960s,
the CPT attracted Meo support by offering rudimentary
medical services, education, and above all the prestige
of carrying sophisticated weapons and using it against
a traditional enemy--the Thai Government. These appeals
proved popular and within a five-year period insurgent
ranks swelled from 250 to over 3,000 armed regular and
part-time guerrillas.
0ve~: the past year, however, signs have begun
to mount that the Communist political base in the Meo
areas is both shallow and vulnerable. Disaffection
with the Communists appears to have grown out of the
CPT's insistence upon imposing its political regimen
on traditional tribal village life. Travel restric-
tions, confiscation of surplus food stucks, and forced
drafts into the insurgent army have combined to under-
mine the villagers' support of the Communist movement.
Unrest within the tribal base areas is extremely
inopportune for the CPT at this time, when the Commu-
nists are intensifying their eff, is to shift the em-
phasis of their activities into the adjacent lowlands.
To this end the Communists have broadened their propa-
ganda themes to include topics they hope will appeal
to lowland Thai. The Communists are evidently still
experimenting with various approaches to the Thai
villagers. Although some of the villagers and vil-
lage headmen have been executed, the insurgents still
hope to win the confidence of the Thai by good deeds
rather than intimidation. Propaganda and civic ac-
tion teams, usually composed o ethnic Thai accompanied
by a tribal security force, enter remote Thai vil-,
lages from time to time to offer medical treatment,
help with farm work, and spread antigovernment propa-
ganda. The Communists' tactic of purchasing food-
stuffs at prices far above the market value has de-
veloped into a flourishing trade between some lowland
villages and the insurgents. To date, however, there
is nothing in this limited intercourse that suggests
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anything more than a natural accommodation to economic
opportunity and military force. The most that can
be said at this point is that the Communists are at-
tempting to move into the lowlands and that they have
established friendly contacts and some cooperation
from a handful of villages. They still have not
ra-aach9d the crucial stage of political organization
in such areas.
The military capabilities of the northern insur-
gents have grown in correspondence to an increase in
external support. Over the past several years the in-
surgents have come to rely almost completely on weap-
ons and other equip-Went manufactured in the Communist
nations. The qualitative improvement in armament,
which has made the insurgents a more formidable mili-
tary threat, includes the B-40 rocket, AK-47, 60-mm.
mortar, light machine guns, and plastic anti-personnel
mines. Most of this equipment is of Chinese origin,
but it is not known whether the weapons entering north
Thailand are drawn from North Vietnamese and Pathet
Lao stockpiles already in northwestern Laos or are
shipped directly from China to the Thai border.
The construction of a Chinese-built road in north-
ern Laos, which now terminates at Pak Beng on the
Mekong, has enhanced the Communists' ability to re-
supply the insurgents in northern Thailand and to
respond more quickly to unforeseen insurgent needs.
Any reasonable projection of the northern insurgency's
manpower growth based on local recruiting, however,
makes it reasonably clear that the road will not be
essential to support insurgent requirements for many
years.
Some five years ago the arms moving across the
border amounted to little more than a trickle--an
estimated eight tons in 1968. Today, estimates based
on insurgent expenditure of ammunition suggest that
the guerrillas are consuming about 100 tons of Commu-
nist-produced materiel a year. This is a relatively
small amount--it could all be moved in one 25-truck
convoy--and the insurgents can easily move far more
than this amount by horse caravan over the existing
trail system. Whatever its logistic importance to
the development of the northern insurgency, the road
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has served to raise Thai fears of large-scale Chinese-
supported insurrection in Thailand, thus further con-
tributing to Thai thinking on the future direction of
their foreign policy. In the next few years, at least,
the road's primary impact on Bangkok seems likely to 25X1
remain in, this realm of psychological warfare.
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The Northeast: A Political Challenge
While the Communists have been making military
gains in the north, they have continued to emphasize
political action in the northeast, a relatively im-
poverished area that until recent years was isolated
both physically and psychologically from Bangkok.
The northeast has a long history of political dissi-
dence, and much of Thailand's leftist heritage, such
as it is, is rooted there. The northeast was the
first area in which the Communists became militarily
active. The Communist Party of Thailand apparently
decided on armed struggle in the northeast as early
as 1952, and organizational work, although periodi-
cally disrupted by government repressive operations,
proceeded during the 1950s. The Communists claim
the first shot in the revolutionary armed struggle
was fired in the northeast's Nakhon Phanon Province
in August 1965.
