Regional News
Insurgent Bombings in Thailand Targeting Tourist Cities, Killing 4 People
People help an injured man after twin bombs exploded in the upscale resort of Hua Hin, Thailand, on Thursday.
AFP
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HUA HIN — Attackers using firebombs and homemade explosives struck a series of popular resort cities and beach towns across Thailand in some of the worst violence to hit the country since a military coup two years ago. At least four people were killed and dozens wounded, including 11 foreigners.
It was not clear who was behind the attacks Thursday and Friday, which followed a successful referendum held last weekend on a new constitution that critics say will bolster the military’s power for years to come.
The attacks occurred south of Bangkok and several of the blasts — including one on Patong beach in the tourist town of Phuket and four in the seaside resort city of Hua Hin — appeared designed to strike the tourism industry, which provides vital income to the government.
Police said firebombs also triggered blazes at markets and shops in six places, including Phuket, Trang, Surat Thani, Phang Nga and a souvenir shop in the tourist town of Ao Nang, Krabi.
Thailand’s economy has sagged since the military seized power in a 2014 coup. But tourism has remained one of the few bright spots, with visitors rising to 30 million in 2015 and more than 14 million having visited by May 2016, according to the latest official figures.
Foreign governments, including the United States, issued warnings Friday urging travelers to use caution and avoid affected areas.
Police said four of the injured tourists were from Germany, two from Italy and one from Austria. The Netherlands said four of its citizens were also wounded.
“It is not yet clear who is behind these attacks,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. “But one thing is clear: no political aim justifies violence and attacks on innocent people.”
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said the government was doing the best it “could to provide security to the country. … We have to band together and stay strong.”
“Why has it happened now when the country is improving … Who (did it)? Who doesn’t want to see Thailand getting better? Which group? Go find out for me.”
Police said they were investigating all leads and had ruled out links to international militant groups.
Royal Thai Police Col. Krisana Patanacharoen said it was “too early to conclude” who was behind the attacks. But he said the bombings followed “a similar pattern used in the southern parts of the country” — a reference to a low-level insurgency in the country’s Islamic south that has ground on for more than a decade and killed more than 5,000 people.
Southern militants fighting for greater autonomy have carried out sophisticated, coordinated attacks before, but most have hit three provinces in the far south that were not among those targeted Thursday and Friday.
The most devastating explosion occurred overnight in Hua Hin on a busy street filled with bars and restaurants. One Thai woman was killed and about 20 people were wounded, half of them foreigners, according to police Lt. Chaiyot Tisawong.
Gen. Sithichai Srisopacharoenrath, the superintendent of police in Hua Hin, said the bombs were hidden inside potted plants and were set off by remote control, about half an hour apart. The second blast caused the death and injuries. He said a Samsung cellphone had been recovered that they believe was used to detonate at least one of the bombs.
On Friday, debris and ball bearings could be seen strewn across the road as police investigated the scene. The blast damaged a pair of phone booths and shattered the window of a nearby Starbucks.
Many shops in the city center closed afterward and normally bustling streets were empty, for good reason: Hua Hin was hit by another two bombs that exploded in quick succession Friday morning near a clock tower, killing one person and wounding four more.
Separate blasts were reported elsewhere in the south. One exploded on Phuket city’s popular Loma Beach, injuring one person. Two more detonated half an hour apart in front of two police stations in Surat Thani in southern Thailand, killing one and wounding three. And two bombs exploded outside a market in Phang Nga, damaging two vehicles but causing no casualties.
On Thursday afternoon, a bomb blew up in the southern province of Trang — full of beautiful beaches and tourist islands — killing one person and injuring six, according to police and Thai press reports.
In Hua Hin, 51-year-old Italian Andrea Tazzioli said he “saw light, white light” after the second of Thursday night’s explosions, and that he immediately felt pain in his shoulder “like big fire.”
Speaking later at a hospital, he said he fell down and saw people “screaming, the glass broken, table broken, confusion.”
