ABSTRACT
During the summer of 1980 a peace movement began in two holding centres for Kampuchean refugees in Thailand. It reached a climax on two separate days of prayer and meditation for peace attended by a quarter of a million Khmer refugees, mostly Buddhists but including Muslims and Christians, and momentarily captured the imagination of sections of the world’s press. The involvement of Thai monks in development work raises a number of problems associated with the Vinaya or Patimokkha rules which regulate the behaviour of members of the Sangha. The Sangha Council recognised that the World Federation of Buddhists brought representatives of different religions together for seminars, but prayer and worship were another matter. In spite of strenuous efforts to keep politics out of the Peace Programme, the organisers were catapulted into the centre of a major political row.
