Sustaining anti-Chinese sentiment in Jakarta | New Mandala

Sustaining anti-Chinese sentiment in Jakarta | New Mandala
Dr Joko Santoso, 18 MARCH 2016

In the lead up to the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial elections, incumbent Governor Basuki “Ahok” Purnama Tjahaya is already facing racist opposition.

On 15 March, Indonesian Army General Surya Prabowo tagged Ahok and asked those friendly or affectionate with Chinese-Indonesians to remind them that they should not be arrogant with power or authority.

The Facebook image (you can see it here) he posted along with the message showed historic tragic dates on which Chinese-Indonesians had suffered slaughter.

In commentary reminiscent of New Order style coercion, Surya Prabowo asked his followers to pity ethnic Chinese-Indonesians who are good or poor because if there are those that want to butcher them, they cannot run to another country.

He then closed by asking his followers to keep “harmony in diversity” (not unity in diversity, the Nation’s famous motto). His post has since been deleted.

Thankfully there is plenty of support for Ahok from all quarters of Indonesian society.

But those who suffered the egregious anti-Chinese violence in Jakarta during the immediate reformasi period must surely feel that violence is only sustained with such irresponsible a commentary from a senior Indonesian general.

Professor Dr Joko Santoso is a professor of sociology at the University of Orba Dua.

Horror headlines, tourism and the Thai junta | New Mandala

Horror headlines, tourism and the Thai junta | New Mandala
Paul Sanderson, 17 MARCH 2016

Thailand’s economy increasingly depends on tourism, but the junta’s reaction to crimes against tourists leaves a lot to be desired, writes Paul Sanderson.

The Thai junta has been putting the well-worn maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity to the test. They have responded to a series of crimes against foreigners with almost uniformly callous and blunt statements, yet visitors are coming in greater numbers than ever: Thailand fell just short of 30 million tourist arrivals last year.

Yet, for all the negative headlines, tourism has been one of the few bright points in an otherwise faltering economy. The year 2015 brought a 20 per cent growth in tourist arrivals and a 22 per cent growth in tourism revenue, putting the sector firmly back on track after a slump during the 2013-14 street protests. The sector now accounts for about 10 per cent of the country’s GDP, as exports have weakened and foreign investment has plummeted.

Since taking control in May 2014, Prayuth Chan-ocha’s junta has been confronted with a series of high-profile crimes in famous tourist destinations. The most notorious among them have been the murders of two British backpackers on Koh Tao, and bombs in Koh Samui and central Bangkok – the former injuring seven, and the latter killing 20 and injuring upwards of 120. Late last month four French tourists were attacked, with two women raped at knifepoint, on Koh Kut off the country’s eastern coast.

The junta cannot be blamed for murders, bombings or rapes, of course, but their handling of the cases has been appalling, both in terms of public relations and public policy. The responses to the crimes have followed an all-too-familiar pattern: a promise to “beef up” security and bring someone to justice, the parading of suspects in front of media scrums in highly prejudicial re-enactments, claims the police or army resorted to torture to extract a confession, and a sense of disbelief in the criminal justice system generally and the police in particular.

The killings of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller on Koh Tao in September 2014 were particularly savage, attracting enormous attention nationally and internationally, especially from the British press.

The double murders were the first international scandal General Prayuth’s administration faced after seizing power, and it came as the junta’s handpicked national police chief took over from an incumbent with links to the ousted government.

Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang travelled to the island to oversee the investigation and was later on hand for the photo opportunity when two Myanmar migrant workers were led around the beach in bulletproof vests. His presence did nothing to quell allegations the crime scene was trampled on, suspicions DNA had been interfered with, or the rumours that spread online after the son of an influential figure was declared innocent in an oddly public manner. All of this led the Bangkok Post Sunday to call the investigation “rushed, rash, incompetent and speculative”.

General Prayuth, a notoriously short-tempered former army chief not above joking about executing journalists, did the country no favours on the PR front when he said women in bikinis only had to worry about being raped and murdered if they were attractive.

Claims of torture were highly publicised during the Koh Tao trial; less well known are the allegations the chief suspect in the August 2015 Erawan Shrine bombings made against Pol Gen Somyot and two of his deputies. The suspect, a Uighur Muslim, alleged he was punched and intimidated into confessing to the bombing, which killed 14 tourists of Chinese descent and six Thais. He also alleged Pol Gen Somyot was among those present when his life was threatened. Police were quick to dismiss the allegations.