Since 1964 the Communists have located most of
their important base camps in the Phu Phan hills. These
hills stretch intermittently from Laos south and east
through Udorn Province and western Sakhon Nakhon and
then east into Nakhon Phanom. Although covered in
part by heavy vegetation, the hills are by no means
impenetrable. The Communists have sought to extend
their influence over the villages in the Phu Phan
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hills and thence into the outlying areas. They have
been most active in Nakae District of Nakhon Phanom
Province, which consistently has had the greatest
number of violent incidents in the country. The
government has admitted that armed insurgents have
established considerable influence in over 100 of
the district's 115 villages.
In the past year the Communists have focused
on effecting tighter control over villages already
under some form of Communist influence, primarily
through setting up village military units and polit-
ical committees. The establishment of village
militia represents a change in emphasis from the
days of 1964-67 when villagers were usually brought
directly into the ranks of guerrilla units. The
emphasis now is to recruit villagers and use them,
initially at least, in place, after the pattern
used effectively in Indochina. Although the evi-
dence is still sketchy on the magnitude of this
effort, there are at least 4,000 villagers organ-
ized into such units in the provinces of Kalasin,
Sakhon Nakhon, and Nakhon Phanom. It is the goal
of the CPT to upgrade the capabilities of these
militia units to the point where they can fight
alongside the regular guerrilla soldiers, who now
number around 1,800. This is being accomplished by
integrating the militia with full time soldiers on
limited operations such as short-range patrols,
assassinations, and propaganda discussions. There
is recent evidence that militia elements have begun
to assume greater military responsibilities, including
executing attacks against government defense posts.
Although the primary purpose of the militia is
to serve as an auxiliary force, the CPT has not
ignored their political potential. For example,
they have been used to organize public demonstra-
tions against the Royal Thai Government in Khao
Worig Sub-District of Kalasin Province and in Na Kae
District of Nakhon Phanom Province. More important,
however, has been the party's use of the militia to
form the backbone of its newest manifestation of
political control--the village committee. These
organs are replacing or supplementing the covert
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cell structure that served as the initial source of
Communist influence in the villages. The establishment
of these committees, which are now in evidence in the
provinces of Nakhon Phanom, Sakhon Nakhon, and Kalasin
at the village, district, anc province level, is
meant to be the forerunner of a future local Communist
administration. District committees have also been
established in western Udorn Province but to date
there is no evidence of village-level political
control.
Since the committees by their very nature are
more sophisticated and less clandestine political
instruments than the cells, their formation marks
a significant step forward by the CPT in its attempt
to create a political following in the northeas
A conservative qf-i to
indicates that a nascent Commu-
nist apparatus, ranging from covert cells to
full-blown committees, has reached into some 200
villages affecting a population base of some 100,000
people. As impressive as those figures might seem,
they represent less than one percent of the total
population of the northeast and the apparatus remains
confined to the more remote areas of Nakhon Phanom,
Sakhon Nakhon, and Kalasin provinces. The only other
area in the northeast that has seen a hint of Commu-
nist progress is western Udorn Province, where a re-
vitalized party leadership appears to be pressing
hard to establish village-level committees. The Com-
munists have been singularly unsuccessful in building
either a viable military or political apparatus in
the neighboring provinces of Ubon, Korat, Buriram, and
Prachinburi, despite years of effort.
Insurgent failures to expand significantly
beyond their traditional base areas of the northeast
can be attributed to a fundamental weakness of the
Thai Communist apparatus--a chronic shortage of
ideologically motivated and experienced political
cadre. This shortage, coupled with the Communist
Party's rigid ideological approach to its propaganda
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campaigns, has been a major factor behind the Com-
munists' inability better to exploit the needs and
grievances of the local populace. Although the
Communists have addrossed themselves to some local
issues, they still tend to focus their propaganda
against US "imperialism" and the Thanom-Praphat
government, both of which have little.relevance to
illiterate Thai farmers.
Moreover, if ever challenged seriously, recent
Communist political gains in the northeast could prove
ephemeral. During the past year, for instance, sus-
tained government pressure against the Communists'
political and support apparatus in northeastern
Kalasin Provi',ice seriously eroded their influence at
the village level. This may be only an isolated case,
but it does raise questions about the viability of
the Communists' village-level political base in the
northeast. It may be more impressive on paper than
in reality. If the insurgents' political apparatus
is left unchallenged, however, the situation can only
worsen.
