PAD organised a demonstration on September 19 to attack Cambodian villagers at the ancient Kao Prawiharn [Preah Vihear] temple inside Cambodia. Here a knife-weilding Thai chauvinist attempts to attack the villagers while riot cops look on. Photo: AP.

[See also ``Thailand: The September 19 coup, three years on''.]

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn

September 21, 2009 -- On the September 19, 2009, the third anniversary of the military coup that wrecked Thai democracy, two demonstrations took place. They sum up the two faces of Thailand.

One demonstration, by tens of thousands of ``Red Shirts'' in Bangkok, was organised in order to continue the demand full democracy. It was a peaceful and friendly demonstration. Yet the military-backed Democrat Party government, headed by Abhisit Vejjajiva, declared a state of emergency and lined up thousands of police and soldiers to deal with the demonstrators. Previously, in April, Abhisit had urged soldiers to fire on the Red Shirts. Two people were subsequently killed and 70 injured by government soldiers.

September 9, 2009 -- ESSF -- The communist movement was first established in Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939) mostly in the Chinese ethnic migrant communities, then proliferated in the seemingly disparate surrounding regions in the north, northeast and south of the country. Following a long, difficult period of transition, the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), once an urban party, retreated to the jungle and engaged in armed struggle. Its national expansion, during the 1970s, occurred while the kingdom was transformed into a US base for military intervention in the Vietnam War. The party eventually saw its decline during the Sino-Indochinese conflict of 1978–9 and disappeared from sight in the mid-1980s.