There is a pattern of suspects claiming they have been coerced into confessing, although this is not exclusive to cases involving tourists, as reports of torture that emerged in Ranong after a 17-year-old girl was murdered show.

There is evidence to suggest some allegations are false, and torture claims are sometimes used by defence lawyers in the hopes of winning freedom for their clients. Even this is disturbing, because the strategy presumes coercion is an innate part of the system. It is essentially left to judges to decide how true the claims are, as there have been no serious attempts to independently investigate either specific allegations or systemic problems.

A more transparent Thai justice system and more trustworthy police force would go a long way towards allaying tourists’ fears, but this would require the kind of root-and-branch reform that has long been talked about but never acted on – reform that seems less likely than ever under the current regime.

One positive change the government could easily make would be to do away with the outrageous crime scene re-enactments that have followed every high-profile crime in Thailand. The Koh Tao murders, Erawan bombing and Koh Kut assaults were all the subject of highly prejudicial media stunts organised by the police: in the case of the Koh Kut attacks, the accused men were themselves set upon.

Banning the re-enactments would help shift the onus from the defence to prove their innocence back to the prosecutors, who would need to produce evidence that could be substantiated. Many legal experts have spoken out against the practice, and Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission has fought a losing battle to have them banned.

Government policy, however, has been to blithely continue in the face of public opprobrium; given bad publicity does not seem to have hurt the bottom line the junta is only paying lip service to tourist safety. The tourists, for now, continue to come; given the horror headlines in the past two years, it’s a wonder whether anything will keep them away.

Paul Sanderson is a pen name. The author is an independent writer and consultant based in Southeast Asia. 

This article is published as a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for analysis and discussion on public policy.

Challenging times for Thai tourism | New Mandala

Challenging times for Thai tourism | New Mandala
Dr David Beirman, 9 MARCH 2016

From civil unrest to terrorism and increasing threats against visitors, Thailand has a struggle on its hands to maintain its reputation as a safe travel destination, writes David Beirman.

Thailand is among the world’s top tourist destinations, hosting nearly 30 million international visitors in 2015, a rise of nearly 6 million in just a year. But its growing popularity makes it vulnerable, as the country struggles to balance tourism’s 16 per cent total contribution to its economy annually with potential risks to its visitors, and a poorly regulated industry. Simply put, its reputation is at stake.

Thailand currently ranks 10th in the world as a destination, and number three in Asia after China and Hong Kong. In 2015 Thailand hosted 29.8 million international visitors, up from 24 million in 2014, including 900,000 from Australia.

This dramatic growth surge has exceeded the Thai Tourism Authority’s most optimistic expectations. The industry now directly employs more than 2 million Thais, with tourism’s direct contribution to GDP an estimated 8.6 per cent, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. The economy is increasingly dependent on tourism.

But tourism’s growing significance brings an attendant vulnerability. Thailand’s popularity is largely predicated on being a safe, welcoming and high value-for-money destination. It’s a fragile reality, however, as civil unrest, crime, acts of terrorism, natural disasters and the fear of pandemics can rapidly damage the country’s appeal.

The industry has weathered many reputational storms. While it only recorded 12 cases of SARS in 2003, it was a victim of the media hysteria over SARS in Southeast Asia, with 1.5 million less tourists visiting Thailand than in 2002. The Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004 posed a greater challenge as half of the 12,000 tsunami deaths in Thailand were foreign tourists, many staying in seaside resorts in and near Phuket.

In more recent years, civil unrest centred in Bangkok in 2009-10 and more recently in 2014 have tarnished Thailand’s peaceful image. This was exacerbated by terrorist attacks in central Bangkok in August 2015. Although the deadly conflict between Islamic separatists and the Thai military near Thailand’s frontier with Malaysia has been festering for years, it’s far off the tourist track.

Difficulties aside, Thailand has proven to be the very model of a resilient tourism destination. The Thai Tourism Authority (TAT), with considerable support from the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), are among the world’s leading exponents of post crisis-tourism recovery.  The Thai Tourism Authority is very quick to offer media and tourism industry leaders from primary source markets the opportunity to have a first-hand inspection of Thailand’s recovery from a wide range of crises. Consequently, this exposure restores market confidence quickly.