The vigorous, but short-term, suppression cam-
paigns that have charac?'Cerized government counter-
insurgency in the northeast have had only a tem-
porary effect on the situation, Persistent military
patrolling has led to a marked decline in insurgent-
initiated incidents in Sakhon Nakhon Province, but
the Thai have not brought themselves to apply this
lesson to the insurgent core area in Nakhon Phanom.
Insurgent organizational work, aimed at the eventual
resumption of a "liberation struggle," goes on there
largely unimpeded except during the government's
sporadic suppressive operations. In these areas
the villager often faces the simple choices between
accommodation to Communist political control, aban-
donment of his home, or death. For years villagers
in the Na Kae District of Nakhon Phanom Province who
have refused to cooperate with the insurgents have been
routinely shot.
Communist forces in the northeast continue to
be armed primarily with weapons of US origin, The
use of Communist-bloc weaponry has been increasing,
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h'wever, and the limited and tenuous evidence avail-
able suggests a small but consistent trickle of
Chinese-manufactured arms from southern Laos into
the northeast. An increasing number of small insur-
gent units have been sighted armed with AK-47s, arid
this past summer B-40 rocket launchers and 60 mm.
mortars wero used in attacks against village defense
posts--the first use of these weapons in the north-
east. Nevertheless, the northeastern insurgents,
unlike their comrades to the north, are in a poor
geographic position to draw on external sources of
weapons and other material support. Their major
problem is that the main base area, the Phu Phan hills,
does not border on Laos. The land between the Phu
Phans and the border is flat, open, and heavily popu-
lated. This makes it difficult for the insurgents to
operate a major clandestine supply system from Laos.
Nevertheless, some infiltration across the Mekong
River (even if patrolled) is quite easy, as the in-
creased availability of Communist weaponry suggests.
Local procurement has never been a problem.
Weapons are readily available on the Thai and Lao-
tian black markets at reasonable prices. The north-
east insurgents also seize arms from village security
units and, less frequently, capture then during armed
engagements.
The relative self-reliance of the insurgents
in the northeast is beginning to extend into the area
of training. Although
the training of recruits in Laos, North Vietnam,
and China is continuing, (as is the case in the north),
the insurgents now appear to be receiving much of
their basic training in-schools in the Phu Phan base
area. It is not known how long these facilities
have been in existence--perhi.'.ps as early as 1970--and
none has a permanent locat.on, but within the past
year eight have been identified in Nakhon Phanom
Province. Six of these schools offer courses in
politics, one concentrates on military subjects, and
the other offers a course in combat medical training.
The creation of training installations in the north-
east has undoubtedly strengthened the party's re-
cruitment capabilities. In the past, potential
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recruits were reluctant to leave their homes for the
long and arduous trek into Laos and North Vietnam
for training.
The Mid-South and Far South
Insurgency in the Kra isthmus--or "mid-south"
region--is growing slowly. It'is much less signifi-
cant than that in the north or the northeast. Be-
cause the region is far removed from Laos and other
supply areas and because the Communists have devoted
neither the time nor the energy they have expended
in these other areas, their prospects for continued
growth are not very substantial. Indeed, evidence
indicates that the party has withdrawn some of its
most promising cadre from the southern provinces to
serve in the north and northeast. Moreover, within
the past year the Thai Government under the able lead-
ership of General San Chitpatima (the regional mili-
tary commander) has so disrupted the Communist organ-
ization in the mid-south that unless a significant
number of experienced political and military cadre
are injected by the CPT, its chances for any sort
of rapid recovery are extremely bleak. Nevertheless,
the jungle and mountain terrain of the region is well
suited to insurgent activity, as is the south's tra-
ditional popular disaffection caused by corrupt gov-
ernment officials. If the government fails to cripple
the movement while it is still small, serious problems
could develop on the narrow isthmus in the coming years.
Farther south, the Malayan National Liberation
Zrmy, the armed, jungle-based branch of the Communist
Party of Malaya--commonly called the Communist Terror-
ist Organization--has used the southern border
provinces of Thailand as a refuge and support base
since the early days of the Malayan emergency in
the 19~0s. The organization operates against Ma-
laysia, rather than Thailand, and its members are
not considered a threat to Thailand itself. The
terrorist organization maintains only limited con-
tact with the Thai Communists. Some Thai insurgents
have been trained in Malaysian camps near the border,
and there have been indications of mixed bands op-
erating in southern Songkhla Province. The recent
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southward movement of some small Thai Communist
groups into the periphery of terrorist-controlled
areas in southern Songkhla Province suggests
that cooperation between the two groups may grow.
