THE WORLD; The 'Mobile Phone Mob' Faces Guns and Tanks

HOWEVER else it is remembered, the bloodiest popular uprising in the modern history of Thailand is likely to be recalled as the first clash in a momentous battle between the two most powerful elements of Thai society -- the well-entrenched military and the nation's booming and suddenly vocal middle class.

As the weekend began, the Thai middle class appeared to have the advantage. Its participation in last week's massive street protests had been instrumental in raising the pressure on Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, the architect of a 1991 coup, to resign as Prime Minister.

The rise of the middle class is a phenomenon across Southeast Asia, home to the world's fastest-growing economies, and the undermining of General Suchinda is expected to produce a jittery reaction from Thailand's authoritarian neighbors -- even if the military ultimately shows it can hold power by pure force. They are plainly worried that what has happened on the streets of Bangkok could be repeated elsewhere.

Whatever the accomplishment of the protesters who poured into central Bangkok, though, it came at a terrible cost: hundreds of people dead or missing after street clashes that filled the sticky-hot springtime air of the Thai capital with the menacing rattle of automatic weapons for three long days.

With each new death from a soldier's bullet, the fury only grew among middle-class Thais who have long held the belief that their economic might entitled them to a say in the Thai Government, and that they should not have to risk being gunned down for the privilege. They had never acted on it before, however, leaving Thai politics to be dominated by the army, as it has been for six decades.

Last week, middle-class Thais finally did act, joining with tens of thousands of students and members of the working poor on the streets to demand the ouster of a prime minister who emerged from the military's ranks only the month before.

With the addition of the middle-class protesters, the crowds began calling themselves the "mobs mua thue" -- the mobile-phone mobs -- in recognition of the cellular phones that could suddenly be heard beeping at protest rallies.

Former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, the respected businessman and diplomat who led an interim Government appointed after the 1991 coup, recalled in an interview that during anti-Government uprisings in the early 1970's, the protesters were "mostly students or student activists."

"But this time it is the middle class, the yuppie crowd -- this is definitely true," he said, adding that last week's events, and the political debut of the Thai middle class, could be "a turning point in our history."

As was true elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the middle class emerged in substantial numbers in Thailand only in the 1970's and 1980's, the result of an investment boom that made the Thai economy one of most envied in the developing world.

The per capita income now approaches $1,600 a year, higher than all of Thailand's neighbors except Malaysia and tiny Singapore. At first the members of the huge middle class that was created, especially in Bangkok, seemed content to enjoy their new-found comforts and to say little about the political meddling of the Thai military. But that changed as this new class grew larger and more confident, and last week's events were a demonstration of the degree to which its members chafe at the army's stubborn hold on power, both in government and industry.

Thailand's generals have been the masters of the country's politics since 1932, when they overthrew the last absolute monarch. Later they extended their authority to business circles, with military leaders awarding themselves lucrative second jobs as the heads of powerful state-owned businesses.

It is a difficult phrase to translate precisely from the Thai, but Thai generals are said "to know much more about bank accounts than about bullets." The nation's supreme commander, Air Chief Marshal Kaset Rojananin, is chairman of Thai International Airways and runs the Airports Authority. Several generals control the lucrative Thai logging industry. The military owns two of Bangkok's five television stations.

They are the sorts of positions and perquisites that, in a meritocracy, would rightly fall to talented civilians. After the events of last week, the men and women of the Thai middle class are clearly asking -- indeed, demanding -- their fair share.