Chamlong Srimuang

Chamlong Srimuang (จำลอง ศรีเมือง; born 5 July 1935) is a Thai activist and former politician.

On his return to Thailand, he married Major Sirilak Kheolaor on 14 June 1964.

They had met during an Army-Navy rugby match when Chamlong was a cadet.

Soon afterwards, Chamlong was sent to the Schofield Barracks in Hawaii for a six-month course on military signal equipment.

He later served in Laos as a communications officer supporting Thai units fighting the communist Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese Army.

He returned to Thailand to attend the Army Command and General Staff College, and also underwent six months of counterinsurgency training.

Assigned to South Vietnam as part of Thailand's ten-thousand strong troop deployment during the Vietnam War, Chamlong served as a senior planning and operations officer for an infantry division in Biên Hòa Province.

He served in South Vietnam for one year, before being assigned to the Bangkok-based Thailand Military Research and Development Center.

During the 1970s, Chamlong and other Class 7 alumni formed the Young Military Officers Group, commonly referred to as the "Young Turks".

The Young Turks espoused an ideology of incorruptible leadership and anti-leftism.

During the 1970s conflicts between the pro-democracy and students movement on the one hand, and rightist paramilitaries on the other, Chamlong admittedly attended rallies of the right-wing "Village Scouts".

The late-1970s and the ascension of Young Turk mentor General Prem Tinsulanonda to the premiership in 1980 marked the apex of Class 7's influence in Thai politics.

Prem appointed Chamlong as his secretary, an extremely powerful position.

In 1972, Chamlong attended the U.S. Navy's Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he completed a two-year management course.

For his master's degree thesis, he wrote a study of labor unrest in Thailand.

Following his graduation, he returned to the Military Research and Development Center.

The Young Turks supported the military coup against the elected government of Seni Pramoj, following the bloody 6 October 1976 incident.

The role the Young Turks played in the brutal massacre of student demonstrators gathered at Thammasat University, if any, is still debated.

The Young Turks also supported the coup against the military government of Tanin Kraivixien, who was seen as too far right.

The coup installed Kriangsak Chomanand, Chamlong's commanding officer, as prime minister.

In 1979, Kriangsak appointed then Lieutenant Colonel Chamlong to the military-dominated Senate of Thailand.

On 1 April 1981, the Young Turks, frustrated at the slow pace of political reform under Prem, staged a coup, later nicknamed the "April Fools Day" coup.

Chamlong refused to take part, instead standing by Prem.

The coup collapsed after the royal family, accompanied by Prem to Nakhon Ratchasima Province, announced their support for troops loyal to the government.

A rift between Chamlong and Prem later erupted when the lower house of parliament passed a law legalizing abortions in cases of rape and in situations when a pregnant woman's life was in danger.

A former general, he was a leader of the "Young Turks" military clique, founded and led the Palang Dharma Party, served for six years as governor of Bangkok, led the anti-military uprising of May 1992, and is a prominent member of the People's Alliance for Democracy, a group strongly opposed to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Chamlong had supported the military junta that overthrew Thaksin in a coup.

A devout Buddhist and follower of the Santi Asoke sect, he is now celibate, a vegetarian, and claims to have no worldly possessions.

Chamlong Srimuang received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in the category of Government Service in 1992.

Chamlong's father, a Chinese immigrant from Shantou, died when Chamlong was a baby.

His mother was of Chinese ancestry, but was born in Thailand.

Chamlong had an older brother who was sent to live in China with his grandmother and died there as a boy.

Following his father's death, Chamlong's family moved into the home of a retired naval officer, where his mother was a servant.

They later lived with his mother's aunt, where she and Chamlong spun jute thread.

When Chamlong was twelve, his mother married Chote Srimuang, a postman, and Chamlong took his last name.

Chamlong went to Ban Somdej Chao Phraya High School in Thonburi, where he was a top student.

He then entered the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School, Thailand and was accepted into Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, where he graduated in Class 7.

He developed a close relationship with his classmates Pallop Pinmanee and Manoonkrit Roopkachorn, both of whom would play important roles in Thai politics for decades.

Newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Chamlong was assigned to the Signal Corps in Bangkok as a platoon leader.

He received advanced training in military communications at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and Fort Gordon, Georgia.