Until Bangkok sees some greater threat to Thailand
in these terrorist activities, however, it is un-
likely to join Malays--'a in coming to grips with
the problem.
The View From Bangkok: Thai Perceptions and Strategy
What the government can do and intends to do
about insurgent inroads in Thailand is, of course,
conditioned by its perception of the problem.
In the past, at least, the Thai leadership seems to
have held the view that Communism could never estab-
lish roots in the Thai soil--that, while insurgency
has become a bothersome problem, religion and Thai-
land's unique homogeneity and sense of nationalism
would prove decisive factors J.n the struggle.
It must be borne in mind that from Bangkok's
vantage point, there are higher priorities than
the insurgency. First, the army views a North
Vietnamese encroachment into the Mekong Valley in
Laos or the Chinese military presence in the Nam Beng
Valley (in northern Laos) as a far greater potential
threat to the nation than the insurgency. This,
rather than concern for the insurgent situation in
the north, is the basis for much of the Thai concern
being expressed over the Chinese road network under
construction in Northern Laos. The Thai leadership
has always tended to see the insurgency more as
a manifestation of some foreign threat than as a
well-rooted domestic movement with a life of its
own. Hence, the Thai strategic approach to the in-
surgent problem has called first and foremost for
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thwarting North Vietnamese and Lao Communist ambitions
in Laos, and more recently for seeking a degree of
rapprochement with a newly conciliatory Peking. If
successful, such policies could--in the Thai view--
reduce the Thai insurgency to easily manageable
proportions.
Bangkok, of course, remains suspicious of Chi-
nese intentions and is well aware of the uncertain-
ties involved in coming to terms with Peking. Never-
theless, the diplomatic probing now under way between
Bangkok and Peking suggests that this skepticism has
in no way dampened Thai interest in pursuing the op-
tion of accommodation with the Chinese or Bangkok's
hope or belief that over the long term a broad post-
Indochina war accommodation in Southeast Asia will
make an energetic counterinsurgency effort'in Thailand
unnecessary.
From the Thai perspective, another problem de-
manding a higher priority than counterinsurgency is
the potential domestic threat to the regime. The
first consideration for a leader such as General
Praphat is to protect his own position. This is
not an unreasonable proposition in a military gov-
ernment lacking a constitutional process
Most important, Praphat tends to
dole out troop commands only to those deemed polit-
ically trustworthy--military energy and competence
are secondary considerations. Unfortunately, Praphat,
who heads the government's counterinsurgency effort,
is preoccupied with high-level political maneuvering
in Bangkok and has paid little attention to the secu-
rity situation in the provinces.
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As noted earlier, the Thai inclination to view
insurgency as a tolerable problem that can be contained
has produced a counterinsurgency program characterized
by fits and starts. The g'avernmerit's operations have
been largely reactive; its strategic philosophy is
one of letting the punishment fit the crime, This
has been illustrated best in the northeast. When
Communist insurgency broke out in 1565, an aroused
Thai leadership responded with the creation of the
Communist Suppression Operations Command. CSOC
utilized its sweeping powers quickly, mobilizing
and deploying appropriate operational elements of
the Thai armed forces. The situation began to im-
prove after a series of arrests and defections had
left the embryonic insurgent organization reeling.
But rather than pursuing the campaign to its logical
conclusion, General Praphat ordered most of the army
units involved back to their garrisons. Consequently,
the Communist organization in the northeast was
ignored long enough to permit it to recover.
Following the government's abortive campaign
in the northeast, the army confined its counter-
insurgency efforts to short-term, sporadic forays into
Communist rase areas. These efforts, which have been
supported largely by training funds, have done little
more than demonstrate two of the army's fundamental
weaknesses--lack of aggressiveness and inadequate lead-
ership at all levels. The government's tactics
produced little real shooting and even less serious
damage to either side. The army gained what it be-
lieved to b, valuable field experience without risking
significant casualities, while the insurgents, aware
of the brief time frame of government operations,
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North Thailand: Insurgency Areas
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A!f (A
or
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usually chose to melt into the jungle and avoid con-
tact. S.nce after-action reports usually reflected
the lark of enemy contact, the net effect of Thai
counterinsurgency operations in recent years has
been to encourage an atmosphere of complacency in
Bangkok. In such a milieu, the Communist movement
in the northeast has survived and grown.
