US's fickle friendship with Pridi

The US's treatment of Thailand's leader of the resistance against Japanese occupation in WWII calls into question its respect for history, let alone friendship

Sulak Sivaraksa

09 April 2000

Pridi Banomyong's centenary will be on 11 May 2000. On 30 October 1999 Unesco, reflecting the unanimous decision of its General Assembly, announced in Paris that Mr Pridi is one of the great personalities of the century.

Previously, some factions in the Thai reactionary group had tried their best to remove his name from Unesco's evaluation process, arguing that Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother should be the only Thai honoured by the organisation this year. Fortunately, Mr Wichien Watanakun, former Thai ambassador to France, explained to UNESCO's executive board on 11 October as follows:Pridi Banomyong was an able and far-sighted educator. In Bangkok in 1934 he founded the University of Moral and Political Sciences as an Open University, providing higher education to the large part of the population and consequently became its first rector. The university later changed its name to Thammasat University and has been a leading institution in helping to promote and protect democracy, social justice, and human rights in Thailand. The university has become one of the two most prestigious universities in the country.

As a humanist, Pridi Banomyong advocated peace and non-violence. At the same time, he did not succumb to external power. He led the national resistance and rallied the nation to oppose invasion and occupation during World War II. That is why he is respected internationally and was the first Thai to be honoured by the Smithsonian Institution. (The Institution named a species of bird founded in Thailand in 1945 after him as a symbol of peace.)The combination of Pridi's relentless efforts to strive for social justice and to establish a meaningful democracy in Thailand was reflected in the constitution of which he was the architect. Universal suffrage to both men and women was thereby guaranteed. Human rights were firmly recognised and upheld.

Mr Pridi Banomyong was also a man whose ideals were well taken and appreciated throughout the region. He supported self-determination and independence for all peoples. He even contemplated creating a Southeast Asian League. But a military coup forced Pridi into exile in 1947. His vision of a league of Southeast nations lives on (in the form of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

An important fact that Mr Wichien did not mention, however, was that Mr Pridi also served as Regent to King Rama VIII when the latter was a student in Switzerland. In this capacity he led the Free Thai Movement against the Japanese occupation, closely collaborating with the Allies.

After the war, he was invited to meet the Allied heads of state and was decorated with the medal of friendship by US President Harry Truman; the American president also agreed with Pridi to raise the status of the Thai and American legations to embassies. Mr Edwin Stanton was the first US ambassador to Bangkok; before that, there had only been US ministers. Mrs Josephine Stanton saw an empty plot of land on Wireless Road belonging to the Thai Foreign Ministry, and asked Mr Pridi to have it rented to the US government in order to establish the ambassador's residence which still stands now.

Mr Pridi was the closest friend of the United States during the war. On the other hand, Field Marshal Pibulsongkram, who declared war on the Allies, was seen as a war criminal.

The US government insisted that the Field Marshal should be tried for war crimes in Tokyo, but the Pridi government refused to extradite Pibulsongkram. The Field Marshal was subsequently tried in Bangkok and was acquitted. Yet when Pibul led the 1947 coup against Pridi and destroyed all democratic elements within the Kingdom, the US government welcomed him.

Pibul thus started a new era of American domination in this country. Daniel Fineman has clearly and superbly explained this episode in his book A Special Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand (University of Hawaii Press, 1997). During his exile in China in May 1949 ( before Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China), Mr Pridi wrote:We thought of going to Mexico with a stop by San Francisco. While we were presenting our passports to the Chinese official in charge of immigration, a young American called Norman Hannah, vice-consul of Shanghai, arrived in a rush, wrenched my passport from the hands of the Chinese official, and cancelled the American visa given me by the American Embassy in London.

I then realised that a young American vice-consul had full authority over a Chinese official, and even over the American ambassador (later I learned that this vice-consul was a CIA agent). Besides that, I understood that the medal and citations bestowed on me by the American government were of no value, but in fact I was considered as a criminal on the accusation of their enemies during the war (Pibul), in refusing me a transit stay of a few hours on American territory. I am afraid what I have just related so far is alien to most members of the US Embassy. When I met some of them I tried to explain that the Thai governments since 1947 until 1982, the year Mr Pridi died, were all hostile to him on the pretext that he was responsible for the mysterious death of Rama VIII.

However, according to a recent book, His Majesty King Rama IX explicitly stated that Mr Pridi was entirely innocent on the matter. The Thai governments since General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh until the present administration have gone out of their ways and decided to celebrate Mr Pridi's centenary in a grand manner, nationally and internationally.

Yet the American government and the US Embassy here seem to be ignorant on a scale that defies comment of their past karma vis-a-vis Mr Pridi. From March 15 to April 4, the Crescent Moon Theatre performed the play 1932 Revolutionist, which is about the life and times of Mr Pridi, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. It was a precious opportunity for the Thais in the US to learn more about the father of Thai democracy and the liberation of the country.

Yet the American public, by and large, is not even aware of the impending performance. At least when this play was performed in Stockholm last summer, it was well reported in the Swedish mass media.

Since the US government is no longer a member of UNESCO, I wonder whether the American establishment will really care about the guilt complex and the act of atonement.

I wonder whether they care for friendship at all, or only for political and or economic supremacy in the short run. In May, international luminaries such as Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta and Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid will preside over the national celebration of the Pridi centenary.

Perhaps the American government would like to send a representative?u Sulak Sivaraksa is a noted social critic. He now heads the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute in Bangkok. Tel: (662) 438-0353 Ext 3, Fax: (662) 860-1278. E-mail: spd@bkk.a-net.net.th

Bangkok Post / Perspective