The Roles of Propaganda Organizations in Thailand (04)

The Roles of Propaganda Organizations in Thailand (04)

Thai irredentist agitation on their side of the border constituted an attempt to entice the T’ai-speaking inhabitants from the border regions of Laos and Cambodia. The Thais contended that it was really a philanthropic measure. Conditions in the frontier districts of indo-china were now uncertain, they said, and the further was so obscure that there had been a large influx of immigrants into Thailand.

Vilas Osathanond

The laws as amended and the orders as issued by the ministry of interior were designed to meet the needs of these persons and to avoid inflicting hardship upon. But behind this explanation was a Thai interest in evacuating the indigenous people of indo-china so that the latter would not help the French troops in time of war.

The flow of refugees from Indo-China into Thailand was also exaggeratedly interpreted by the Bangkok press and radio Thailand as an indication that the Cambodians and Laotians were of T’ai race and wanted to come under freer Thai rule.

The Thai premier, in a radio broadcast of October 20, asserted that the  Thai territorial claims in Indo-China were upheld not only by “the Thai people who are now in Thailand, but also by the Thais in Lao States as well as those in Cambodia who are eager to see and enjoy the freedom of the real Thais. The Thai peoples should never consider the people in the Lao States or in Cambodia as belonging to another race, because they also belong to the T’ai race. The French, in the very near future, would no longer be able to control Indo-China and when that moment arrived the Thai people in Indo-China would come to join Thailand.”