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The first fatality in Thailand’s internal war occurred Thursday in the northeast province of Udorn. Incited by the We Love Udorn Group – a well-organized local right-wing pro-Thaksin support organization – hundreds of opponents to the People’s Alliance for Democracy quickly diverted two police officers who were not guarding the entrance to the PAD’s staging area in Udorn.

The PAD was there to broadcast its message to the people of Udorn, but apparently the people of Udorn were not ready to listen. Armed with knives, sticks, hatchets and clubs, the large group, a human torrent, quickly filed past the policemen and entered the PAD area. They quickly dealt with the unarmed guards, striking them to the ground. The group moved in further, destroying the PAD’s stage, tearing up and burning its supplies and posters, and spitting on PAD T-shirts before trampling them underfoot and setting them afire.

Recorded on video – and already being assembled for criminal litigation against those responsible – the violence was shocking in the extreme. One PAD guard was killed and several dozen others injured.

Compounding the horrendous nature of the violence, there was a matching violent session in the lower northeast province of Buriram where Newin Chidchob, a Thai Rak Thai politician banned from politics for five years, is a powerful political warlord. With another PAD group assembled near the city’s main railway station, a mob of dozens of pro-Thaksin and pro-government forces moved in, smashing, shouting, beating and cursing the PAD supporters.

Both the PAD and anti-PAD supporters were carrying national flags and swearing national allegiance, but only one side was peaceful – the PAD. This is not the first incident, nor sadly will it be the last, where right-wing forces have reacted violently against those with whom they have differences.

What did Thailand’s current nominee government think of the violence? Interior Minister Chalerm Ubumrung shrugged it off, including the death, saying that if the PAD would keep its protests in Bangkok, “where we can’t stop the protests,” then things would settle down. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said the same thing, apparently indifferent to the casualties and lack of law enforcement to protect the peace.

In a duplication of Samak’s own role in past incitement of right-wing violence against pro-democracy demonstrations in October 1976, using Armored Car Radio as a platform to cause hatred and violent reactions, this time Udorn used its own We Love Udorn Group radio, FM 97.5 MHz, and FM 94.00 MHz. A program hosted by the group’s president Khun Khwanchai Sarakham, who also owns the stations, incited local listeners by citing the PAD and its followers as despicable persons who must be kept out of Udorn.

For his part, after the fatality and injuries of the day before, Khun Khwanchai on Friday admitted to inciting local opposition and rough methods against the PAD. He also promised to continue the violent methods.

“We will throw them out,” he said, “whether they come in tens, in hundreds, in thousands or tens of thousands. Udorn belongs to us.”

When a television anchor asked him during the early morning interview if he meant he was going to continue using violent means, he said “Yes.” He added, “Udorn belongs to us.”

Udorn, along with the other 19 northeast provinces where some 22 million people live and work, also belonged to the Thai Rak Thai and now the People’s Power Party of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. The entire region was part of a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in December 2007, and it is generally very difficult for opposition parties to find freedom to speak, much less set up offices and operate freely without fear of local violence. The degree of intimidation is implicit in the region, and bespeaks of a major inhibition in promoting real democracy in the region.

Khwanchai’s We Love Udorn Group Web site, http://www.weloveudon.net/, was created on March 18, with a Bangkok-based IP address. The pro-Thaksin Web site is well-organized, containing an assortment of multimedia, including video and audio clips and recordings of radio broadcasts. The degree of content and organization reflects solid funding, and Khwanchai’s ties with Thai Rak Thai are well known.

What incited Khwanchai and others against the PAD, besides the fact that it is anti-government and pro-democracy? In the Friday interview Khwanchai said he was fed up with PAD swearing at the government and its efforts to spread its message into other provinces. Seemingly unafraid of any criminal litigation coming his way, Khwanchai insisted that the We Love Udorn Group would continue and continue using violence until the PAD stopped trying to come into Udorn.

When asked whether Udorn belonged to him and his group, and whether or not Thai people have a right to speak in public against the government, Khwanchai admitted it only slightly. Instead, he concentrated his reply on the idea that Udorn belonged to the people of Udorn and he would fight to keep it that way, no matter what it took. He insisted that "other people should stay out of here!"

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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post -- www.thekoratpost.com -- he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)