THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

No resolution in sight to bombing investigation

No resolution in sight to bombing investigation

The Mother’s Day tragedy appears destined to join the list of crimes for which no one faced justice

Hopes are fading that anyone will ever be prosecuted for the spate of bomb and arson attacks that left four people dead across seven provinces on Mother’s Day and the hours beforehand. The police and military have wasted time and energy blaming each other for the bungling that’s mired the investigation so far, leaving an information vacuum that conspiracy theorists and other armchair observers have been keen to fill. The result is a chaotic stew of unproved fact and unhelpful gossip – and not a single arrest.
Academics, experts in various fields, journalists, people claiming to work for intelligence agencies and even government security advisers have cooked this stew from the shards of details emerging from the investigation. It could have been domestic sabotage, they suggest, or political vengeance, or a separatist assault. One outlandish notion that gained some traction had former premier Thaksin Shinawatra and America’s CIA hiring southern insurgents to conduct the attacks with the aim of bringing down the government.
More than a week after the event the authorities claimed they had made significant progress in their probe, but would say no more lest public speculation interfere with their next steps. They seem to believe the bombers and arsonists are relying on news outlets or the social media to tell them when to flee.
While the military has denied any separatist motive behind the attacks, its judicial wing has issued an arrest warrant for Ahama Lengha of Narathiwat. He’s wanted in relation to the bomb that went off in Phuket, but has apparently already fled to Malaysia. They say DNA collected at the scene matched a sample taken from him in 2008 following violence in the South. He ignored all summonses at the time, so we don’t know how that sample was collected. The married father of three has been working at a fertiliser factory just across the border, returning home every weekend. Now, of course, he’s disappeared.
There is no one in custody over the Mother’s Day assault. The only person detained thus far, Sakharin Karuehas of Chiang Mai – wrongly accused to setting fire to a Phuket department store – was released after purportedly agreeing to help in the investigation. The military next paraded for the media 15 alleged members of a secret society who may or may not have had something to do with the attacks. They’d been among 17 people secretly arrested the day after, and then questioned for almost a week at a Bangkok military camp. Two others – both police officers – were released later for reasons unknown. Confusingly, the military handed these 15 remaining detainees over to the police, but a military court was asked to issue formal arrest warrants for all 17. 
Some of the 15 males and females presented to the media appeared elderly and in ill health. The oldest was 71. A junta official said they’d been planning since last year to set up a new political party, that they’d plotted to overthrow the government and that they were communists. Yes, we are told – 40 years after Thammasat University students were massacred, ostensibly because they too were “reds” – communism remains a menace to Thailand.
This absurd story has many more chapters to play out. The military government evidently has more suspects to parade, no doubt seeking to drive home one political point or another. Citizens will recall that there was an even worse bomb attack at the Erawan Shrine a year ago and that that case has never been satisfactorily solved. We hold out little hope that the assailants who ruined Mother’s Day will be heading to court anytime soon.
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