Strict curfew in Bangkok

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 5

Strict curfew in Bangkok

NZPA-Reuter

Bangkok

Policemen have been stopping and searching vehicles moving through Bangkok at night as a strict curfew is enforced on Bangkok on the third anniversary of the 1973 uprising in which 71 persons died.

Hundreds of students who escaped from the fighting with the police at Bangkok's Thammasat University last week are lying low or have gone underground, and strict security has been enforced to guard against the possibility of sabotage. In a further security move just before midnight, on Wednesday, Radio Thailand announced that schools would be closed throughout the country for two weeks.

The move came after reports in the capital that Leftist students intended kidnapping some schoolchildren to hold as hostages. Radio ’’’hailand rejected the reports, but this did not prevent anxious parents from rushing to schools throughout the city to collect their children.

This reflected heightened tension in the capital since the sudden announcement on Wednesday that a 10 p.m. to 4.30 am. curfew was being imposed because of the present “unreliable situation” in the country. There is likely to be a sharply critical reaction from Leftist elements to the announcement by the Prime Minister-designate (D.- Thanin Kraivichien) of a new programme of “guided democracy” for the country. Dr Thanin, who expects to form a government within two weeks, made a nationwide radio and television address laying down a 16-

year step-by-step programme to restore the nation to democratic rule.

The programme would mean no elections for four years.

Dr Thanin reflected the tough new line towards Vietnam already shown by the military leadership when he said: “It is time that we should stop bowing our head to the country which is unfriendly us. It is time that we should stop doing things in accordance with ways and means planned and dictated by the Communists.” Critics of the ousted civilian government of the former Prime Minister, Mr Seni Pramoj, have said that his administration appeared to lean over backwards to please Hanoi, which has been strongly critical of the military take-over in Thailand. Dr Thanin said it was time for Communist countries to have second thoughts about interfering in the internal affairs of Free World countries “especially in supporting internal insurgency and undermining the national security, of Thailand in particular . ..." The new military leaders have said they seized power last week because of what they called a Communist plot by Leftist students and others to undermine the monarchy and take over the country.