Odd police reaction to Thai bomb raises 'hoax' question

I think it's great that the Thai press has the courage to ask whether the recent alleged assassination attempt on Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was faked to galvanize public support ahead of elections. Such a scenario would fit with Thaksin's very bizarre attempts to market himself to a sleepy and muddleheaded Thai electorate as 'the defender of democracy'.

Brickbats to the Nation, however, in not being able to nail down the actual composition of the explosives found in the car. Two sticks of dynamite and some loose bags of fertilizer tossed in the passenger seat or a carefully prepared package of C-4, primed and ready for detonation?

from the Nation:

Reaction to 'bomb' raises key questions

Failure by police to follow standard safety procedures discredits view that an 'assassination plot' was underway

National Intelligence Agency director Jumpol Manmai was very emotional on Thursday night when discussing the alleged plot to bomb Thaksin Shinawatra's motorcade with Channel 9 news talk-show host Sorrayuth Suthassanachinda. He said that when he saw the explosive materials in the seized car, he became speechless and tears welled up in his eyes. From what he and other senior police officers said, the bomb had been assembled and was ready to go off. And if it had, the explosion would have caused destruction on a tragic scale. Initial police accounts mentioned that the devastation from the explosion could have covered a one-kilometre radius. The Krung Thon Bridge, they said, would have borne the brunt of the blast.

This brings us to a very important question: why weren't efforts made to save people's lives? Crowd control was sloppy to say the least. Television footage as well as newspaper photos show that to be the case. Onlookers and news crews were allowed within 50 metres or so of the car. No warnings were given to residents in the vicinity of the vehicle that their lives were in grave danger. If the bomb posed as serious a threat as police contend, the non-existence of safety measures mocks their statements.

With doubts already widespread as to whether the bomb scare was genuine or rather a set-up intended to reverse the caretaker prime minister's political fortunes, police ignorance of standard safety procedures only fuel that perception. This raises more disturbing questions and increases suspicions concerning the course of events on Thursday. And if the police fail to provide a reasonable explanation as to why for all practical purposes they treated it like a simple grenade where crowd control was concerned, this issue will become the biggest loose end in the assassination theory.

First, it brings the issue of whether the explosives had actually been assembled and were ready to be detonated to the fore. According to reports, police initially said the materials had not been connected, meaning it was an incomplete bomb, thus undermining the assassination theory significantly. Police later changed their story, saying the bomb was ready to be triggered by remote control.

It's not clear exactly when it dawned on police that the bomb was "complete" and that someone could set it off at any minute by remote control. But the manner in which police approached the car and handled the crowds as well as endangered residents did not suggest a professional awareness of public safety. The possibility that the mastermind behind the bombing plot might decide to blow up the car to destroy all of the evidence apparently did not cross the minds of senior police officials in charge at the scene.

And responsible and prudent police officers would never have discounted the possibility of this being a terrorist act, targeted at the public in general. Of course, a carload of explosives found near the prime minister's residence would cause anyone to assume who the most likely target was. But what if there had been a Bali-style malicious intention behind the act? How were the police so sure that the bomb was intended to kill Thaksin?

In the event that it was a Bali-style terrorist act, there would always have been the possibility that the bomb would be detonated at any time by remote control. The police apparently did not take this into account, judging from the way they allowed onlookers to be within killing range of the bomb. Sheer ignorance or incompetence?

Surely, the anti-Thaksin movement may be thinking that there was something worse at work here than police inefficiency. They may presume that the police were not interested in crowd control or a possible evacuation because they knew the bomb's real secret - that it was never intended to go off to begin with.

Police have vowed to get to the bottom of the incident. They have asked the public, media, government politicians and the anti-Thaksin movement all to stay calm and stop speculating or accusing anyone. They have asked for time to complete their investigation and for suspects to be sent to court.

The request is fair enough, but what the police must do first is to make us fully trust them, which the virtual lack of safety awareness they displayed does not help accomplish.