Operation Phu Kwang: Some Good News and Some Bad
Operation Phu Kwang in January of this year could
represent a long overdue turnip point in the Thai
approach to counterinsurgency,
lalarmed
the growth in armed violence initiated by insur-
gents throughout the country, Bangkok decided to move
upwards of 12,000 troops to the tri-province area in
January 1972 iii a major effort to clear the Phetchabun
Mountains of some 500 well-armed, predominantly
hill-tribe guerrillas. The tri-province area was
chosen for this major thrust because of the geo-
graphical proximity of the Phetchabun Mountains to
the central plains--the heartland of the country.
The army reasoned that if it could urrest the in-
surgent movement in the tri-province area first, it
could deal with the more remote base camps farther
north at its leisure.
Phu Kwang was encouraging, if only because it
indicated a new Thai willingfte.ss to devote signifi-
cant resources to counterinsurgency. No artificial
termination date was set for the operation; it ran
for five months and cost the government well over
$30 million and 500 casualties, including 100 killed.
This seemingly energetic approach, however, was
matched neither by the Thai Army's staff planning
nor the troops' performance in the field.
Since t o e c a un Mountains
are a har -core Communist base area, the insurgents
had too much to lose by simply pulling up stakes. They
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had built a hospital, school, and several semi-
permanent base camps, and had come to rely upon the
food they were growing in their mountain plots. The
civilian population--an important resource for the
Communist:;--was evacuated by the insurgents to the
fringes of the operational area where they reasoned,
correctly, the army would not go. The insurgents did
not plan to fight to the last man, but did intend to
make the operation as costly to the Royal Thai Army
as possible. They were successful beyond their wild-
est expectations. In fact, the army totally failed
to achieve its principal objectives. Contrary to
government press releases, the insurgent headquarters
at Hin Long Kia was never captured; instead, the
army became preoccupied with holding a terrain fea-
ture of only limited value to the Communists. Not
one insurgent corpse was found during the entire
period of the operation. When Bangkok's patience
with this state of affairs was finally exhausted in
early June, the troops were abruptly pulled out; to-
day, the insurgents are doing business as usual in
the tri-province area.
How is it possible that in five months this
large force could not close with a relatively small
insurgent group that had chosen to stand its ground
and fight? Why did the army fail to seize the base
camps and secure the area? Essentially the opera-
tion failed because roved to be an enormous mis-
match--inexperienced it lowland Thai 25X6
troops from a road-bound, conventionally trained
army against well-conditioned Meos who operate at
their best in their own rugged terrain. The Thai
Army made matters worse by choosing the First Divi-
sion to be the cutting edge of the operation, even
though the division had never been used for an thin
more strenuous than garrison duty in Bangkok 25X1
the green Thai troops in ZoAi
many instances simply avoided contact with the in-
surgents and in at least one case refused to enter
an insurgent camp for fear of taking casualties.
Elements of the Thai Third Army, which is based
in the north and is more familiar with the terrain
and with insurgent tactics, were kept at arm's length
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by the First Division and contributed little
to i-hp
over-all o eration
It would be a mistake, however, to cite this
inept performance to dismiss Thai counterinsurgency
capa'ilities out of hand.
We now know that the Com-
munists had counte on a campaign lasting no more
than two months--a judgment that, based on past ex-
perience, seemed safe enough. By the end of May
their stocks of food and ammunition were nearly de-
pleted, and the insurgents were on the verge of aban-
doning the area for sanctuary in Laos or farther
north along the border. More important, a signifi-
cant portion of the civilian hill tribe population
was prepared to rally to government fc...ces if given
the chance. In this sense, Phu Kwang resembled a
microcosm of the government's abortive 1964-67 coun-
terinsurgency campaign in the northeast. The insur-
gents once again
roved vulnerable to sustained sure.
25X1
2bX1
Phu Kwang spotlighted other glaring inadequacies of
the Thai Army in a counterinsurgency role. The army
command has continued to consider its primary mission
to be defense of the country against overt foreign
aggression of a conventional nature. When it takes
the 'field against insurgents, it brings this mental-
ity along, together with tanks, armored personnel
carriers, and a whole array of.other inappropriate
equipment and tactics. Although the Thai have
proven they can handle the intricacies of long-range
artillery and aerial bombardment, Phu Kwang demon-
strated that the capability to sustain truly effec-
tive infantry operations against mobile guerrilla
forces in remote and rugged terrain is not yet in
sight.
