Almost killed by an M79 grenade

First photos, approximately 1 minute after the blast, I am unconscious and staring vacantly.

On May 19, after two months on the frontlines of the Red Shirt protest, I was hit by an M79 grenade and nearly lost my life.

I had changed tactics and was travelling with the army. Considering the Thai military were shooting protesters, civilians, and journalists indiscriminately (including a Canadian friend of mine who was shot three times and barly survived the trip to the hospital), it seemed sensible precaution to make.

But Red Shirt protesters, the so-called black shirts, were also armed and shooting and was I was photographing the gun battle on Ratchadamri and Sarasan just outside on Lumpini Park.

While I took cover with troops, black shirts launched a series of M79 grenades on to an empty road, two into Lumpin Park, one nears Silom, and one right onto a group of soldiers and myself.

The blast sent 24 pieces of shrapnel tearing through my back and legs, broke a number of ribs, and punctured both my lung and colon. 

Three additional pieces of shrapnel had struck the back of my head, shattered my skull, and entered my brain. A journalist would later tell me he found pieces of my skull on the ground.

I was unconscious, heavily bleeding, and my eyes were open and staring vacantly. Military medics at the scene took my pulse, couldn't find one, and pronounced me dead.

The shameless bastards also stole my camera.

Journalists soon arrived, noticed that I was attempting to breath, and rushed me to hospital.

In fact, the journalists and civilian medics made a great personal risk to help me as there was still heavy machine gun fire in the area. I am deeply grateful for what they did.

I woke up three days later in a Bangkok intensive care unit on Silm road (apparently I was already talking but I have no memory).

While I was torn up by shrapnel wounds that would take an astounding seven weeks to stop bleeding, my broken ribs were aching, and I was disoriented  from hearing loss in my left year, my head injuries were the most worrying.

Shrapnel had penetrated my skull and hit my brain. The neurosurgeon was able to removes two pieces but the third was too dangerous to remove and remains lodged in my head.


I was completely paralyzed on the entire right hand side. I also had serious trouble seeing and recognizing objects and couldn’t even recognize myself in a mirror.

Despite my injuries, I surprised everyone – including my gaggle of doctors – by checking myself out of  the hospital and hobbling away just three weeks later. 


And three months later, I have emerged with very few permanent injuries. Hearing damage, many scars, and an ugly limp, but I am walking and back at work.

So, needless to say, I am taking a break from bloging and concentrating on physiotherapy and work. 

But, considering Thailand’s political turmoil is far from over, I don’t think it will be a long break.

Bangkok burns

All photos from Din Deang district this afternoon (May 16th).

Note: Spotting military snipers in the buildings. Shots rang out periodically all day and there were many injuries and likely some deaths. 

Note: Molatove cocktail.

Live fire zone

All photos from today (May 15th) on Rama 4 in Bonkai district near Klong Toi.

Like many of the last posts, there is too much to say and no time but I should note one thing. I asked many of the protesters at the site what they thought was happening in Thailand. The big picture question, not just the conflict on Rama 4 road that they were engaged in and I was photographing, but what these clashes mean to them and the future of the country.

There was, of course, some variation, but the term that was most often used was 'civil war' (or songkram klanmueng - สงครามกลางเมือง)

Trying to defeat the red shirts through military means is bringing Thailand to the precipice of civil war. 

Note: The helmet was from a protester who was reportedly shot and killed by a military sniper and the man holding the helmet is pointing out where the bullet entered the helmet.

 Note: Fighting the military with fireworks.

Clashes in Bangkok

Bangkok burning; road block near Victory Monument. Residents claimed the military shot two locals on their way home. 10PM My 14th. 

Havent had much time to blog and have had to deal with the near-fatal shooting of a good friend who was shot by the military. And while there is too much to say, I can not say much at this time but will post photos in chronological order starting with May 13th and followed by today's (14th) clashes.

Some photos are graphic and might not want to be viewed by all.

Note: Seh Deang at 6:33 PM on May 13th. He was shot by a sniper at around 7PM.

Note: Motorbike taxi driver shot with a rubber bullet.

Note: Immediately after the above photo of the protester shooting fireworks, two shots rang out and a protester behind me was hit in the head and died.

