ABSTRACT
The use of violence toward villagers by state forces in remote rural areas was not uncommon during Thailand’s counterinsurgency campaigns. The name of the army-dominated Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) often surfaced in connection with cases of mass violence. Even after the October 1973 uprising ended the military government led by Field Marshal Thanom Kittikhachon and his brother-in-law, Field Marshal Prapas Jarusathian, some of the abuses of state power worsened. The case of Ban Na Sai village in Nongkhai province in the northeast in January 1974 showed how state forces and the ISOC’s paramilitary forces were involved in large-scale violations of human rights against people suspected of being or of supporting communists. Slow democratization from the early 1980s saw these rightist groups become dissipated or inactive. Members of the public rarely heard about ISOC’s activities and tended to believe that its mass organization activity was ended.
