Communism
In the latter half of the 20th century, Isan was perceived by the Thai government as a potential breeding ground for Communism. The region's poverty, special history, remoteness and inaccessible terrain all contributed to this fear.
Inevitably, the extent to which Communist insurgents were a real threat in Isan is hard to determine. It is known that there were a number of political attacks from the 1960s onwards, and that Communist activists and equipment entered the region from Laos. On the other hand, the number of guerrillas probably never exceeded a few thousand, and the combination of action by the security forces and the offers of amnesties had largely ended the threat by the early 1980s.
Read more about this topic: History Of Isan
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