Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 20 May 2010 :-
Arson loss at Centre One 1 billion baht =============================
The damage caused by the fire at Centre One shopping mall at Victory Monument could be as high as one billion baht, Rattapol Kraijirachote, the managing director said on Thursday.
“More than 1,000 employees of about 300 shops inside Centre One are now jobless because of the arsonists," Mr Rattapol said.
The shopping centre was set ablaze by rioters yesterday and fire fighters were able to bring the fire under control only this morning.
Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 20 May 2010 :-
BOT: Banks can open this weekend ===========================
Banks nationwide can be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Bank of Thailand (BOT) assistant governor Sorasit Soontornkes said on Thursday.
Mr Sorasit said the central bank had received many complaints from the public after it announced that all commercial banks and financial institutions will remain close this weekend due to the escalating political unrest in Bangkok and other provinces.
Debt payments had become a problem following the announcement, he said.
"To ease people's financial difficulties, all banks, especially the ones in department stores, can open from Friday to Sunday without asking for the BOT's permission," the assistant governor said.
Was Big C also burned down ? An early post by PL69 from BangkokPost said it was torched but it does not figure in the BMA's list of 34 places set on fire posted above.
"At least 35 buildings were set on fire Wednesday night, the local government said.
Central World Department Store and a Big-C shopping outlet at Ratchaprasong were gutted as firefighters were prevented from reaching the burning buildings by protesters, a Bangkok government official said.
Both outlets belong to the Central Department Group, deemed a supporter of the 'ammat', or Thailand's bureaucratic elite, vilified by the demonstration's leaders, who painted their movement as a 'class war' and 'people's revolution'. "
Quote: from Kaymanx on 4:41 pm on May 20, 2010 Both outlets belong to the Central Department Group, deemed a supporter of the 'ammat', or Thailand's bureaucratic elite, vilified by the demonstration's leaders, who painted their movement as a 'class war' and 'people's revolution'. "
Apparently, the buildings were not random targets. They have been planned.
From BangkokPost, May 20th, 2010 12:47 PM
Arson was pre-planned, says Sansern
The arson around the capital and in other provinces after the surrender of some red-shirt leaders on Wednesday had been planned ahead, Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said on Thursday.
Some of the red-shirt leaders had urged the protesters to burn down buildings and loot, he said.
"In Bangkok, there have been attempts to set fires at 39 places including government offices, private properties, television stations," Col Sansern said.
Efforts toput out the fires were being hampered by gunmen, who were attempting to attack the firemen, he said.
Col Sansern then showed a video clip showing red-shirt leader Natthawut Saikua telling protesters, "Burn them, brothers and sisters. I will be the only one taking responsibility."
Col Sansern also said that there were attempts to attack protesters taking refuge at Wat Pathumwanaram, where more than 5,000 red-shirts were staying on Wednesday.
Six bodies were found inside Thai Red Cross Society tent inside the temple grounds, he said.
According to reports, the victims were killed by war weapons as they tried to leave the temple for Pathumwan intersection, where the had CRES prepared buses for protesters to go home, Col Sansern said.
It was believed they were killed between 5pm and 6pm on Wednesday. Security personnel and police were still unable to enter the area at the time, he said.
-------------
Here's the video clip showing Natthawut Saikua ordering the red shirts to set the city on fire.
Dispatch From the Bangkok Riot Zone By Denis Horgan | May 20, 2010 ----------------------------------------------------- The following is a long e-letter from Denis Horgan’s friend Steve van Beek, a journalist and writer who has lived and worked in Bangkok for nearly four decades. He and his wife, Piyawee, are caught up in the middle of the riots and bloodshed scalding that lovely place.
Excerpts: (to help foreigners understand) “… If the foreign press were in fact able to speak Thai well enough to follow all the reportage here coming from all sides, they would also be including some of the following information in their reports. I want to insist yet again that I am not siding with anyone. The following is just information that people really need before they write their news reports.
• Thaksin was democratically elected, but became increasingly undemocratic, and the country gradually devolved from a nation where oligarchs skimmed off the top to a kleptocracy of one. During his watch, thousands of people were summarily executed in the South of Thailand and in a bizarre “war on drugs” in which body count was considered a marker of success.
