Thoughts on the slayings at Wat Pathum Wanaram

My heart does go out to the mother of Kamonkade, the young nurse who was killed during that dreadful night at Wat Pathum Wanaram (May 19, 2010), and I too would love to see the assassin brought to justice. And I don’t mean just the triggerman either, but the mastermind who gave the command to shoot and, one can only assume, paid the bill. That’s the person I want to see in the dock most of all, whether at the ICC or before a criminal court in Thailand. 

I do hope that Khun Kamonkade’s mother, Khun Phayao, and her advisers are making a real effort to find out what was actually going on in the darkness that night, because there are a lot of people out there with huge vested interests in the matter, and a lot of time and money is being spent on “revising” the whole event. Spin, it’s called, and I strongly suspect spin was the point, and as such provided the motive for the death of Khun Payao’s beloved daughter. Which makes me boil.

As a start, it’s extremely important to recall that the Ratchaprasong rally had been dispersed by the authorities during the afternoon, and that the red-shirt leaders had already turned themselves in, so it’s very hard to come up with a motive for the Wat Pathum Wanaram killings at all. The Army had managed to subdue the demonstrators without firing a shot all day, and everybody, including the officers in charge, were enormously relieved that the Ratchaprasong demonstration had ended without bloodshed.

So what could have been the motive for the senseless new violence the same evening? The Army insists, and with considerable evidence on its behalf, that its soldiers were not on the elevated tracks from which the shots were fired, that indeed the soldiers were prevented from taking control of that part of the tracks because they were fired upon themselves. If, on the other hand, one assumes that the Army is lying, then one has to come up with some sort of motive for the Army to suddenly start shooting, and into a temple of all places. 

You have to ask as well – honestly, how many Thai soldiers would do that? 

But, let’s say the Army is telling the truth and was not involved. Who else might have had a motive for the violence? Who else might have thought it was a good idea to do some killing in the sanctuary of a temple that evening, and furthermore would have thought to use weapons of the same make and calibre as those carried by the soldiers during the day. The calibre of the bullets is a very important fact – indeed the only one, as far as I know, that does link the Army to the massacre – so it’s important. And it’s important too that a number of such weapons had been stolen from the Army in the days just before the event.

That’s why one has to ask this question: Would the use of stolen M16s by hired assassins have been to anybody’s particular advantage? That’s the question the ICC will want answered as well, Khun Kamonkade. Was there anybody around that night who might have benefited from framing the Army in some way? Would the killings at Wat Pathum Wanaram have helped if, for example, somebody had the idea to hold out an olive branch to the Army at some point in the future? Would it have helped somebody’s cause if the Army could be seen to have really bloody hands, and therefore badly needed a blanket amnesty? Indeed, would it have been to anyone’s advantage to organise a blanket amnesty for absolutely everybody in Thailand who had ever done anything bad in the past? As is happening right now?

Lung Kip

Chiang Mai