May 14th on Rama 4 road:

Note: This shot was taken while trapped in the middle of a raging gunfight between the military on the BTS pedestrian bridge on Silom road and unseen, but certainly active, red shirt guards shooting M-16 (which i saw but could not photograph the night before right after Seh Deang was shot inside the red barricades) or other war rifles. There were countless thunderous explosions which reverberated and shook the buildings and might have been M79 grenades.

M79s and ungovernability

While the red shirts are gaining traction with their political message of double standards in the judicial system, there is a more serious problem with looming ungovernability in Thailand.

When I first came to Thailand I was told that "only the stupid and the poor go to jail".

And while there are exceptions, this sharp summary of the Thai judicial system is apt.

There are judicial double standards currently being manipulated by Abhisit's disingenuous and ineffectual government and the powerful non-democratic powers which control Thailand, but the real problem is that there simply is not much 'rule of law' anyway.

While we might talk about the manipulation of the judiciary, corrupt police, or simply the scoff-law traits so prevalent in Thai society, the real problem is that major violent crimes conducted in the political arena are rarely, if ever, resolved.

The list is too long to be detailed but major events like the eight new year's eve bombings in 2006 which killed three and injured 38 or the attempted assassination of Sondhi Limthongkul have simply disappeared, like countless other cases, without resolution.

The key point is that political violence - if not simply violence in general - is not only rampant but exists virtually unchecked. Major violent crimes occur with startling frequency and are rarely, if ever, subject to the police arrest, trial, or conviction.

(This is not even mentioning the southern insurgency which will never, and I really do mean never, be resolved without an end to the judicial impunity exercised by state security forces.)

Take the case of M79 grenade launchers as the quintessential example. Not only have M79s been the weapon of choice for the last couple years in a string of unresolved attacks which have escalated in the last couple weeks but there is the more serious issue of M79 manufacturing.

Characteristic of the shambolic enforcement and judicial system, police raids in Ayutthaya and Samut Prakan provinces uncovered workshops producing literally thousands of M79 grenade launchers but failed to explain or resolve the very serious issues of the production of war weapons.

Also characteristic of Abhisit's military-dependent government, groundless and shrill accusations from sycophantic and mindless ministers quickly pointed towards the red shirt protesters as the destination of the M79s.

We should not underestimate what the accusations imply.

Should protesters be arming themselves with thousands of war weapons, the implication is clear. If thousands of weapons were being commissioned by opponents of the government it would mean that Thailand is at the cusp of a serious and bloody civil war.

But, what is more likely, is that Thailand's puppet government, non-democratic leaders, keystone cops, and incompetent judiciary have fostered a serious ungovernability crisis in Thailand.

The big question, and one hardly broached by the local media, was the more likely destination of a large scale commission of war weapons.

Burma would be a logical guess. The Wa and the Tatamadaw are are at it again and it is not exactly a leap of the imagination to think that locally manufactured weapons are being sold to the Wa or the myriad of ethnic separatist groups or drug gangs operating in Burma.

But, the most plausible explanation, is that the M79s were being manufactured for local consumption not for anti-government forces but for the unaccountable Thai military.

If the GT 200 scandal has taught us anything, it is that wildly uncontrolled military spending equals wildly uncontrolled military corruption.

Military corruption - as opposed to bottom-up police corruption - is a top-down process in which weapons procurement is a core source of ill-gotten revenue for Thailand's curiously wealthy generals.

Rumor is that the recent silence around the raids on the manufacture of M79s is not because the police 'investigation' led to the red shirts but because the military had spent x-billion baht on M79s supposedly manufactured abroad but had commissioned them locally (despite serious concerns over quality in which many simply can not be fired) in a standard-practice procurement scheme that would net top generals millions of baht.

And here we have the crux of ungovernability.

How can a state function properly when those supposedly upholding the state are slinging incendiary allegations of civil war to bolster their highly questionable legitimacy while turning a blind eye to blatant military corruption and allowing an already impotent police force to fail, again and again and again, to bring resolution to serious politically-inspired crime?

So, while the red shirts are gaining political capital pointing out a major deficiency in the Thai judicial system, the net result of a chronic lack of law and order means that the state can not accommodate political contestation and is stumbling forward, like an aging alcoholic, towards a crisis of ungovernability.

Photo of the Day: Dowsing with the Fourth Army

For those following the GT 200 scandal and the military's continued use of the million-baht-coat-hanger, this photo might be amusing.