Tourist Shane Brett told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from his hotel room that there was panic after the first Hua Hin explosion.
“I was at a bar in the main bar district in Hua Hin right outside the Hilton Hotel and at first I heard kind of a bang … and everyone kind of panicked,” Brett said.
He looked outside and saw people running. Half an hour later, heading back to his hotel, he saw “a good few people injured and the whole area just panicking … the whole area was just shut down with police cars, ambulances.”
Thailand has been plagued by political violence, including several bombings, since the populist billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 military coup after demonstrations accused him of corruption, abuse of power.
Thaksin’s ouster set off sometimes-bloody battles for power between his supporters and opponents, who include the military. The government of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, who became prime minister in 2011, was toppled in the country’s last coup in 2014.
On Sunday, Thai voters approved a referendum on a new constitution that is supposed to lead to an election next year. Critics say it is undemocratic and is fashioned to keep the military in control for at least five more years even if a free election is held.
Here is a brief timeline of major blasts in Thailand in the past five years, compiled by AFP. The list does not include incidents in the deep South.
2010 July: A suspected bomb rips through a bus stop in central Bangkok, leaving at least nine people injured and reigniting tensions two months after the end of opposition protests.
October: A blast at a Bangkok apartment complex kills four, with the government blaming the incident on the anti-government “Red Shirt” movement, which denies any involvement.
2011 December: A makeshift explosive device is found and defused near the government lottery office in the capital with authorities saying the perpetrators wanted to “challenge the government”.
2012 February: A string of botched blasts across Bangkok injure several people in an alleged plot by Iranian suspects to kill Israeli diplomats. Two Iranian men, including one who accidentally blew off his own legs, were sentenced in 2013 to between 15 years and life over the failed plot.
2013 May: A homemade bomb hidden near rubbish bins in a busy suburban Bangkok shopping area explodes, injuring seven people.
2014 January: Twin blasts by unknown attackers at an anti-government protest in central Bangkok leave 28 injured.
February: A woman and a child are killed in a grenade attack during an anti-government rally in a Bangkok shopping district popular with tourists.
February: A grenade explosion also in a bustling Bangkok shopping district kills three people, including two children.
March: A string of grenade blasts rocks the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, popular with foreign tourists, leaving four people wounded. Police say the attacks could be linked to the kingdom’s deadly political crisis.
2015 February: Two small bombs explode near a popular shopping mall in downtown Bangkok, injuring one man.
April: A car bomb packed inside a pick-up truck on the Thai resort island of Samui wounds seven people, including an Italian girl.
August: An explosion rips through the Erawan shrine in downtown Bangkok killing 20 people, mainly ethnic Chinese tourists, in the deadliest such attack in the country in recent years.
2016 February: A car bomb detonates outside a police station in southern Thailand, injuring at least seven people.
August: An explosion at a Trang street market kills a male vendor and wounds at least five bystanders.
August: Twin blasts in the seaside resort town of Hau Hin kill one Thai woman selling papaya and injure 19, including foreign tourists.
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Pitman reported from Bangkok. Associated Press journalists Tassanee Vejpongsa, Grant Peck, Natnicha Chuwiruch and Vicky Ge Huang in Bangkok, and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show that Phuket’s Loma Beach was hit, not Patong Beach, and that there were four explosions in Hua Hin, not three.
Thailand’s Immigration Police have detained approximately 26,000 illegal migrant workers from Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia during an eight-day operation in Bangkok and surrounding regions, according to a Royal Thai Police spokesperson.
Mr Adisorn Keudmeuangkhon of the Bangkok-based Migrant Working Group said the drive was in response to an increasing number of concerns about an influx of illegal migrant labor.
“Some Thai people see that many illegal workers are competing for their job positions in the past few months,” he told me. “That’s why the ministry has to take tougher action.”