• The coup that ousted Thaksin was of course completely illegal, but none of the people who carried it out are in the present government.
• The yellow shirts’ greatest error in moulding its international image was to elevate Thaksin’s corruption as its major bone of contention. Thai governments have always been corrupt. The extent of corruption and the fact that much of it went into only one pocket was shocking to Thais, but the west views all “second-rate countries” as being corrupt. Had they used the human rights violations and muzzling of the press as their key talking points, the “heroic revolution” archetype would have been moulded with opposite protagonists, and CNN and BBC would be telling an opposite story today.
• The constitution which was approved by a referendum after the coup and which brought back democracy was flawed, but it provided more checks and balances, and made election fraud a truly accountable offense for the first time.
• The parliamentary process by which the Democrat coalition came to power was the same process by which the Lib Dems and Tories have attained power in Britain. The parliament that voted in this government consists entirely of democratically elected members.
• No one ever disputed the red shirts’ right to peaceful assembly, and the government went out of its way to accede to their demands.
• This country already has democracy. Not a perfect one, but the idea of “demanding democracy” is sheer fantasy
• The yellow shirts did not succeed in getting any of their demands from the government. The last two governments changed because key figures were shown to have committed election fraud. They simply did not take their own constitution seriously enough to follow it.
• The red TV station has a perfect right to exist, but if foreign journalists actually understood Thai, they would realise that much of its content went far beyond any constitutionally acceptable limits of “protected speech” in a western democracy. Every civilised society limits speech when it actually harms others, whether by inciting hate or by slander. The government may have been wrong to brusquely pull the plug, but was certainly right to cry foul. It should have sought an injunction first. Example: Arisman threatened to destroy mosques, government buildings, and “all institutions you hold sacred” … a clip widely seen on YouTube, without subtitles. Without subtitles, it looks like “liberty, equality, fraternity.”
• The army hasn’t been shooting women and children … or indeed anyone at all, except in self-defence. Otherwise this would all be over, wouldn’t it? It’s simple for a big army to mow down 5,000 defenceless people.
• Since the government called the red shirts’ bluff and allowed the deputy P.M. to report to the authorities to hear their accusations, the red leaders have been making ever-more fanciful demands. The idea of UN intervention is patently absurd. When Thaksin killed all those Muslims and alleged drug lords, human rights groups asked the UN to intervene. When the army took over the entire country, some asked the UN to intervene. The UN doesn’t intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign countries except when requested to by the country itself or when the government has completely broken down.
• Thailand hasn’t had an unbreachable gulf between rich and poor for at least 20 years. These conflicts are about the rise of the middle class, not the war between the aristocrats and the proletariat.
• Abhisit, with his thoroughly Western and somewhat liberal background, shares the values of the West and is in fact more likely to bring about the social revolution needed by Thailand’s agrarian poor than any previous leader. He is, in fact, pretty red, while Thaksin, in his autocratic style of leadership, is in a way pretty yellow. Simplistic portrayals do not help anyone to understand anything.
• The only people who do not seem to care about the reds’ actual grievances are their own leaders, who are basically making everyone risk their lives to see if they can get bail.
• The king has said all that he is constitutionally able to say when he spoke to the supreme court justices and urged them to do their duty. The western press never seem to realise that the Thai monarchy is constitutionally on the European model … not, say, the Saudi model. The king REIGNS … he doesn’t “rule.” This is a democracy. The king is supposed to symbolise all the people, not a special interest group.
The above are just a few of the elements that needed to be sorted through in order to provide a balanced view of what is happening in this country …” -Vichai_N
Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 20 May 2010 :-
Over 300 public properties vandalised ==============================
More than 300 incidents of rioters vandalising public properties were reported since Wednesday, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) spokesman Thanom Ornkedpol said on Thursday night.
These included destruction of public phone booths, commercial branches and bus stop signs on Rama IV, Sukhumvit, Silom Din Daeng, Ratchaprarop, Phetburi roads and neighbouring areas, Mr Thanom said.
Thirty-six buildings including CentralWorld shopping complex and Siam Theatre were have been set on fire in the past two days, he said.
There are many people expressing their wishes to help the BMA to clean public properties in the capital, he said.