It is an actual dowsing rod from the Sufficiency Village training center across the road from the Sirindhorn base in Yala province and was being used to show local villagers how to find water. I guess they might as well have been looking for explosives.

Gen Pichet Wisaijorn is observing. November 2009.

The Daily Dose

From Voice TV comes an English language news show called the Daily Dose. I particularly like the show's lead story on an Asia Times story Reds ready to rumble in Thailand which they describe as:

"Reds ready to rumble in Thailand By Nelson Rand and Chandler Vandergrift in Atimes.com had some keen insights into the army's (sic).

These are several key phrases from the article which is worth a read.The military effectively suppressed April's UDD protest, but questions are emerging about possible cracks in the chain of command. While Thailand's military has long been factionalized along graduating class lines, it is now also believed to be divided among competing units, according to experts."

Warring Colours

Guns, guns, guns

*ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT*

Traveling with the the Aor Sor (อส) militia in Maigaan (ไม้แก่น) district of Pattani province. August 16, 2009

Its nice to see some needed scrutiny in the media over the proliferation of small arms and militias in Southern Thailand lately.

The photo above I took last week while traveling the Ministry of Interior's Aor Sor militia.

Notably, most of the militia members didnt wear uniforms or travel in a vehicle with any official markings. Tennis shoes, mismatched military surplus pants, and pick up trucks with tinted windows but no insignia or markings to identify them. But they were well armed with M-16 and shinny new M4A1 assault rifles.

Professor Marc Askew, who spends a substantial amount of time in the southern border provinces, has been focusing on the issue of how non-insurgent violence makes up a surprisingly high percentage of southern violence.

"It is common knowledge among people in the violence-wracked deep South that much of the killing that punctuates daily life stems not just from insurgents' much-publicised military campaign against the state, but from personal disputes and local political rivalries. This lethal mix makes the region a highly complex killing field."

The rest of the worth-reading article in the Bangkok Post is here.

And while fixing a percentage of violence upon general criminality vs. insurgency is both difficult and controversial there is little doubt that the proliferation of arms and militias are a contributing factor to frequency of violence in the south.

The recent killing of 12 worshipers in the mosque in Narathiwat is a prime example. The rumor is that an arrest warrant is out for a 34 year old Thai Buddhist militia member but the fact that his militia is under certain royal patronage will likely prevent justice from ever seeing the case.

And the complicated divide between insurgency and criminality is currently taking place during this month's Ramadan in the South.

There has been a spike in the number of violent incidents and accentuated by the car bombing in Narathiwat on Tuesday. Suggestions by the military are being put forth that the recent violence is attributed to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in which insurgents might be seeking to make a violent statement to mark the holiday.

Alternatively, the Tambon Administrative Organization or TAO elections are being held and, as insiders know and Marc Askew has highlighted, such elections are often marked by political killings.

Either way - insurgency or criminality - the flood of guns and militias are certain to feed into the complicated and intractable configuration of the southern insurgency.


For more on this topic see Rule by the Gun by Nonviolence International and the International Crisis Group's influential report The Problem with Paramilitaries.

Mosque shooting fallout

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Pondok (Islamic school) student in Narathiwat province, 2008.

The fallout from the mosque shooting last week in Narathiwat has succeeded in exacerbating the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhists.

From Muslim militants in the South, there has been a flurry of retributive violence directed along religious lines.

In addition to the usual southern chaos, a Buddhist elementary school teacher was shot and killed while on her way to work. She was the 117th teacher killed in the Deep South since the outbreak of violence.

And a particularly grizzly beheading of an Buddhist rubber tapper whose head was left impaled on a post outside his house also occurred on Monday in Yala.

Besides being deplorable acts of terrorism, the attacks do demonstrate how the mosque shooting has triggered a wave of violence aimed at further dividing southern communities along religious lines.

Clearly separatists and their supporters believe the state or those sponsored by the state (Buddhist militias) are responsible and are using the mosque shooting to further expose religious divisions.

The flurry of violence has also shown that southern militants have the ability and means to continue attacks despite approximately 60,000 troops trying to enforce security.

And from the Buddhist side, the mosque shooting has spawned the ugly appearance of the nationalist right-wing criticism against the government.

Criticism at the government's handling of the south is certainly welcome but the critic quoted bellow demonstrates how Buddhist nationalists have a fundamental misunderstanding and dangerous outlook of the southern situation.

