Word: thammasat
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...three-year-old "democratic experiment." Bangkok has quickly recovered its sybaritic style. The city's annual autumn festivals, its race track and fleshpots are jammed with tourists. Shares on the local stock market have risen 70% in the past three weeks. The bullet-and-grenade-pocked classrooms of Thammasat University, site of the bloody student rioting that preceded the coup (TIME, Oct. 18), have become something of a tourist attraction. But the total of 41 dead in the riots is not forgotten: cremations and lotus ceremonies are still being carried out in Buddhist temples throughout Bangkok, and four unclaimed...
...Thanom, after three years of exile in the U.S. and Singapore, slipped back to Bangkok with the saffron robes and shaven skull of a Buddhist monk. His mission, he said, was to do penance at the deathbed of his 91-year-old father. Leftist students at Bangkok's Thammasat University refused to believe it. They demanded that he again be expelled and gave Prime Minister Seni Pramoj a deadline of Oct. 2 to act. The frail, silver-haired Seni, newly appointed to head yet another coalition, vacillated...
...Though Thammasat University had been closed, 4,000 students broke down the gates and occupied it. Some staged antigovernment skits; others secretly brought in guns. The students were supported by 43 Bangkok labor unions, which gave the government their own three-day deadline for Thanom's ouster. After that, they threatened, there would be a general strike...
...youth who resembled Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, 24, the leftists staged a mock hanging. Gruesome pictures of the charade were splashed all over Bangkok's daily papers that night. By dawn, an enraged mob of 10,000 rightists armed with rifles, swords and clubs began attacking Thammasat. They were met by M-16 gunfire and grenades. Then the troops moved...
Radio Omens. From Thammasat, the mob moved on to Government House, where a tearful Seni Pramoj, who may well have known about the military's plans, offered his capitulation. "I did my best," Seni told the crowd. "I tried to keep law-and-order in this kingdom, but if you wish, I will go." The military, after taking power, promptly installed Supreme Court Justice Tanin Kraivixien, 49, as the new Prime Minister...