Thailand and the Viet Minh League (03)

Thailand and the Viet Minh League (03)

Besides, the Viet Minh established a Vietnam Government Delegation for South-East Asia with Tran Van Giau as its President. Furthermore, the Viet Minh agents set up the Vietnamese Relief Association on

Nares Road

, Siphraya, and also a headquarters for the purchase of arms.

At that time Bangkok became the co-ordination center for the arms trade, although Manila was the central supply point, not only or Indo-China but for other disturbed areas of South-east Asia.

Seaplanes and fast motor-boats could easily land cargoes on sections of the Thai coast that were either unguarded or not controlled by the Thai Government. From Thailand the arms into the Indo-Chinese Kingdom of Laos and Cambodia, to supply both the forces of the Viett Minh and the Cambodian and Laotians nationalists.

The traffic included automatic weapons, rifles, pistols and grenades. Payment for the bulk of it was made in Indo-Chinese piastres  at the rate of 15 million to 25 million a month. This amounted to 500,000 USD. Most of the equipment was of American manufacture, brought in on American aircraft, by American pilots.

The Viet Minh openly operated a purchasing office for U.S equipment and medical supplies in Bangkok within one block of the local U.S. information Service. Apart from an arms purchasing office, Thailand also allowed the Viet Minh to open the Vietnam News Service in Bangkok. The weekly Vietnam News Bulletin was published there with Le Hi as the editor.

The Viet Minh News Service, apart from speaking for the government of Ho Chi Min’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was the center of Vietnamese Communist activities in Thailand. The man who was responsible for these Communist activities was  Tran Van Giau: a publicly-confessed Communist.

Generally speaking, Thai civilian leaders of the period were willing to afford sanctuary and offer assistance to the various Indo-Chinese resistance groups even though it was felt that some of them adhered to the doctrine of Communism.

Such willingness to offer support was due, on the one hand, to traditional Thai antagonism towards France, which was regarded as a dangerous and threatening power, especially since its controlled indo-China, and on the other hand, to the Thai strategic need for countervailing power against France. As a consequence of their support for the resistance groups Thai strategic interests were furthered in challenging the right to rule of the French in Indo-China.

With the return to power of  Phibunsonggram, Thai foreign policy towards Indo-China changed. An anti-French policy was discarded and replaced by one of reconciliation.