Thailand, 1985 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 9 September 1985 a faction of former and cashiered Thai military officers attempted a coup against the government of Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda, striking in the pre dawn hours while Prem was abroad in Indonesia and the army commander was in Sweden. The attempt, sometimes called the Share Rebellion, was led by Colonel Manoon Roopkachorn, a veteran of the earlier 1981 Young Turks coup, and his brother, and was backed by several disgruntled former commanders including the ex prime minister Kriangsak Chomanan. Several hundred rebel troops with about twenty two tanks seized key sites in Bangkok, including a radio station and the army headquarters area, and fighting broke out in the streets.
But the coup collapsed within about ten hours: loyalist forces under deputy army chief General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, using a radio station the rebels had failed to secure, rallied the army and persuaded or forced the rebels to surrender. Five people were killed, including two American NBC News journalists, and dozens of officers were arrested, while some ringleaders fled abroad. Prem survived and remained prime minister.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
80009091985- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-800-1985-09-09
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda's government crushed the September 1985 coup attempt within hours while he was abroad.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →