The Rural Revolution

Whatever the outcome of Viet Nam's vicious war, the next target of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia will doubtless be Thailand. Already the nation's six northeastern provinces, whose population of 10 million is double that of Cambodia, are being probed by Communist terror and subversion. More than a dozen village officials have been assassinated; Communist arms, men and propaganda filter across the Mekong River from Red-infected Laos in ever-increasing volume. The Thai Communist Party has vowed to "drive the U.S. imperialists out and overthrow the traitorous, fascist and dictatorial Bangkok government." Fortunately, the Bangkok government, backed by U.S. aid, has for the past three years been preparing the battleground to its own advantage.

The Three Ms. Last week Thailand's rural revolution was in full swing. Even as the first monsoons turned the dusty red roads of the northeast into glutinous scars, hundreds of Mobile Development Unit personnel were crisscrossing the area in Jeeps, junks and oxcarts, spreading Western technology and anti-Communist temerity like spring rice. The propaganda was even fun. Through the northeast's villages rumbled government-sponsored Mobile Information Teams, carrying everything but a merry-go-round. While some teammates distributed schoolbooks, pencils and pictures of King Bhumibol, others tended a queue of sick peasants. Over all blared the tape-recorded music of Thailand's bawdy mohlam singers, singing of love in the classroom and warning villagers to "Diversify Your Crops!" or "Concentrate on the Three Ms: Muu, Maay and Mapraw [pigs, silkworms and coconuts]!"

After the Mobile Information Teams come engineers, surveyors, drillers and dam builders--trained largely by the U.S. and equipped with $2,500,000 worth of American machinery. Since 1950 the U.S. has granted Thailand more than $290 million in nonmilitary aid. Two years ago, only one-third of the U.S. aid was going to the northeast; today the northeast is getting about two-thirds of the total.

Learning from TV. Much of that money went into a sound, economic infrastructure for the northeast. The newly completed 380-mile "Friendship Highway," with its 500 miles of feeder roads, cuts the travel time between Bangkok and the Laotian border from weeks (depending on the weather) to a mere eight hours, at the same time opening vast new markets for the northeast's cash crops of jute, tobacco and maize. Last week more than 300 vehicles an hour were moving along the highway. And if Communist aggression ever comes to Thailand on the scale of Viet Nam, the highway and its offshoots can carry troops and supplies into combat much more readily than the mud trails of the past.

Ironically, the highway has bred an aggression no one expected. With the advent of modern transportation, the northeast's endemic bandit population switched from cattle rustling to highway robbery. The region's 30 holdup gangs now roar down the Friendship Highway in hot rods, pulling abreast of buses and firing shots across their bows, then relieving their passengers of cash and jewelry. Many of the bandits, according to Thai police, learned their holdup techniques by watching U.S. westerns on TV sets supplied to most villages for propaganda purposes.

Bamboo & Buffalo Blood. Off the highway stand U.S.-built jet strips from which American fighter-bombers have been flying to hit Laotian and North Vietnamese Communist targets. Udon and Ubon, Korat and Takli all rumble daily to the pulse of supersonic assault. At Korat enough equipment to supply an entire infantry brigade has been stored against the day when that many U.S. troops might arrive on the scene. At the same time, Thailand has set up "Special Operations Centers" from which elite Thai army units, modeled on the U.S. Special Forces, patrol the Mekong borders, gather intelligence, and help the tribesmen of the region.

Although hunger is rare in the northeast (80% of the region's 10 million population own their own land), malnutrition is common due to primitive diets. In language and customs the northeasterners are more akin to the Lao than to the other 20 million Thais. They are fond of hard liquor, consuming vast quantities of a home-brewed rice whisky called lao khao, which burns with a fine blue flame when ignited. Their staple food is rice and pla raa--raw fish that has been allowed to rot for as long as six months. They also eat tarantulas drenched with fermented fish juice, bamboo shoots marinated in buffalo blood, ant eggs, fried bee larvae and tree lizards in chili sauce. These dishes are tasty, but they also contain liver flukes, hookworms and other parasites; as a result, fully 90% of all northeasterners suffer from one or an other debilitating disease. Government teams dose whole villages with worming medicines, distribute pamphlets saying, "Please eat hot food," but it will be generations before the northeasterners change their diets completely.

Steps Toward Progress. Though the northeast gets less rain than Thailand's lush central plain--the nation's rice bowl, much coveted by Red China--it is bordered by the Mekong and riven by countless streams. The scope for new dams, canals, wells and reservoirs is enormous, and government teams have already built scores of minor waterworks. Still, only 4,000 of the 14,000 villages have enough drinking and irrigation water at hand. Many have to cart water in by ox team from miles away. And the Communists do not hesitate to make political capital from technical progress: a dam planned for the Nampong region will cause resettlement of 20,000 people, and the clandestine Red radio is already whipping up sentiment against the government.

Nonetheless, the $70 million investment in the northeast has bought the government of Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn time in which to take further steps toward progress. The belief that the government really means to help them is spreading among the northeasterners. Villagers in provinces where rural development work has not begun are asking local officials when their turn will come. Indeed, when the Interior Minister, General Prapas Charussatira, visited the town of Nongkhai to initiate an aid program, he was welcomed as a bearer of good omens. On the day of his arrival, Mekong fishermen netted a 5-ft., 200-lb. catfish --a rare catch and the first of the year. It was served--cooked--at a welcoming banquet.

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