Civil strife in Myanmar and the recent implementation of a military conscription have driven thousands of Burmese into Thailand, while severe inflation and limited job opportunities in Laos have also encouraged an influx of workers from that country.
Between June 5 and 12, officials detained and checked 20,111 Myanmar laborers, 1,659 Laotian migrant workers, and 3,971 Cambodian workers, according to the Ministry of Labor.
It marked the start of a 120-day campaign to audit workplaces and arrest unlawful migrant workers, according to the government.
Migrant Workers to be Deported
According to Keudmeuangkhon, undocumented workers face fines ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 Thai baht (US $136 to $1,365), deportation, and a two-year prohibition on re-entering Thailand.
Authorities did not intend to file criminal charges, he claimed.
Authorities raided 1,774 workplaces, according to Moe Gyo, chairman of the Joint Action Committee on Burmese Affairs, which advocates for Myanmar labor rights.
He stated that since the military junta activated conscription, there has been an upsurge in the number of arrests of Myanmar citizens in Thailand who do not have a work permit identity card.
All men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 must serve in the military for at least two years. The first group of 5,000 conscripts summoned by Myanmar’s junta will start duty at the end of this month, military sources told AFP on Monday.
According to Keudmeuangkhon, the bulk of Lao migrant workers in Thailand work as fresh market shopkeepers, restaurant servers, and mall salespeople.
Most people visit Thailand as part of ASEAN’s visa-free policy for tourists, but they stay longer than the 30-day restriction once they find job.
“Employers like to hire Lao migrant workers in the service sector because they can speak fluent Thai,” he told me.
Immigration Police Detain Illegal Migrant Workers
The Thai Cabinet may approve an enhanced program for Thai employers to register their unauthorized foreign workers in July or August. Keudmeuangkhon explained.
Last month, the Thai Ministry of Labor’s Foreign Workers Administration office announced that 268,465 Lao migrant workers were officially working in Thailand.
Baykham Kattiya, Lao Minister of Labor, told Radio Free Asia earlier this month that there are 415,956 migrant workers in other nations, the majority of whom work in Thailand.
According to her, the Lao government believes that over 203,000 persons working outside of the nation lack proper work documents.
However, a Lao official familiar with the labor industry informed Radio Free Asia, a BenarNews-affiliated news station, on June 20 that the number of illegal Lao migrant workers in Thailand and abroad is likely significantly greater.
“They go to other countries as illegal migrant workers through different types of methods – as tourists or students,” said the politician. “Thus, it is hard for the immigration police to collect data on these people.”
Government Officials Responsible for Smuggling in Migrant Workers
Government Officials Responsible for Smuggling in Migrant Workers
Thailand’s Office of Basic Education Commission has initiated an investigation into the electrocution of a 14-year-old student by a water dispenser in a high school. The event happened at noon on Friday, during the high school’s sports day. The victim was a Grade 8 student.
According to local media in Trang Province, the incident occurred when a teacher instructed the pupil to turn off a water dispenser amid a heavy rain.
According to a witness, the child collapsed while strolling with his friend near a water station. The friend claimed he attempted to assist but was also shocked by electricity.
According to reports, the friend then recovered, left the site, and requested assistance from teachers. A teacher ran to the scene and used a towel to pull the boy away by the ankle. He was taken to the hospital, but it was too late, they claimed.
The event sparked criticism from parents and netizens over school safety, as well as the slow response to aid the young youngster.
Mr. Chainarong Changrua, head of Trang-Krabi’s Secondary Educational Service Area Office, told local media on Sunday that forensic officers from Trang Provincial Police had visited the area. They discovered the blown breaker switch behind the water dispenser, he explained.
The breaker was burned out, thus the authorities assumed the disaster was caused by a short circuit that allowed energy to spill to a neighboring power pole. The student also appeared wet and was not wearing shoes when electrocuted.
According to the Office of Basic Education Commission, a probe team will complete its investigation this week.