However, while Thailand continues to excel in reacting to crisis events, its Achilles heel has been its reluctance to proactively address ongoing risks to tourists.

As a destination, Thailand has enormous appeal. It offers significant scenic and cultural diversity, a high-quality low-cost tourism infrastructure and people who are largely welcoming to tourists. However, mass tourism anywhere in the world attracts a criminal element and Thailand is no exception. Prostitution, opportunistic robbery, scams, rape and assaults are an unsavoury feature of some of Thailand’s more popular tourism attractions and nightspots. Popular tourist nightspots such as Pattaya attract many cashed-up tourists who have shed their inhibitions and, at times their common sense, making them easy targets for opportunistic petty criminals and even violent criminals.

Of course some tourists in Thailand engage in risky behaviour, which can result in injury or death. Examples include the full moon festival, which attracts young revellers who’ll drink and take drugs, with consequences including injury or death, or it could be tourists who hire motorbikes, for which they lack the skills or road sense for Thai conditions.

These may be behavioural choices, but the lack of regulation of businesses means that Duty of Care is an alien concept for some Thai tourism providers.

In November 2013 I was one of two keynote speakers at a conference in Bangkok, sponsored by the Thai Tourism Authority and PATA. The conference focussed on marketing safety and security in Thailand, and was attended by over 100 Thai tourism industry leaders. The main resulting message was that Thailand and the TAT should be more proactive in warning and advising international tourists about threats to their safety, and how to minimise their exposure to risks. Many countries have found that providing such information enhances their reputation as tourism destinations. Japan, South Africa, Trinidad and most Caribbean countries are just a few of that routinely do this.

The Thai tourism leaders were concerned that if they provided such warnings they would lose face in the eyes of prospective tourists by admitting there were dangers in travelling to Thailand. We pointed out that the governments of most of Thailand’s key source markets already included such warnings in their travel advisories. The Thai Tourism Authority warmed to the argument, but the 2014 coup and changes within TAT resulted in no real action.

Thailand is literally banking on a significant growth in tourism over the next few years – it is widely forecast that by 2020, 50 million international tourists will visit the country. In February 2016, Mr Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor of the Thai Tourism Authority, expressed concern about Thailand’s capacity to host such a large influx of tourists, and called for promotional marketing to focus on a more select, high-end tourism market.

Irrespective of the market Thailand seeks to attract, the future of Thai Tourism and its reputation will depend largely on Thailand’s ability to proactively confront safety concerns. Like it or not, safety is now the leading motivational factor in destination choice, and Thailand’s reputation rests on it.

Dr David Beirman is a Senior Lecturer of Tourism at the University of Technology Sydney.

This article is a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum — Asia and the Pacific’s premier website for policy analysis and discussion.

Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s royalist history | New Mandala

Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s royalist history | New Mandala
Andrew Walker, 7 MARCH 2016

New Mandala co-founder Andrew Walker reviews A Kingdom in Crisis.

There is a long tradition in Western commentary on Asia pointing to the reprehensible behaviour of oriental despots.

Advocates for colonial expansion often built their case around the need to liberate the Asian masses from their rapacious, and sometimes unhinged, rulers. Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis sits firmly within this orientalist tradition.

A Kingdom in Crisis provides a salacious chronicle of royal brutality and “murderous violence” in pre-modern Siam (p 53). Princes who fell out of favour were put in velvet sacks and beaten to death with sandalwood clubs (p 43); petty criminals were slow-roasted alive (p 53); the owners of dogs whose barking disturbed the king were “killed in the cruellest  fashion on earth” (p  52); and unsuspecting maidens were arbitrarily sacrificed to  meet the king’s superstitious whim (p 122). There were also “blood-curdling punishments” for those bold enough to engage in “immoral intercourse with a lady of the Palace” (p 51).

Palace intercourse — MacGregor Marshall shows us that there was an awful lot of it — was the prerogative of extraordinarily randy monarchs. Prasart Thong, who seized the throne in 1629, was a pervert, selecting the “prettiest maidens and daughters of the greatest men” (p 124) as his concubines! And even the scholarly Mongkut, released from his monastic sublimation at the ripe old age of 46, begat 82 children by 35 women in his “harem” (p 129).

Do not be misled by the imagery of the “land of smiles” MacGregor Marshall helpfully warns those who mistake tourism slogans for reality: Thais are very good at staging political theatre, but behind the scenes a violent and libidinous orient is lurking.

