Hello and thank you for downloading the World Service History Program Witness.

And today we're taking you back to October 1976 when Thai security forces open fire on student

demonstrators at a university in Bangkok.

It marked the beginning of a new era of military rule in Thailand.

In 2011, Lucy Williamson spoke to Tong Jai Wenichakool, one of the student organises at the demonstration.

It's early morning on the 6th of October 1976.

Communism is spreading towards Thailand's eastern border.

And on the football pitch of Bangkok's Tamosat University,

left-wing students are staging a demonstration against the army's growing power.

I was sometime around midnight to about 2 o'clock.

We start getting surrounded by both the right-wing paramilitary groups

and the police by 2 o'clock we are surrounded and we can't get out.

Tong Chai Winnichakul was one of the protest leaders, worried that Thailand's new civilian government was being threatened by a return to military rule.

The rear shooting more frequent started around 4 o'clock,

and then 5.30 the bomb, two of them fell in the middle of the crowd. Some people died instantly. And after that is a signal and then the non-stop shooting.

And what was the reaction of the crowd in the football field after this had happened?

Frighten.

By then they know.

They know what's going on.

I'm in charge of the microphone.

I and a few other people we are in charge of the microphone we talk to the crowd.

What were you saying?

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