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At the moment the only ground elements within
the armed forces that have received special counter-
insurgent training are one Special Forces battalion,
one joint army-police batLtlion, and a handful of
US-trained reconnaissance patrols and hunter-cap;;ure
teams. These units, in the past, have been stretched
toc, thin to have had much impact. Phu Kwang has put
the Thai Army on notice that tribal guerrillas can-
not be scared off by air strikes, artillery barrages,
and the mere presence of large numbers of troops
from the Thai lowlands. Indeed, senior officers are
now talking of the need to reorient the army's train-
ing and tactics and develop smaller but more effec-
tive ground operationf; employing better prepared
troops. Until the money is spent and such talk
translated into action, it would be premature to say
that Bangkok has, in fact, digested the lessons of
Phu Kwang.
A Broader Problem
The government's inability to deal effectively
with the insurgency problem goes much deeper than
the army's military failings. The other side of
the coin has been the absence of a meaningful coun-
terinsurgency program incorporating the civilian,
police, and military resources at the government's
disposal. It is a truism that bureaucrats jealously
guard their prerogatives, and ThailF...id is no excep-
tion. Bangkok's initial, halting efforts to come to
grips with the insurgency placed enormous strains on
various heretofore sacrosanct and autonomous: govern-
ment agencies in the sense that they were called
upon to put aside their own narrow interests to deal
with a threat that many still do not fully credit.
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In terms of training, the 9,100-man Border Pa-
trol Police is probably better prepared than the
army to assume a counterinsurgency role, but it is
so undermanned for its mission of border security
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that it has little time or opportunity to devote
to counterinsurgency. D;:ngkok appears to have rec-
ognized the shortsightedness of this policy, albeit
belatedly, and has earmarked the 1972 and 1973
graduating classes of the police academy for the
Border Patrol Police. The Provincial Police, tasked
with breaking up the Communist political infrastruc-
ture in the countryside, is currently so bereft of
talent that it plays virtually no significant coun-
terinsurgency role.
In short, the Thai have made little progress
in developing a workable institutional framework
for a balanced and coordinated counterinsurgency
program. This has left local and provincial author-
ities on their own to deal with the problem as they
see fit. In most cases, this has meant that nothing
has been done. Police are often venal and unpopular
with the people. District officials, without any
pressure or inspiration from upper echelons, become
passive and understandably reluctant to venture
into the more remote and less secure areas under
their jurisdiction. In the north, where the secu-
rity situation is particularly bad, rural school
teachers are transferring to the more secure towns,
thus greatly reducing the government's presence in
the countryside.
The encouraging exception to this rule has been
in the south, where important progress has been made
over the past 18 months in dealing with the insurgent
threat. Primarily because of the forceful personality
and the ability of General San Chitpatima, commander
of the Fifth Military Circle, local officials have
been able to orchestrate a counterinsurgency stra-
tegy that has the insurgents on the run for the
first time in years. The key ingredient has been a
command structure improvised by General San that
directs and coordinates civil, police, and military
elements through a system of personal relationships--
a uniquely Thai concept, very different from Western
organizational theory. It has worked so well be-
cause San brings several special advantages to the
job: he is from the south and speaks the local
dialect; his brother is the Region IX police com-
mander and the Region VIII commander is (along with
many other local government authorities) an old
friend.
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San kicked off his program in the south in 1971
by conducting sustained and effective combined army-
police operations against identified Communist base
camps. As the insurgents were flushed out and be-
gan to turn to local villages for food and protec-
tion, General San used similar joint teams to ferret
out the Communist infrastructure in the villages.
This was complemented by a fairly energetic civic
action program involving projects such as road re-
pairs and well digging. Pressure was placed on
local government officials to improve often ne-
glected government services such as medical Pasist-
ance and ?.and registration. The net result has been
a greatly eased security situation in an area that
traditionally suffered from gover,imental neglect
and had a history of popular disaffection.
It is at least theoretically possible to en-
visage similarly successful local programs on a
nationwide basis. The fact that no more has been
done cannot be laid to a lack of resources. Gen-
eral San's program was financed largely out of his
training budget. The raw materials available to
him are at the disposal of every provincial mili-
tary figure in the country. The key, and usually
lacking, ingredient is leadership. Men of San's
drive and talent are a rare commodity in an army
more political than professional. Add in the re-
quirements of political reliability and close con-
nections to the powers that be in Bangkok (the sine
qua non for a significant command) and the number
of men with the position, know-how, and determination
to get things done dwindles to a precious few. Until
this situation is remedied by a reordering of prior-
ities at the highest level in Bangkok, progress such
as that achieved in the south will be the exception
rather than the rule.