The core objective of A Kingdom in Crisis is to challenge Thailand’s royalist mythology.

In simple terms, the core myth is that the king is a unifying, integrating  and  benevolent force in Thai society. Drawing extensively on Thailand’s long royal history, MacGregor Marshall shows that, in fact, the monarch in Siam/ Thailand has been a powerhouse of intra-elite conflict, while at the same time providing an ideological figurehead to facilitate the oppression of the masses. The book’s far from flattering account of Thai history draws on the accounts of Westerners resident in pre-modern Siam (with  surprisingly little critical reflection on how their vested interests may have shaped the shocking tales they tell), modern (and not so modern) scholars, popular tales, and, most originally, the WikiLeaks cables.

It certainly is a myth-busting tour-de-force showing how Thai kings, and the elites that surround them, have regularly generated political crises, which also reflect competition between narrow sectional interests.  However, whether or not the book will achieve its myth-busting objective is hard to tell. Most readers, I suspect, will already be converts to MacGregor Marshall’s position. By contrast, those who subscribe to the royal mythology will probably be confirmed in their view that unsympathetic Westerners like MacGregor Marshall are determined to slander the royal institution.

The book’s central claim is that the current political crisis that has gripped Thailand since 2005 “is essentially a succession struggle over who will become monarch when King Bhumibol dies” (p 3). The hitherto “unacknowledged war of succession” (p 4) is the key to making “Thailand’s bewildering crisis … comprehensible” (p 5). Given the centrality, and boldness, of this claim, MacGregor Marshall has surprisingly little to say about it.

Part III of the book addresses “the secrets of the Thai succession” (p 105). MacGregor Marshall starts this section by categorically rejecting the conventional wisdom that Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn will take the throne following the passing of his father. He confidently declares that predictions of an orderly succession “are completely untrue” (p 109).

So what are the secrets that are revealed in these central chapters? From my reading there are three. First, that going back centuries, royal succession in Southeast Asia has been contested and often violent. Second, that elites have often attempted to manoeuvre weak kings onto the throne. Third, that Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn is unpopular and there are serious doubts held about his suitability for the throne.

All in all, very standard stuff that has been well known to even casual observers of Southeast Asia for a long time. Some readers may regard this as evidence that is compelling enough for MacGregor Marshall to dismiss as “completely untrue” the claim that Thailand’s royal succession is a done deal. I do not.

In the latter chapters of the book, which provide a very lively and readable account of the past 10 years of political crisis in Thailand, MacGregor Marshall makes further specific claims about the succession. He suggests that the “ruling class had long been confident that when the time came they would be able to keep Vajiralongkorn off the throne” (p 158)  but  that  their  optimism was  “evaporating”  (p  158)  in  2005 as a result  of the birth of the prince’s first son, and his close relationship with then-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

These favourable developments for Vajiralongkorn generated a climate of “apocalyptic dread among the elite” (p 159). Later, he reports that the “establishment” assumed that the 2006 coup was part of a plan to manage the succession (p 167) and that in 2007, the “elite secretively plotted” (p 170) about the succession and launched a campaign to damage Vajiralongkorn’s reputation. MacGregor Marshall also claims that the Queen, having previously supported Vajiralongkorn, decided to “freeze her son out of the royal succession, planning to reign as regent” (p 173). We are also told that the “army leadership also supported blocking the prince” (p 174).

These are all plausible claims, and they are consistent with rumours and commentaries that circulate online.

However, A Kingdom in Crisis presents no compelling evidence to back them up. In most cases no sources are cited. Of course, given the threat of Thailand’s oppressivelese majeste law, it is very reasonable not to cite specific people. But some indication of the nature and provenance of the evidence is called for, given the importance of the claims and the confidence with which they are made. More careful reference to sources may also have moderated the tendency to attribute specific motivations to very broadly defined social groups: the “ruling class”, the “elite” and the “establishment”.

In some cases reference is made to WikiLeaks material, but this is not compelling either. One cited cable refers to attempts to undermine the reputation of Vajiralongkorn’s consort, but the author of the cable only “assumes” that this has “implications” for the prince (p 170). Discussions between the US ambassador and various Thai elder statesmen who were critical of Vajiralongkorn are also cited. To account for the fact that these prominent Thais made no mention of a succession struggle, MacGregor Marshall declares that they “lied … to conceal their active efforts to sabotage the succession” (p 187).  All in all, MacGregor Marshall’s evidence does not match his claims.

