Phao Sriyanond

Phao Sriyanond ( _th. เผ่า ศรียานนท์, March 1, 1910 - November 21, 1960) was a director general of Thailand's national police.

Rise to power

An ambitious army officer of Thai-Burmese ancestry, [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059580/Phao-Sriyanond Encyclopædia Britannica] ] Phao married the daughter of General Phin Choonhavan [ [http://atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IC20Ae03.html One big happy family in Cambodia] ] and as a colonel took part in the 1947 coup that ended the last of Pridi's attempts to found democracy in Thailand, restoring Phibun to power.

Made deputy director of the police, he quickly staged a show trial for the alleged assassination of King Ananda Mahidol, in which three members of the palace staff were found guilty and eventually executed.

Police terror

Phao was promoted to the position of director of the police in 1951, by which time he had become one of the country's all-powerful triumvirate. A client of the CIA, Phao received funds and hardware to build up his personal fortune, as well as to turn the police force into an alternative army to oppose his military rival, Sarit Thanarat.

Phao established an intimate circle of police officers, known generally as the "Knights of the Diamond Ring". The group was notorious for its handling of the government and the police general's political opponents - often through outright assassinations and murders.

In March 1949, three MPs from Isaan and an associate, all one-time disciples of the exiled Pridi, were arrested on charges of treason. They were shot dead by their police escort while supposedly being transferred from one jail to another.

On December 12, 1952, Tiang Sirikhanth - the MP for Sakon Nakhon, a leading Seri Thai member and opponent of the government - was arrested along with four of his associates. They were put to death (allegedly by strangulation in the police station) and their bodies burned in a forest in Kanchanaburi Province.

A successful newspaper publisher, Ari Liwara, refused to sell his business to Phao and was subsequently killed in March 1953.

The MP for Samut Sakhon, Phon Malithong, who provided much evidences for allegations of corruption aimed at Phao in Parliament, was in 1954 found tied to concrete posts in the Chao Phraya River, having first been strangled.

Phao was enormously wealthy. He collected protection money from businessmen, rigged the gold exchange, and blackmailed corporations into giving him huge shareholdings. He also profited greatly from the opium trade.

Police units transferred opium from the poppy fields of the Golden Triangle to the harbours of Bangkok, ready to be exported. Trucks, planes, and boats which had been supplied to the police by the CIA were used ease logistics for the movement of opium, which the police took great pains to guard.

Downfall and exile

Phao swiftly lost power with the fall of Phibun in 1957, and was forced to go into exile in Switzerland. He died there at the age of 50.

References

* [http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/cty-AJCHX5A.htm THAILAND: MILITARY INTERVENTION AND THE POLITICS OF AUTHORITARIAN DOMINATION]