Outlook
Operation Phu Kwang may have shaken the Thai
Army out of its doldrums. Having licked the wounds
received last spring, it is now preparing to launch
a series of new operations in the north and north-
east which, if sustained, would mark the most in-
tensive military pressure exerted against the insur-
4ents since 1967. In the northeast the army intends
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to push into the CPT's political heartland--Nakhon
Phanom Province and areas coi+tiguous to the Phu Phan
Mountains ranging from Udorn Province in the north
to Ubon Province in the south. The army is also
planning another thrust into the tri-province area
in an attempt to avenge itself for the humiliation
suffered at the hands of the insurgent force during
Phu Kwang.
Farther north, the key word is containment,
rather than elimination. Emphasis will be put on
disrupting insurgent access to supplies in the low-
lands rather than on penetrating base areas. The
army also has designated "free-fire" zones in insur-
gent-controlled portions of Chiang Rai, Nan, and
Phitsanulok provinces in anticipation of more ac-
tive patrolling and sweeps in these areas. In con-
junction with the army's efforts, civilian officials
in the north have been directed to work toward better
population and resource control, including crop de-
struction in insurgent-controlled areas, arrest of
urban supporters, psychological warfare to induce
more defections, and organization of local militia
in contested districts. Such activities while con-
ceivably damaging to the insurgent apparatus, ob-
viously run the risk of alienating the tribal pop-
ulation that the government must eventually win
over. The government says it has ordered the civil-
ian populace to evacuate northern insurgent areas
temporarily, but there undoubtedly will be a signifi-
cant number of hill tribe people remaining under
Communist control who will have no choice in the
matter.
These are signs of Thai energy, if only in the
planning stage, but the proof of the pudding will
be in the eating. The army is now more aware of its
shortcomings--progress in itself--but shortcomings
nevertheless remain: planning is poor; tactical in-
telligence is inadequate or badly used; training
programs are still not orientated toward fighting
guerrillas; leadership is neither aggressive nor
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imaginative; and rivalry between commands remains
prevalent. Moreover, the determination of the Thai
political leadership in this situation remains ques-
tionable.
Regardless of just how much is substance and
how much shadow, in the government's new plans,
dramatic changes in the insurgency situation are
unlikely in the coming months. In a military sense,
the north will almost certainly continue to be the
most difficult problem for the government. First,
the rugged mountainous terrain is ideal for guer-
rilla warfare and not at all suited to a Thai Army
that has been trained to conduct conventional war-
fare in open country. Second, the Communist bases
there are contiguous to a porous and insecure Lao-
tian border, reached by lines of communication from
China and North Vietnam. Third, the Communists have
managed to co-opt a belligerent tribal fighting
force whose members know the terrain and harbor
long-standing grudges against the Thai Government.
Many of these tribesmen are distantly related to
the Meo fighting for Vang Pao in Laos.
On the other hand, the insurgents appear to be
increasingly bogged down by unrest among a tribal
population that also resents the imposition of a
Communist regimen, and they are making little if
any progress in exporting their movement to the
adjacent ethnic Thai population. The pragmatic use
of tribal warriors for years has been a prominent
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feature of both insurgent and counterinsurgent stra-
tegy in Southeast Asia. There is, however, little
in either Maoist ideology or practical experience
to suggest that tribal insurgency is a particularly
suitable spxingboard for nationwide Communist rev-
olution. Unless the Communists can somehow make
more significant inroads among the ethnic Thai--
the great majority of Thailand's people--it is
likely that the insurgency will evolve into some-
thing approximating the situation in Burma, where
the government has struggled indecisively for 25
years against border dissidents and insurgents of
predominantly non-Burman stock.
Over the longer term, both the government and
the Communises probably have far more at stake in
the northeast, where the insurgents are making prog-
ress in developing a very real political challenge
to Bangkok. Military efforts, such as the approach-
ing government campaign in the Phu?Phans, may tie
down or scatter the jungle insurgents temporarily,
,but Bangkok has still not addressed itself to estab-
lishing a credible and permanent security presence
in the northeast. Much of the region remains a
political and security vacuum, untouched by govern-
ment perso::.ael or services. According to a recent
study by a leading Thai social scientist, there are
still large numbers of village youth in the key
provinces of Ubon and Nakhon Phanom who are ripe for
Communist recruitment. Until Bangkok begins to
focus on the need for a comprehensive and well-
coordinated counterinsurgency program in the north-
east, the pace of the gradual deterioration in secu-
rity and government control will be determined pri-
marily by the Communists' own talents and short-
comings.
