THE WEEK IN TERRORISM
Around the world and around the country, we were all Belgians. Brussels lowered the national terror alert on Friday from “imminent” to “serious and credible”. (Fact check: True. Reality check: Who could make it up?) One day it was “be very afraid” and a mere day later it had dropped to “be afraid”.
In Bangkok, which has never in all history had a terrorist attack or terrorist activity or terrorist planning, ever, the alert status was a “strong no-problem”. Two red shirt supporters were arrested for plotting to kill the prime minister and, while they were doing that, disrupt the Bike for Dad ride, on Friday week, but it was all under control.
The pair “were arrested”, passive tense, because it’s not at all clear which watchful state agents investigated and nabbed the 60-year-old ex-policeman and 26-yearold accomplice running the terrorism plot — the army, the special forces, Isoc? After several days of interrogation, the military turned the men over to police, who will hold them for the military court.
The general prime minister said “I am not afraid”, and explained this plot is an outgrowth of the Khon Kaen Model, the infamous but still unproved red shirt conspiracy broken up by alert military police a few days after Gen Prayut’s May 22, 2014, coup d’etat.
The leaders of the red shirts and their political arm, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), denied both plots even exist, let alone as opposition conspiracies. The official UDD stance is to lay low and let the military regime end on its own. UDD chairman Jatuporn Prompan said the arrests announced in Bangkok were meant to deflect public and media attention from the Rajabhakti Park shenanigans. Which they actually did, to an extent.
Unfortunately, because the charges are lese majeste (presumably the Bike for Dad connection) and violating the Computer Crime Act (they did all their plotting on the Line app), you can’t know anything more. If officials told you more details, they would also be committing lese majeste. So take them at their word, and know they would never make up a bomb-assassination plot where none exists.
And while it’s clear there has never been a terrorist attack in Bangkok since the Middle Triassic, you might be surprised again that Thailand makes the World Top 10 in terrorism.
The non-partisan Institute for Economics and Peace of Sydney mentions Iraq, Syria and Nigeria as worse. But for the sixth time, the insurgents of the deep South and other violent neerdowells put Thailand on the world map of terror. In fact, last year saw more terrorist incidents than any year ever recorded — 366 “incidents” as the Australian language puts it, with 738 victims, of whom 156 were killed.
It shows while that the violence in the deep South may rate only as a “lowlevel conflict”, the toll is terrible. But wait. There’s more. You may choose to believe the tourist officials who say there is no terrorism in Thailand, or the institute, which says that in addition to the deep South, terrorist attacks took place in 14 other provinces, up from seven in 2013.
But then the Australians are probably counting the Aug 17 bombing of the Erawan Shrine, which killed 20 people, maimed more than a dozen and changed the lives of hundreds. Everyone knows that wasn’t terrorism.
That’s why, last week, military prosecutors indicted the Uighur pair Bilal Mohammed aka Adem Karadag and Yusuf Mieraili on virtually every legal charge possible except loitering — but not terrorism. And to make it clear there was no terrorism involved, there will be no attempt to determine a motive and no search for the 17 other major suspects in the case.
The world’s leader on terrorism issued the first US Worldwide Travel Alert since September 2011. The gist of the warning was, “It’s quite scary out today, looks like it will be a little scarier tomorrow, and if anything happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
In America, all sporting events, movies and shows, markets and “aviation services” are unsafe, as are all public transportation and crowded places (like churches, malls, etc). So far as abroad, since Sept 1, the US has issued alerts and warnings on travel to 25 countries from Afghanistan to Venezuela.
Thailand is officially safe, in the sense that, yes, there are crowds but there hasn’t been a Washington warning since the Erawan Shrine bomb. Our neighbours are dicey. Myanmar, for example, was flagged because of the Nov 8 elections (“Travellers may experience disruptions or added inconveniences”; the “added” a subtle touch), Bangladesh for continuing “extremist violence” and the Philippines because of abductions and murders of foreigners, not to mention terrorism.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon put defence forces in the South on higher alert, citing the rise and recruiting activities of the Islamic State in Malaysia.
This, combined with other events last week, made it clear that the only thing we have to fear is international terrorists or getting caught in the assassination crossfire.