Thai generals to squirm in spotlight after shopping mall massacre

CCTV captures Jakrapanth Thomma walking through the Terminal 21 mall. Picture: Supplied

Thailand’s Prime Minister, Prayuth Chan-o-Cha, was quick to characterise the weekend’s killing of 26 people by a Thai soldier during a 17-hour siege in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima as an “unprecedented” event.

Sergeant Major Jakrapanth Thomma was nothing more than a crazed gunman who went “mad” over a land deal gone wrong involving his commanding officer — his first victim on Saturday afternoon, he said.

Mass killings by a lone gunman are indeed unusual in Thailand where massacres are more likely to be a result of a military crackdown than an active shooter. But the weekend murders are likely to throw an uncomfortable spotlight on the Thai military, which continues to pull the levers of government, despite Prayuth having stepped down from his role in the military junta to contest last year’s election as the head of an ostensibly civilian party.

Thais are increasingly resentful of the military’s continued role in government, particularly given its perceived incompetence in handling an economy in its worst shape in five years. Many Thais will be asking why the powerful military was unable to prevent a low-ranking soldier from stealing a fearsome arsenal from the country’s largest army barracks, and how it is that it took 18 hours for security forces to end his killing spree?

“It’s not just that in the past five, going on six, years we have had a government more or less with military backing and that they have been unaccountable, which is one thing,” says Chulangkorn University political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak.

“Worse is the fact the government has been incompetent and unwilling to bring in more capable hands to run the economy and provide a way forward. Even in their handling of this over the last 24 hours … if a military-backed government cannot maintain public safety and public peace of mind then that’s a big question for them to answer.”

Pongsudhirak says the “deeply disturbing” events of the weekend reflect a broader bottom-up pressure within Thai society.

A senior military officer who spoke to The Australian on condition of anonymity said many junior soldiers are under intense financial pressure from stagnant wages even as the cost of living across Thailand has continued to rise. It common for them to seek financial help from senior officers, he says.

That, says Pongsudhirak, is a plight felt more broadly across the lower economic echelons of Thai society who are suffering disproportionately in the current downturn.

Thailand has already been battered by drought and a global economic slowdown caused by the US-China trade war. Its heavy reliance on Chinese tourists and China trade means its economy is now considered to be among the most vulnerable in the region to losses from the coronavirus.

With that economic slowdown also fostering a growing sense of personal insecurity, amid a rise in economic-linked crime, the military will now need to explain why it is unable to deliver on even its core competency — security.