According to Prasong Soonsiri, a right-wing nationalist and former National Security Council member, in an interview on the PAD mouth-piece ASTV station and quoted in this Bangkok Post article:

"The former NSC chief said if he was prime minister he could resolve the southern insurgency problem within three months"

Unless Prasong is planning to arrest every southern Malay-Muslim male resident between the ages of 15 to 45 or simply granting the southern provinces independence then his ridiculously bold statement is simply right-wing nonsense.

Prasong also goes on to make dangerous comments like:

"Now, they [the insurgents] had established a network and infiltrated all three troubled provinces. They were trying to build a base of power within the government administration and were fighting to win support from the mass of the people."

This is dangerous because it is a xenophobic allegation leveled at southern residents whom participate in local democratic governance. To be clear, he is talking about Malay-Muslims as, obviously, there are no Thai-Buddhist separatists.

A major part of the problem is the Deep South is the lack of opportunities in local government for Malay-Muslims as well as venues for them to enter into national-level politics.

If xenophobes like Prasong want to keep Malay-Muslims out of legitimate government where they can channel their grievances through peaceful democratic means then the only other option is armed struggle against an inaccessible and intolerant government.

In addition, he raises the specter of jihad:

"Prasong said the insurgents had become more aggressive because they now had more fighters who were trained abroad"

Prasong is orienting his argument in religious terms as it is somewhat implicit that Muslim fighters trained abroad would be jihadists whom would be conducting a religious war.

Ultimately the mosque shooting has highlighted the ever-present and rather precarious religious sub-plot of the southern insurgency.

As the religious frontline of the conflict has been exposed, both Muslim militants and Buddhist nationalists have used the incident it to further exacerbate and define the conflict along religious lines.

At the risk of stating the obvious, were the military or police to identify, arrest, and pursue charges against the perpetrators of the mosque shooting through the proper legal channels much of this religious-based fallout could be mitigated.

But as incidents at Krue-Ze or Tak Bai have demonstrated the rule of law and a resolution to the mosque shooting is unlikely.

And in the absence of a resolution, the fallout from the mosque shooting will be an increased emphasis on the religious component of the southern insurgency.

Thaksin claims Thailand's king knew of coup plot

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Pretender to the throne dressed in his regal best. Portraits of Thaksin for sale outside Government House 2009.

From the Financial Times titled: Thaksin claims Thailand's king knew of coup plot

"Thaksin Shinawatra, the former premier of Thailand, has accused the country's revered king of prior knowledge of the military coup that toppled him in 2006."
....
"But in an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Thaksin claimed the king had been briefed by leading generals and privy councillors about their plans to remove the polarising former prime minister ahead of the 2006 coup."
...
"According to Mr Thaksin, the coup was presented as a favour to the king, with his privy councillors accusing Mr Thaksin of disloyalty. Mr Thaksin said he had later been told this by General Panlop Pinmanee, who has in the past confirmed that he met Mr Thaksin but denied politics was discussed."

"Mr Thaksin claims that Gen Surayud Chulanont - who served as interim prime minister following the coup - was present at the meeting with the king."

"Gen Surayud, Gen Prem [Tinsulanonda, the senior member of the privy council] and another privy councillor went to have an audience with his majesty the king and told his majesty that they will do a favour for him by getting me because I am not loyal to the king," Mr Thaksin said. "That started the whole process."

Thaksin had opened the possibility for discussing the long-known but never-publicly-disused role of the privy councilors who likely orchestrated the 2006 military coup.

This was unprecedented, and might have escalated tensions, but has been welcomed as many understand the need to introduce some form of open accountability into Thailand's democratic system.

But this latest broadside against the palace is certain to escalate the tensions. As well as further adding to the republican overtones in the Red Shirt movement.

Its a late breaking story here in the Kingdom, but will be read about in the morning and we shall see if it is the bombshell that Thaksin hopes it is or if Thailand's questionable media buries the story.

Citizen, journalist, or simply an plain-clothes soldier?

Both Thai Rath and Channel 3 were reporting a story of residents attacking a Red Shirt protester because they were enraged because protesters had hijacked and parked an LGP tanker outside their apartments.

Yet the photograph used to illustrate the Thai Rath story is highly questionable. Not only is the location wrong but the Thai Rath front page image had clearly been photoshopped removing the camera and camera bag to support the 'citizen' aspect. The Bangkok Pundit has a summary and Pantip has the pictures, as does Prachatai.

