Committee Member: Sithon Yotkantha (farmers movement) Committee Member: Samak Chalikun (Socialist United Front Party) Committee Member: Chamni Sakdiset Spokesman and Committee Member: Sri Inthapathi (formerly working for the Public Relations Department of the government) Secretary: Thirayut Boonmi (students movement and editor of Samakhi Surop (United to Fight), a magazine being circulated among students and intellectuals both in Thailand and abroad). Aligned with the CPT at the time were also the Thai Moslem People's Liberation Armed Forces and the National Student Center of Thailand. Shifting alliances The military and political growth of the party would however be hampered by developments wider afield. The party depended on support from states and communist parties in neighbouring countries, and as international alliances shifted the CPT found itself vulnerable. In late 1978, the Sino-Soviet split developed into armed hostilities in Southeast Asia as war broke out between Vietnam and Kampuchea, two countries that supported the CPT. Laos, a country which hosted many PLAT bases, sided with Vietnam in the dispute. In January 1979, the CPT and PLAT were expelled from Laos by the government, a military setback for the party. Bunyen Worthong and a small section of other ex-student leaders and intellectuals broke with the party leadership and on 22 October 1979, they formed the Thai Isan Liberation Party (generally called Pak Mai, the 'New Party') in Vientiane. Pak Mai was a communist party that supported Vietnamese-Laotian positions and was based in Laos. Initially, the CPT adopted a neutral stance in the conflict between Vietnam and Kampuchea, causing relations to deteriorate with both the Chinese and the Vietnamese parties. However, as Vietnam intervened militarily in Kampuchea, the CPT condemned the Vietnamese action in a statement issued on 7 June 1979. As diplomatic and trade relations between Thailand and China improved, and Thai and Chinese governments found a common enemy in pro-Soviet Vietnam, moral and logistical support for the CPT by the Chinese declined sharply. The Communist Party of China began advising the CPT to tone down their revolutionary discourse against the Thai government in their radio broadcasts and to support Democratic Kampuchean forces against the Vietnamese. On 10 July 1979, VOPT declared that it would cease to its broadcasting service. On 11 July, the last VOPT broadcast was transmitted. Renmin Ribao carried a congratulatory message from the CPT on the 30th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on 30 September, which called for militant