Students and survivors mark 40th anniversary of massacre at Bangkok’s Thammasat University but sensitivities remain under Thai junta
Security forces, aided by royalist mobs, crushed student protest with an attack that saw possibly scores of students shot, battered or stabbed to death – with others hung from trees inside the campus
Under leaden monsoon skies, Seri Sirinupong watches teams of youngsters warm up on Thammasat University’s football pitch, the scene of a brutal student massacre 40 years ago by Thai security forces and ultra-monarchist militias.
Like many survivors, Seri will never forget the horrors of October 6, 1976 – one of the darkest episodes in Thailand’s turbulent modern history.
“There was blood all over the football field,” the 77-year-old recalls of the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. “I don’t know how I survived, maybe it was divine intervention.”
In Thailand’s long history of political violence and coups, the Thammasat University massacre stands out for its brutality.
It’s a loop. One moment of democracy, then dictatorship, then democracy and then dictatorship
Pro-democracy students had massed in revulsion at the return to Thailand of an ousted ex-dictator after a three-year exile. But Thai security forces, aided by royalist mobs, ended the protest with an attack that saw possibly scores of students shot, battered or stabbed to death – with others hung from trees inside the campus.