Timing and location, location, location
The Guy in the Yellow T-shirt certainly has a gift for timing. Assuming he's the real Bangkok Bomber, he turned the self-described "City of Life" into a city of death only one day after hundreds of thousands of Thais in blue shirts cycled across the city in the Bike for Mom spectacular; a two-wheeled homage to the Queen's birthday, led by Crown Prince Maha himself.
And that's where the wilderness of mirrors unveils -- or reflects -- the Thai royal succession. Since the coup in May 2014, General Prime Minister Prayuth's pride and joy has been to provide Thailand with some sort of stability. Yes, this is a military junta -- but most people at least in Bangkok are not complaining; compared to the nasty polarization -- and appalling violence -- of the past decade, this looks and feels like a five-star spa. The price was paid by democracy; crackdown on all forms of political protest, silencing -- or ignoring -- the opposition as a whole, a wave of arrests.
But now the going gets tougher. Last year, General Prime Minister Prayuth was saying that democracy would be back by October 2015, two months from now. A new road though map spells out elections only -- maybe -- by 2017.
The draft of a new constitution is due to be voted next month by the -- also quaintly Orwellian -- National Reform Council. And a public referendum may -- or may not -- happen in January 2016.
This is all supposed to be in place in case the royal succession is relatively imminent. Revered King Bhumibol's health is faltering, and the Crown Prince's public profile displayed in full -- and fun -- regalia at the Bike for Mom spectacular is part of the softening of the transition. Key subtext; all avenues for Thaksin Shinawatra and his Red Shirt army to plan a comeback must be closed a.s.a.p.
Stability? What stability?
The Bangkok bombing's day-after was marked by yet another IED, this one thrown from a bridge across the Chao Praya river. It missed a boat and the bustling Sathorn pier -- very close to the Shangri-La hotel -- by a whisker and exploded in the water. The target, once again; global tourists and local civilians, echoing Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan's substantially correct initial verdict at the Erawan shrine; "The perpetrators intended to destroy the economy and tourism."
And that may point to the military junta's ultimate nightmare; what if The Guy in the Yellow T-shirt detonated a rolling campaign to target all Bangkok's top tourist magnets?
Thailand is not exactly stagnated; according to Credit Suisse it may grow 2.5% this year -- not shabby in a downward global economy. But no less than two-thirds of this GDP growth comes from tourism. And tourism from Asia. Hong Kong has already issued a red alert on travel to Thailand.
Out of the fatal victims at Erawan, there are, so far, apart from five Thais, three Chinese, two Hong Kong residents, two Malaysians, one Singaporean, one Indonesian and one Filipino. Many of the wounded are from China and Taiwan. Special booths near the shrine were set up with plenty of Chinese translators to help the victims, relatives and even Chinese media.
What's certain is that The Bangkok Bomber already smashed the junta's credibility. What kind of "stability" is that when the military could not see it coming -- the largest, deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Bangkok?
The next step may well be round up the usual (Red Shirt) suspects. As in the leaders/faithful road warriors of the deposed (twice) Shinawatra clan.
A pipe bomb packed with 3kg of TNT and wrapped in cloth has precedents. Only six months ago two small pipe bombs exploded near the upscale Siam Paragon mall, not far from the Erawan shrine. Responsibility was attributed to the red shirts. That happened only one month after a national assembly -- controlled by the General Prime Minister -- decided that the former spectacularly inefficient prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra should be excluded from politics for five years.
And one of two suspects who fired grenades at Thailand's Criminal Court building earlier this year happened to be close to Thaksin's cousin, Chaiyasit Shinawatra.
Yet don't forget the wilderness of mirrors. Bangkok's velvet corridors have been shaken by rumors of a counter coup. There are factions not exactly amused by the General Prime Minister too comfortably settling down in the power seat; and most of all, these factions are increasingly incensed by the very close Bangkok-Beijing relationship.
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