MacGregor Marshall’s preoccupation with the succession points to a broader problem with this book.

Despite its provocations and iconoclasm this is very much a royalist account of Thai history. Like Thailand’s royalists, MacGregor Marshall places the king at the heart of the Thai polity. In A Kingdom in Crisis, contestation over royal power is the engine room of 21st century Thai politics, as it has been over the past millennium (p  213).

The mass of people sometimes do feature, but they are peripheral to MacGregor Marshall’s central purpose. When they do enter into the narrative, it is as an undifferentiated mass of “ordinary  people” who are struggling against the elite in pursuit of “greater freedom and a fairer society” (p 109).

This two-dimensional and a-historical model — a cut-throat elite ruling over a repressed population — is classic orientalism and contributes little to an understanding of the complex and cross-cutting social and economic forces that have brought Thailand to its contemporary political impasse.

Andrew Walker is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, and co-founder of New Mandala.

This review was published in the December 2015 issue of the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies journal, Contemporary Southeast Asia. The second edition of ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’ is now available from Zed Books.

Thailand’s new politics and a double wrecking ball | New Mandala

Thailand’s new politics and a double wrecking ball | New Mandala
Christine Gray,  7 MARCH 2016

Christine Gray looks at the role Thaksin Shinawatra and the Crown Prince have had in shaking up the country’s old politics and old elites.

Currently I am re-reading Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s ​A Kingdom in Crisis along with other works on the Thaksin era of 2001 to 2006, comparing it to Thak Chaloemtiarana​’s classic Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism. As I do I can’t help thinking of the 1933 Boworadet Revolt.

The revolt was a clumsy attempt by the disaffected and ambitious Prince Boworadet, former Minister of War, to restore the so-called “absolute monarchy.” Its failure had a cataclysmic effect on Thai politics, requiring decades of equivocation by the artful courtiers of the Ninth Reign, necessitating yet additional kinks and odd absences in the writing of official (royal) history.

Boworadet, as was traditional, launched his forces from the periphery, from Korat in the Northeast, and also Ayutthaya in the near north, attempting an encircling movement around the capital. When he fled, it was by plane to French Indo-China, leaving his followers behind to face the wrath of the revolutionary government. The defeat of a prince of the blood by a commoner (in a minor skirmish) commenced the meteoric rise to power of artillery officer Phibun Songkhram, leader of the junior army faction of the Promoters of the 1932 Revolution.

If 1933 and military coups from 1947 onward show, it was that the military clique that holds Bangkok, the celestial capital, also holds the kingdom, the “radial polity.”

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra played the board differently, using cash and modern communications technology to draw power from the wronged periphery. This included Isan, the northeast, many of whose citizens constitute the working classes (pedi-cab drivers, sex workers and so on), and the north, which was traditionally ambivalent about Bangkok rule.

Thaksin thus drew energy from forces on the periphery — isolated,  contained and oppressed with varying degrees of success by the central government since the 1901-1902 Holy Man (phu mi bun) uprisings. He also put a monkey wrench into the “network monarchy” of which Duncan McCargo speaks, scaring and uniting Yellow Shirt monarchist forces that Eugénie Mérieau refers to as the Deep State of conservative royalist-juridical-military interests, operating through channels both bureaucratic and extra-bureaucratic.

Now, technically, there can be a unified revolt from the periphery, assuming that millions of dollars can be poured into peripheral politics and that a wealthy, ambitious and charismatic figure like Thaksin prizes power or even patriotism over his own personal safety.

The Deep State knows this, hence ridiculous new contortions regarding social media in the lese majeste wars.

Contra those who insist that royalty and royals are peripheral to the process, the Crown Prince is the Wild Card, letting Yellow Shirt/PAD interests act as de factosupport while playing the Red Shirts and new Sino-Thai wealth. A cycling enthusiast as unifying force, a philanderer as promoter of family values.

Thailand, like the United States, has entered a new era, with new communication styles and a new politics busting out. New political and cultural dynamics have stunned the old guard of both parties in the US, inducing a sense of astonishment and disbelief; reality TV is, after all, not real.

