Word: pibul
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...presidential press conferences) on his trip to the U.S. and Europe last year. As a result of his temporary lifting of press controls, accounts of the corruption that normally flourishes in Asian regimes−opium trading, influence peddling−have been brought into the light of day by Pibul's enemies. The stories have tended to discredit, by association, the Pibulsonggram regime's longtime ally, the U.S. An American businessman reported his upcountry customers asking: "If America is giving so much money to Thailand, why don't they make the government improve itself?" A resentful feeling that...
...placed the blame for the situation on the "slowness and incompetence of government services." The commission criticized the government's failure to realize that Thailand no longer was in a position to dictate terms to the buyers. It deplored the widespread practice of bribing government agents, and recommended that Pibul's government give up its monopoly on the job as middleman for rice-growers...
...government's mis-management of the rice situation is just one--though probably the most important--of many soft spots open to communist attack. Another is how taxes collected in the provinces seem to be spent almost exclusively on Bangkok. Pibul, however, has been able to retain power in a country where, according to French sources, 500 people out of a total population of 19 million receive 15 per cent of the national income. With no colonial exploitation, there has still been enough rice left over to provide the rest of the population with a living standard above that...
This situation could change in the event of an economic crisis. The only link between Pibul's Bangkok and the peasantry is a bureaucracy of civil servants for whom Pridi was a trusted leader and a defender of their interests against Pibul's military clique. Pridi is now in Red China, preparing, many believe, for a return. In a crisis, the bureaucracy would probably be the first to support his return, and they, if anyone, would be the ones to direct any possible awakening of the peasants from their political apathy...
...communists realize this and have been quick to capitalize on any discontent, especially in the bureaucracy. Pibul realizes the danger and has begun to prevent or prepare for such an eventuality. His failure would probably mean the loss of the West's most certainally in the Far East to the communist firmament...