Thailand to Mark 40th Anniversary of Bloody 1976 Massacre

[hhfarang]

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 1976 file photo blood streaming down his face, a leftist student, center, wounded and captured by police is helped to an ambulance at the Thammasat University campus in Bangkok, Thailand.

"In Bangkok’s predawn light Thursday, activists and former students will give alms to Buddhist monks, an act of remembrance for the dozens of students killed and injured in a bloody massacre by right-wing thugs and authorities on October 6, 1976.

The events surrounding the 40th anniversary of the tragedy, seen by many as the darkest day in modern Thai political history, includes conferences, art works, plays and cultural events and come amid heightened political sensitivities in Thailand under a ruling military government since May 2014.

Overall the military government is allowing most events to proceed, although under careful watch. But authorities at one of Bangkok’s international airports blocked the arrival Wednesday of Hong Kong democracy advocate Joshua Wong.
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1976 massacre

In 1976, the violence was seen as a backlash by right-wing groups and ultra-royalists after student protests of October 1973 that had led to the overthrow of former military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn, who fled into exile. But students rallied again in 1976 to protest of Thanom’s return to the country. ..."

http://www.voanews.com/a/thailand-to-ma ... 37620.html

[buksida]

THAMMASAT MASSACRE RELIVED IN 40 YEARS OF ARTS & CULTURE
A student play set off the 1976 massacre at Thammasat University 40 years ago today after a photograph of it whipped up a blood frenzy by the media and military.

Like many culturally traumatic moments, the slaughter in which the arts played an unwitting, enabling role has since inspired works attempting to understand, interpret or simply keep its memory alive.

After the 1973 uprising ended a decade of military dictatorship, university students’ influence in politics surged with a sharp turn to the left. Only three years later, they were put in check, socially sanctioned and stigmatized as Communists by the right-wing, ultranationalist status quo.

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/arts ... s-culture/