ASIA
HAND Thai bombs expose dangerous new
divide By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK –Who is responsible for the
coordinated bomb attacks that rocked Thailand's
capital on New Year's Eve, resulting in at least
three deaths, 38 injuries and sowing fear and
chaos across the general population?
The
unprecedented attacks on Bangkok represent a
dangerous turn in the country's already tense
political situation and provide powerful new
justification for the military-led Council for National
Security (CNS) military
installed government to maintain martial law,
augment its security presence and crack down on
political dissent across the country.
Speculation in the mainstream
Thai and foreign media has variously pointed to
either Muslim militants who have waged a violent
insurgency against the government in the country's
southernmost regions, or disenfranchised
politicians and soldiers still loyal to former
prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted
by the CNS in a bloodless military coup on
September 19. Yet a thorough and
independent investigation into the bombings should
also include a probe into the possibility that
renegade elements inside the CNS itself may have
masterminded the crude attacks to discredit new
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and provide
Byzantine justification for a counter coup action
that ousts Surayud's interim civilian
administration and ushers in a period of total
military control.
Nobody has claimed
responsibility for the attacks, where low-grade
explosive devices were planted in garbage bins, a
used tire and even dropped from pedestrian
footbridges onto police posts across the capital
city. Significantly, the bombs were positioned in
places and ways that aimed to minimize civilian
injuries and casualties, and appeared to avoid
venues were foreign casualties would compel
foreign embassies to launch their own independent
investigations into the attacks.
Surayud
played down the possibility that Muslim
insurgents, who historically have confined their
attacks on targets in the country's southernmost
region, more than 1,300 kilometers from Bangkok,
were behind the attacks. According to news
reports, he told reporters on Monday that an
unidentified "old power clique" was most likely
behind the attacks.
Chatuporn Promphan,
deputy spokesman for the ousted Thai Rak Thai
party that was headed by Thaksin, strongly denied
that his party was behind the attacks, according
to news reports. Thaksin echoed that line from
self-imposed exile through a personal spokesman
soon after the first bombs exploded.
The
military-led CNS has since seizing power pointed
ominously to the vague threat of "undercurrents"
among underground Thaksin supporters, whom they
contend are bent on destabilizing their regime and
paving the way for the ousted premier to return to
power.
The CNS has relied on the
"undercurrent" bogey to justify maintaining
martial law and banning political gatherings and
protests. But growing popular calls to rescind
martial law among Bangkok's politically assertive
middle class - which significantly until now has
supported the military intervention - have
recently put popular pressure on the military
appointed interim administration to rein in its
strict social controls.
There is no
evidence yet that the bombings were part of a
planned counter coup action by Thaksin supporters
in the military, many of whom were sidelined by
the CNS soon after the September coup. Nor is it
readily apparent how Thaksin's grass-roots camp,
which insists that the ousted premier is still the
country's rightful democratically elected leader,
would stand to gain politically by attacking the
general population they still profess to
represent.
Apportioning blame, even
obliquely, on Thaksin and his associates for the
attacks would, however, potentially rejuvenate now
flagging support for the CNS among sections of the
Bangkok elite and middle class. That support has
been tested by the CNS's sustained heavy-handed
policies on the media and political groups, and
was hit hard on December 19 by an unexpected
capital controls policy that badly undermined
foreign confidence in the government's management
and led to the largest single-day drop ever on the
Stock Exchange of Thailand.
Short
political fuses Significantly, the
bombings come against the backdrop of rising
tensions between military officials attached to
the CNS, led by coup leader General Sonthi
Boonyaratklin, and the interim civilian-led
administration it later appointed, led by Surayud,
a former army commander and close advisor to His
Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
While
Sonthi has dictated personnel decisions, the
methodical Surayud has maintained a firm grip on
policy and processes. Behind the scenes, Surayud
has come under growing fire from certain coup
makers for not moving fast enough in prosecuting
Thaksin on corruption charges, one of the military
junta's four stated motivations for launching the
coup, seizing power and suspending the progressive
1997 constitution.
The disgruntled coup
makers have been particularly critical of
appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Finance
Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula, who served as
central bank governor under Thaksin's government
and has complicated a probe into a dodgy Bangkok
land deal by the ousted premier's wife, Pojamarn
Shinawatra, which his central bank legally
endorsed.
So far Surayud has allowed
investigations into Thaksin's and his political
associates' alleged wrongdoings to take a slow but
arguably sound legal course, apparently towards
the broader reform aim of restoring judicial
integrity and independence after years of
political meddling under Thaksin. Yet the slow
pace and so far inconclusive results of the
various corruption investigations have been widely
criticized in the Thai media, with some
commentators starting to dare whether the coup
that popularly ousted Thaksin was ever justified.
Moreover, Thaksin's former political
allies, including former prime minister, army
commander and spy chief, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh,
have started to up the tempo of their criticism of
the interim administration's performance,
including corruption allegations against Surayud
related to a provincial land deal. Surayud has
strenuously denied the allegations and vowed to
resign if investigators found any misdeeds
surrounding the transaction.
Surayud
received King Bhumibol's strong endorsement during
his highly anticipated nationally televised
birthday address, of which some Bangkok-based
political analysts interpreted veiled criticism of
the ousted Thaksin in the monarch's broad
brushstroke remarks about young people not
respecting their elders. Even with that strong
backing, new coup rumors pitching hardline
officials attached to the CNS against Surayud's
civilian administration composed of mainly retired
bureaucrats have in recent weeks been circulating
among Bangkok's chattering classes.
Whoever was responsible, the bombings will
no doubt provide powerful new ammunition to CNS
elements already skeptical of Surayud's
stewardship and will no doubt give rise to new
complaints that the former army commander has not
done enough to guard against a possible rearguard
action among Thaksin's alienated supporters inside
the military. Significantly, CNS leader Sonthi was
traveling in Saudi Arabia on New Year's Eve and
cut his trip short to tend to the damage.
Despite its heavy-handed administration,
the CNS still fears the prospect of Thaksin's many
rural supporters converging on Bangkok under a
pro-democracy banner and mounting large-scale
protests against the coup leaders, which, by their
own laws, they would be legally required to crack
down on.
The New Year's Eve bombings will
also provide strong new justification for the
establishment of the CNS's 14,000-strong "Special
Operations Force", a new secretive security force
comprised of army and police officials aimed
nominally at maintaining peace, law and order
across the country, but which critics fear will be
mobilized to ferret out and crush political
dissent against military rule. Notably, the 556
million baht (US$15.3 million) earmarked last week
by the cabinet for the controversial new security
force came under strong media criticism just days
before the bombings.
As investigations
into the bombings commence and Thailand's interim
government wobbles in the chaotic aftermath, it is
quite possible that the smoke may never clear on
exactly who was responsible for the unprecedented
attacks. What is clear from the outset is that
elements inside the Thai military itself had as
much - if not more – political motivation than
other potential actors for launching the crude and
deadly attacks. And in the chaotic aftermath, the
prospects for the CNS honoring its previous pledge
to return the country to a democratic course later
this year have grown considerably dimmer.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times
Online's Southeast Asia editor.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