The student’s father, Mr Pornchai Thepsuwan, 53, claimed he was saddened when he saw his son’s body. The boy (Wayu), was the youngest of two boys, he explained. He stated that following the tragedy, the school director and staff gave financial assistance to the families.
Mr Pornchai also said he would not seek charges against the institution because he believed it was an accident.
Electrical accidents in Thailand
Electrocution instances in Thailand have increased alarmingly in recent years. Many mishaps occur as a result of improper wiring and inadequate maintenance of electrical systems.
Public locations, such as schools and markets, frequently lack adequate safety precautions, putting individuals in danger. In rural areas, antiquated infrastructure exacerbates the situation, resulting in more frequent and serious events.
Although several high-profile cases have brought these challenges to light, genuine progress has been gradual. Furthermore, the rainy season heightens the likelihood of electrical accidents, as water and exposed wires do not mix well.
The government has made steps to strengthen safety standards, but enforcement is patchy. More education on electrical safety could help to reduce these accidents.
Unfortunately, better infrastructure and tougher rules may have prevented many of these incidents. The loss and injuries caused by electrocution are avoidable, emphasizing the need for immediate action.
Over 200 High School Students Facing Sedition Charges in Thailand
Over 200 High School Students Facing Sedition Charges in Thailand
Thailand’s Tourist Police said it is collaborating with embassies from five countries to combat tourist scams and ten criminal gangs in Pattaya. The Tourist Police Bureau, convened a meeting on Thursday Pol Lt Gen Saksira Phuek-am told a press briefing.
Pol Lt Gen Saksira Phuek-am, the Tourist Police bureau commissioner said the participants included ambassadors from South Korea, Ukraine, Russia, India, and Switzerland.
He told the briefing the he had ordered a crackdown on tourist frauds, such as fraudulent or low-quality tour operators and unfair sales of goods and services. Stepped-up operations began on June 19 and will continue until June 25.
He stated that the agency was working with numerous organisations to increase tourists’ confidence in visiting Pattaya.
Gen Saksira spent time on the famed Walking Street speaking with officers on duty and assigned them to seek for members of ten criminal groups known to operate in Pattaya.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin will visit Chon Buri on Saturday to assess the tourism situation. He intends to visit the site of a future Formula One racecourse near Khao Phra Tamnak in Bang Lamung District.
Prime Minister Srettha recently met with Formula One organisers in Italy to examine the potential of including Thailand on the race schedule in the future.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister will pay a visit to Rayong’s U-tapao airport to discuss development on the airport’s land, with the goal of encouraging investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor.
Police Chief Reinstated
In other police news, Pol Gen Torsak Sukvimol has been reinstated as national police chief following the conclusion of an investigation into a highly publicised quarrel, according to Wissanu Krea-ngam, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s counsellor.
Mr Wissanu released the investigation’s findings on Thursday, after the prime minister formed a fact-finding committee chaired by Chatchai Promlert to investigate into the quarrel between Pol Gen Torsak and his deputy, Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn.
The four-month study revealed conflicts and disorder at all levels of the Royal Thai Police, but it was unclear whether these issues arose from a single cause or several causes, according to Mr Wissanu.
The findings revealed that both Pol Gen Torsak and Pol Gen Surachate were involved, with each team contributing to the tensions, he noted.
Mr Wissanu indicated that Pol Gen Surachate was reinstated as deputy national police head on 18 April following his relocation to the Prime Minister’s Office on 20 March. A disciplinary committee was formed to investigate Pol Gen Surachate, and he was ordered temporarily suspended from the police force.
Because there were no further difficulties to explore, it was decided to restore Pol Gen Torsak. He plans to retire on September 30.
On March 20, Mr Srettha abruptly transferred both top police officers to the Prime Minister’s Office in an effort to address the growing schism within the police service.
Kitrat Panphet, Deputy National Police Chief, was subsequently named Acting Police Chief. According to sources, Pol Gen Surachate could face money laundering charges related to online gaming networks.
Source: Bangkok Post
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