THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

hidden behind large billboards reflecting this new official mood of forced optimism. One
repeated, over and over, a single phrase:
EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.
Another giant banner proclaimed:
REBUILDING ZEN, LOVING THAILAND
May this Rebuilding bring Peace and Prosperity to Thailand.
We must Reconcile as we are One Country, One Family and One People.
Thailand’s military, which has good reason to fear ghosts having turned its guns on its own
people so many times, made the extraordinary claim that none of the deaths or even any of
the injuries during the April and May violence were caused by Thai soldiers. Everything had
been caused by the shadowy “black shirts”, the “third hand” trying to destabilize Thailand.
Although this claim was quite clearly unsupportable, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban also sought to deny any responsibility for any
of the deaths, including the six people killed at Wat Pathum Wanaram. Suthep repeatedly
insisted that no soldiers were on the Skytrain tracks and the gunmen must have been arsonists
or thieves; this claim has been comprehensively shown to be false. Jatuporn Prompan, the
only Red Shirt leader not on the run or in jail, due to his immunity as an elected legislator,
used a parliamentary no-confidence debate at the start of June to challenge the government’s
claim that soldiers were not responsible for the May 19 killings in Wat Pathum Wanaram:
What happened at Wat Pathum cannot be ignored. You can't hide the sky with your
palm. The truth must come out.
The spirits of the dead were being exorcised from Ratchaprasong, through the symbolic
scrubbing of the streets, the frenzied insistence on peace and unity, and the attempt to absolve
the military of blame. Thais were told to work together to build a better future, not dwell on
the divisive quarrels of the past. There was little scope for any organized challenge to this
official narrative. A state of emergency was enforced in Bangkok and across the Red Shirt
heartlands in Thailand’s north and northeast. The senior leadership of the Red Shirts, with
the exception of Jatuporn, were all in jail or in hiding. Most community radio stations in Red
areas were shut down, accused of spreading discord and violence, but Yellow Shirt media
were allowed to continue broadcasting often extremist propaganda. Websites critical of the
military and the coalition government were blocked as threats to national security. Political
gatherings and rallies were banned.
Into this blighted, oppressive political landscape of military dominance and silenced voices
came bicycling a slightly shambolic, bespectacled, floppy-haired figure who was to change
the course of 2010 far more significantly than anyone had expected: 42-year-old veteran
human rights activist Sombat Boonngamanong. Never part of the core Red Shirt movement,
Sombat was regarded by the military as more of an irritant than a serious threat. He had been
the first to organize a protest rally after the 2006 coup and was arrested for speaking at a
pro-democracy rally in northern Thailand in July 2007, as reported by the U.S. consulate in
Chiang Mai:
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The July 6 arrest in Chiang Rai of an anti-coup activist provided pro-democracy
campaigners new fuel to attack the Council for National Security (CNS) and the
continued use of martial law in 35 provinces.
Sombat Boonngarm-anong, a member of the Democratic Alliance Against