The photos on left show two unedited photos with the camera bag and camera visible while the bottom image, which was used on the front page of Thai Rath, the camera and bag have been edited out.

While Thai Rath's photo altering certainly supports accusations that they are providing biased reporting of the news to fit an anti-Red Shirt slant, I witness the event and dont believe it was a photographer or citizen.

The 'journalist' was likely not a journalist. He did have a camera - as did many people there - but he did not carry prominently placed ID that all Thai and international media display when working in such an environment. Two Thai journalists who also witnessed it also claimed that he was not a journalist.

But, he also did not appear to be a normal resident. He had merged into the crowd to confront the women by moving from behind the lines of troops, passing through the troops unobstructed and not from either side of the street which did have some citizens mingling about. When he attacked her, he dragged her by the hair back behind the lines of soldiers which parted on either side so he could pass freely behind military lines.

The image here shows the two Red Shirt women approaching the lines of troops and pictured at far left is myself.

This appears to me as a standard crowd control maneuver used to extract instigators seeking to escalate a protest. He certainly appeared to be working with complicit support from the troops.

The events unfolded very quickly and the journalist assembled would have been able to follow what happened next but the scuffle caused the opposing lines of Red Shirts to surge forward which caused the troops to start thumping their truncheons and shields, raise their weapons in the air, and it appear that the troops were on the cusp of a protest-breaking surge forward. The troops, the protesters, people on the sidelines, and the assembled media all turned their focus to what seemed like an impending large-scale clash rather following the fate of the unfortunate Red Shirt protester.

So, as I understand it, it was a simple but violent crowd control technique which then was unethically and inaccurate misrepresented by Thai Rath.

The old is dying and the new cannot be born

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Thai troops clearing the city of Red Shirt protesters on Tuesday morning (April 14th) about two blocks from Government House.

Tyrell Haberkorn, at Open Democracy writes:

"Thailand's disorder might be seen in terms of a longer view, where many of its people - under great economic pressures, and amid rooted structures of power - are seeking a transformation in the underlying social and political relations of rule."

She also quotes Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks:

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appears."

Not only are the week's violent clashes between soldiers and Red Shirts - or the violence unleashed 4 months ago by the Yellow Shirts - morbid symptoms of this crisis but the real morbidity has been the ugly politics that have been used to justify the violent trajectories that both Reds and Yellows are on.

Ugly symptoms like the Yellow Shirts bigoted suggestion that the rural poor should be disenfranchised of their democratic rights because they 'to stupid' or too 'easily bought'.

Or the complete lack of journalistic impartiality that not only spawned the vile propaganda machine ASTV but also infects the whole profession. The English language papers, and in particular The Nation, which have long given up professional ethics are now moving into dangerous territory in which they are have not simply taken sides but are inciting hatred and fanning the flames of violence.

Or, and most importantly, the break down of the rule of law. Not only is it being applied unevenly - leaving Yellow Shirt criminals free to further incite violence - but it has failed to draw a clear distinction between legitimate democratic protest and mob violence. Both Red and Yellow are guilty but the state is at fault. Applying the law evenly is essential but so is dealing with every criminal trespass upon the law. Go to a protest fine - carry a weapon, attack the Prime Minister, or take over government buildings and you should get arrested.

But these morbid symptoms, as Gramsci suggests, are the ugly manifestations of an epic struggle playing itself out on the streets of Bangkok, across the provinces, and dividing the nation which is at the precipice of change.

While Abhisit has pulled his government back from the brink of collapse and the Red Shirts have been cleared from the streets, Pandora's box has been opened.

The old power structures that have created one of the highest Gini coefficients, that is often simplified as a discrepancy between the largely urban rich and the largely rural poor, have been dragged out into the harsh light of day and publicly challenged.

There is no going back from this. Change - in the form of a full blown revolution, in a negotiated settlement, or in a myriad of forms - now has momentum.

Calm has returned, but this is an interregnum and no one knows how long it will last.

This week - in photos

*All Photos Copyright*

This is more of the 'cutting room floor' in which a number of interesting images that have no general purpose other than illustrating the chaotic week will be posted.

Unfortunately, do to blogger's inability to utilize many images and format them with captions, there will not be captions explaining the context of the photos.