Debating on the 6 October events has become a political tool of both leftists and rightists in the present game of post anti-Thaksin and anti-coup struggle but it will not shed any light for later generations unless facts were learned and shared by a majority of the people-not a handful of the October Generation, said academics at a seminar yesterday.

Thanet Aphornsuvan, dean of Faculty of Liberal Arts, said the 14 October 1973 and the 6 October 1976 events have yet to become history, "It is still a struggle not a settled history; it is not agreed by the nation what really happened, such as the state-written history of, say, Sukhothai."

Mr Thanet, also a historian, said Thai society could not be perfect if the two events and the May massacre sixteen years later remained only a legend or memories of a certain group of people.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul, a political science lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, said the rise of Samak Sundaravej as the unexpected prime minister of Thailand has caught the former students who backed Thaksin camp off guard, but has even more enraged their colleagues who were against Thaksin.

The heated debate on the October incidents outside the "October commemorative season" was not born in a vacuum but was embraced as a political tool in the context of those who fight against and those who support the Thaksin camp and those for and those against the coup, said Ms Kanokrat, also a Ph.D student of the London School of Economics.

The more Mr Samak defended the October issue, the stronger it might be for those who would like to topple the Samak government, she suggested.

However, the lecturer noted that resurrecting the October history simply to serve certain political purposes in the present context would not eventually lead to any lessons learned by Thai society, especially the younger generation.

"Certainly, it has not been easy and in fact has been painful for both rightists and leftists to regain a foothold in Thai society. But we still need it to be a public issue not a story or legend told by a limited group of people. The history of October has yet to be written beyond the history of violence or the number of the deaths; (history resurrection) needs to be a process of public learning," said Ms Kanokrat.

Sirote Klampaiboon, a Ph D candidate at the East West Center, said 14 and 6 October was a history of the bruised, whose deaths that could still be resurrected, but the May history was a real dead death.

"Why is there a fuss about what Samak said about October, but not the May massacre which took place while Samak was Deputy Prime Minister in the Suchinda government? Because those who died in that event were the so-called proletariat and the rural poor while the October deaths were heroes, since they came from the student class," challenged Mr Sirote.

Talking about the 6 October events was a political tool rather than a quest for truth, "Those who defend the students also focus only on the fact that the protestors were not socialists or communists but innocent students and democracy lovers, which might not be the case for several who died or fled," said the historian.

"The post-May events have led to a compromise between an elite group in Thai society, including the so-called October students, and they have departed from the true objective of political reform, or army reform and decentralization, but have become part of the ruling class," said Mr Sirote.

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