[This issue of Peking Review is from massline.org. Massline.org has kindly given us permission to to place these documents on the MIA. We made only some formatting changes to make them congruent with our style sheets.]
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 11, #43, Oct. 25, 1968, p. 29.]
Led by the Communist Party of Thailand, the Thai people’s armed forces scored new successes in the latter part of September and early October.
In north Thailand’s Chieng Rai Province, the people’s forces launched several assaults against the enemy while repulsing his offensives. On September 17, they attacked the Thanom clique’s military-police posts in Toeng District, killing and wounding many enemies. The people’s forces broke through enemy encirclement many times. At the end of September, they attacked enemy positions in the Phan District. On three occasions between September 30 and October 6, they ambushed and attacked the enemy in Chieng Khan District, handing him a heavy blow.
The Thanom clique admitted that, from September 30 to October 5, the people’s forces in Udorn Thani Province in northeast Thailand made three attacks on military-police positions in the Muang Udorn Thani (a district under direct provincial administration) and Nong Bua Lampu Districts. In the same period, they also attacked military-police positions in Nakorn Phanom and Sakol Nakorn Provinces.
In south Thailand, the Thanom clique sent large numbers of troops and police and, in collaboration with the Rahman clique of “Malaysia,” frantically suppressed the people’s forces and the people in the border areas. However, they were hit hard by the people’s forces. For instance, on September 29, the police suffered losses in a fierce attack by the people’s forces.
The people in the central province of Phitsanulok, who have long suffered the Thanom clique’s cruel oppression and exploitation, have risen up in revolutionary armed struggle. Showing great power from the start, their armed forces punished a reactionary village head in Nakorn Chi District on September 30 and dealt the reactionary police who came to suppress them telling blows.
The development of the people’s armed struggle has thrown U.S. imperialism and its lackey, the Thanom clique, into a panic. In September, U.S. ambassador to Thailand Unger surveyed the defeats of the U.S. and Thai reactionaries in Loei Province in the northeast and made further deployments aimed at suppression. On October 4, together with the head of the U.S. military advisory group and Thawee Chullasap, chief of the general staff of Thailand’s reactionary forces, Unger went to Surat Thani Province in the south where they engaged in various activities.
However, no amount of frantic struggles by U.S. imperialism and its Thanom clique stooge can stem the surging side of the Thai people’s patriotic armed struggle.
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