External factors and developments are not
likely to produce a dramatic enlargement of the
insurgent threat; nor, for that matter, can they
be counted on to provide a happy and inexpensive
solution to the problem. Many Thai officials are
enamored of the idea that without North Vietnam-
ese and Chinese support, insurgency would go away.
They point to the predominance of ethnic Chinese
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in the senior levels of the Thai Communist Party,
that party's slavish devotion to Maoist doctrine,
and the training of ethnic Thai in North Vietnam
and China as evidence, of the external nature of the
threat. Nevertheless, the fact is that Thai insur-
gency is basically a local phenomenon under the
leadership of cadre who are more Thai than Chinese.
Armed Communist adherents in the lowlands are al-
most exclusively ethnic Thai. With the probable
exception of the north, where Communist Chinese
weaponry appears to have become standard issue, the
Thai insurgency might well continue to exist at a
troublesome level without external support.
In the past, the Chinese and Vietnamese Commu-
nists have apparently been moved to supply only as
much assistance as the Thai insurgency, with its
limited needs, could readily absorb. The current
diplomatic dialogue between Peking and Bangkok and
the clear prospect of some measure of Sino-Thai rap-
prochement suggest that even this limited flow might
stabilize or decline in the coming months. Thailand
is a prime Asian target of a worldwide Chinese dip-
lomatic campaign based on the establishment and im-
provement of state-to-state relations arid a cor-
responding de-emphasis of Peking as a revolutionary
source. In Thailand's case this has already pro-
duced friendly exploratory discussions in Peking
between the Chinese Communist leadership and an -i-
issary of the Thai leadership and, since late August,
an unprecedented cessation of attacks against the
Thai Government by Chinese propaganda organs.
The precise impact of all this on Thai insur-
gency will remain unclear, at least during the early
stages of the dialogue now beginning between Bangkok
and the Chinese Communists. Certainly Peking cannot
be expected totally to disown its Thai comrades or
to shut off its contributions to the insurgent ef-
fort as long as it continues to see value in the
insurgency as a stick behind the Chinese diplomatic
carrot. Indeed, in Burma the Chinese have improved
their diplomatic relations with Rangoon in concert
with a steady but limited amount of support to the
Burmese Communist insurgency. At a minimum, an im-
provement in Sino-Thai relations will have a de-
leterious impact on Thai Communist morale.
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The flow of Vietnamese Communist ab.;istance,
currently less significant than that provided by
the Chinese, is similarly subject to possible polit-
ical developments, such as a cease-fire in Vietnam,
a broader Indochina settlement or a drawdown of
US military presence in Thailand. Any one, or
combination, of these possibilities could cause
Hanoi to lose interest in suppcrting the insurgency.
In sum, the future direction and eventual out-
come of the insurgency is going to rest in large
part with the regime in Bangkok and the insurgents
in Thailand. The Communists are making gains, but
their headway, for the most part, has been the re-
sult of government neglect--both of the insurgency
and the needs of the rural population. Its con-
tinued growth depends largely on being left alone.
In this regard, at least a measure of tentative en-
couragement can be gained from the government's
Operation Phu Kwang of last spring and its current
planning for future military campaigns. Despite
the deficiencies in implementation that are sure to
be revealed, the scheduled operations, no matter
how ineptly carried out, should have an inhibiting
effect on the insurgents' plans for expansion. Over
the course of the next year the best the insurgents
may be able to achieve is retention of their pres-
ent strength in the face of increased government
pressure.
Bangkok would probably be content with such a
stalemate in the northeast and certainly would be
in the north. This lack of ambition is a major
part of the long-term problem. If the current wave
of government activity falls into past patterns of
sporadic action and relaxation, the insurgent ap-
paratus will remain intact. As long as the Thai
leadership perceives the insurgency more as a
nuisance than a life-or-death threat, as long as
the leadership makes no deeper commitment to eradi-
cate the insurgent apparatus, the gradual nourish-
ment of the insurgent movement will, in all prob-
ability, continue.
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Such a change in Thai attitude may never come,
barring a series of drastic government setbacks--
which are not likely to occur in the near future.
The Thai Corranunistii, for their part, probably have
no intention of engaging in spectacular but coun-
terproductive acts of violence and sabotage that
might lull Bangkok out of its false sense of secu-
rity. This scenario of undramatic, barely visible
Communist growth and only sporadic government reac-
tion is disturbing. The situation is by no means
irreversible, but unless fundamental changes, par-
ticularly ',n the government's attitude and approach
to the insurgency, occur within a few years, the
day will come when an all-o'ouL government effort will
be necessary to handle a more menacing insurgent
challenge.
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