Anything under a dictator’s sun

20 January 2003

To encourage the police to rid Thailand of drugs within three months, the prime minister quoted the 1950s police chief, Phao Siriyanon: “there is nothing under the sun that the Thai police cannot do”.

The achievements for which Phao and his police force have gone down in history are assassinating MPs and smuggling drugs.

Phao was an army officer who married the daughter of a powerful general, Phin Chunhavan. He took part in the November 1947 coup which ended one of the repeated attempts to found democracy in Thailand. He was made deputy director of the police but soon had higher ambitions. He demanded the Interior Minister promote him to the director job. The minister refused. Phao challenged him to a duel.

He got the job anyway in 1951. By that time the CIA had identified Phao as their contact for carrying out covert operations both in Thailand and neighbouring countries. They gave Phao’s police lots of hardware—guns, speedboats, planes, tanks, helicopters—and lots of training. The police became an alternative army and has never lost that militarised character.

Phao used these resources not only for the CIA’s secret operations, but for terrorising political opponents. He developed a circle of asawin waen phet, knights of the diamond ring, for these special operations.

In March 1949, the MPs for Roi-et, Mahasarakham, Ubon and one associate, all of whom had previously served as cabinet minister, were arrested on hazy charges of plotting a rebellion. While being transported from one jail to another under police escort, they were shot dead. Phao explained that the police detail had been attacked by a gang of robbers. Nobody believed him. Many years later, after Phao’s fall, the real culprits were tried. A witness described how Phao had held a party after the event and distributed 30,000 baht each to around 30 police.

In December 1952, Tiang Sirikhan disappeared. He was MP for Sakon Nakhon and one of the bravest opponents of military dictatorship. Phao announced Tiang had been spotted fleeing to Burma. Doctored photo were produced showing him with Ho Chi Minh. Before long, four bodies were found in a charcoal pit in Kanchanaburi. They had been strangled and burnt, but were easily identifiable as Tiang and three associates.

Ari Liwara, the most successful newspaper publisher of the time, was pressured to sell his businesses to Phao. He refused. In March 1953 he was shot dead on his honeymoon in Hua Hin.

Phon Malithong, the MP for Samut Sakhon, exposed Phao’s activities in parliament on several occasions. In March 1954, Phon and a police informer were strangled and dumped in the Chaophraya river tied to concrete posts. Phon’s car was dismantled and thrown in the river too.

There were many other deaths including army officers, Thai-Muslim leaders, and even possibly a Laotian minister. When an American ambassador was killed in a truck crash in Hua Hin, the reaction was revealing. Even Phao’s CIA patrons jumped to the conclusion that it might be Phao’s handiwork, until the evidence showed otherwise.

Phao also became enormously rich. Partly this was by taking control of government monopolies, and blackmailing companies to give him shareholdings and put him on the board. But a substantial contribution came from the opium trade.

At the time opium was still sold legally in Thailand under a government monopoly. But the big profits were in export. The Golden Triangle was just developing into the world’s major area of production. Phao’s police was the perfect organisation to move the goods from the Triangle into the world market. Police escorts met the convoys at the Burmese border and took them to Chiang Mai or Lampang. From there the goods travelled to Bangkok by train or plane. The maritime police then guarded their transfer to freighters in the gulf.

Surachart Bamrungsuk concluded that Phao’s police by 1955 was “the largest opium-trafficking syndicate in Thailand involved in every phase of the narcotics trade”.

This did not always go smoothly. The army was equally well equipped to provide this escort service, and the two tended to compete. On one occasion in 1950, the army was escorting a convoy to Lampang when the police set an ambush and demanded the goods. The two sides dug in for a firefight and faced off for two days. Phao and the army chief had to turn up in person to negotiate an armistice. A director of the metropolitan police, who also tried to interfere with Phao’s shipments, was shot dead “while resisting arrest”.

Phao’s police conducted pantomime seizures of drugs to give an image of drug suppression. Sometimes these dramas went over the top. In 1955, the police made a record capture of 20 tons of opium, and Phao himself collected a massive reward on behalf of an informer. When asked to display the haul, Phao said it had been thrown in the sea. The public disbelief almost undid him. On another occasion, a seized cache of high-grade opium turned out to be low-grade mud.

In 1957, Phao lost power and fled to Switzerland. A couple of his “knights” went with him. A newspaperman went to visit. Phao was living in high style, even with an English chauffeur. In interview, he confessed to most of the political killings. He explained that he had “wanted to be a big man”, and that he had been acting on orders of his boss (Phibun). The newspaperman subtitled his book of these confessions, “the iron man of Asia”. A New York Times writer preferred “a superlative crook”. A senior Thai diplomat of the time called him “the worst man in the whole history of modern Thailand”.

Under a dictatorship, and with the right mentality, there is indeed “nothing under the sun that the Thai police cannot do”. Drugs are bad. So too are the abuse of power and the sacrifice of human rights.