In Thailand, the new politics are underscored by passive, go-along, consumerist urban youth, come of age as directed in the Ninth Reign. Tapping into new wealth, new social media, and bottled rage and resentment at centuries of maltreatment from the royal capital in Bangkok, forces from the periphery can, for the first time, dominate the capital, the worst nightmare of the Chakri Dynasty and its hangers-on.

Thaksin would seem to be like Donald Trump (or is that Drumpf?) — a wrecking ball to the status quo. The Crown Prince always has been.

Christine Gray is a cultural anthropologist who writes about the Thai monarchy.

The myth of the popcorn gunman | New Mandala

The myth of the popcorn gunman | New Mandala
Nick Nostitz, 4 MARCH 2016

Photo by Nick Nostitz.

Nick Nostitz reflects on the sentencing of one of the shooters from the infamous Laksi gunfight. 

Nearly two years after the gunfight at the IT Square department store at Laksi, Vivat “Top” Yodprasit, the “Popcorn Gunman”, has been convicted to 37 years and four months in prison.

Top became infamous that day after firing an M16 assault rifle at pro-election protesters while dozens of journalists photographed and filmed him.

During the confrontation between PDRC protesters and Red Shirts four people on the Red Shirt side were injured by gunshots. One elderly man – Akaew Sae Liew, an innocent bystander who was paralyzed by a bullet in his neck – died seven months after the incident. On the PDRC side photographer James Nachtwey was slightly injured by a bullet in his leg.

In the aftermath, the Popcorn Gunman became a powerful symbol for both Red Shirts and PDRC protesters. The PDRC celebrated him as a saviour and even printed T-Shirts with the logo of the popcorn brand of the bag in which the assault rifle was hidden and fired from. For Red Shirts he was the proof of the violent overthrow of their elected government and democracy by dictatorial forces and the PDRC street movement led by Suthep Thaugsuban.

One-and-a-half months after the incident Vivat Yodprasit was arrested by police.

The mythical masked gunman turned out to be just a simple villager and day labourer from Phitsanulok province, who after joining the anti-government protests while looking for work in Bangkok, subsequently volunteered as a protest guard at Suthep’s Rajadamnern stage and, for some in the PDRC, became a quite unlikely figurehead. He was the only one of several dozen PDRC affiliated gunman from the Laksi incident who was arrested and jailed. He also remained the only PDRC affiliated armed militant who was refused bail after arrest.

Two years later, at the reading of the verdict in the Ratchada Criminal Court the Popcorn Gunman was quite obviously not a symbol anymore. Other than journalists, only his family and his girlfriend, and a few fellow guards showing their loyalty, attended the verdict reading. There were no PDRC leaders, no Buddha Issara, the monk under whom he was a protest guard, no Hiso PDRC protesters who once cheered him. It was as if he served his purpose and became an inconvenience to be forgotten as soon as possible.

The court found him guilty, dismissing the retraction of his confession, disbelieving his later claims that he was coerced into coming clean. During the re-enactment of the crime he was supportive of authorities and did not say anything to counter his original confession, despite the presence of many journalists. The court also mentioned interviews he gave immediately after Top’s arrest, during which he confessed in detail, and gave special weight to the police investigation.

After the judgment, Vivat’s girlfriend cried and fainted. The prison guards allowed him to briefly comfort her, before he was led back to the holding cells. The journalists left, filing their stories. I went down to the holding cells as I could not take pictures of Vivat in the morning when he was brought from prison to the court.

Photo by Nick Nostitz.

Only his family, the guards and one ‘Phoojadkarn’ journalist, who soon left as well, remained. In the end, Vivat and his girlfriend silently stared at each other through the bars — 10 metres apart. When, after two hours, he was led to the bus taking him back to prison I took my pictures, the only photographer who was still there. The myth of the Popcorn Gunman is over, and a long time in prison is ahead.

Even though I was at the incident at Laksi and nearly shot by him and his fellow gunmen, I could not feel anger or even satisfaction. I was just thinking of the wasted life of this young man, who is from the same area of the lower north my wife is from, his life and upbringing very similar to my wife’s brothers’ upbringing, but who was caught up in something much larger than him, and who is now the only one made to suffer for his crimes that others carry far more responsibility for.

Just after Vivat Yodprasit’s arrest one investigative journalist did an outstanding extended interview with him, which can be found here.

The interview is in Thai, but I think it is very important, and have therefore transcribed and translated it into English. Download the English version here.

Nick Nostitz is a photo-journalist and long-time contributor to New Mandala.