More than a year after nine bombs ripped through Bangkok on New Year’s Eve 2006 the police have given up their investigation after successfully finding absolutely nothing in the form of clues as to who is responsible.

Bangkok was shaken to its core when those bombs went off. Three people died and 42 were injured. It’s a crying shame that investigations have turned up nothing.

No-one has been charged and no evidence has been found. Were the bombs the work of Southern insurgents or did allies of Thaksin Shinawatra have a hand in the blasts? We may never know for sure.

The only positive thing to come in the wake of the bombings are the security checks now in place across Bangkok. While you could argue that it would be possible to outwit the security guards at one of Bangkok’s malls, there is no doubt that as a visual deterrent, such security measures have their place.

I remember when the bombs went off because I lived at Victory Monument at the time. I arrived shortly after the explosion there. I am sure that more is known about the bombings than has been let on.

As you’d expect, opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has criticized this news. “We are very disappointed that nothing has come out of this,” he said in an interview with ABC’s Radio Australia.

It seems like anybody can blow up Bangkok and public never gets to find out who is behind it. Do the police and government just assume that people forget about these things after a while?

Remember when a number of bombs exploded in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve killing three people? I do. It was nearly a year ago and we still don’t know who did it and why. I can only imagine what sort of explosion it would take for the Thai government to think, “Ooh, we’d better find out who did this one.”

The Thai police are great at talking, but less efficient at actually doing anything.

On Sunday, two bomb-disposal officers were injured trying to defuse a bomb outside army headquarters. The media speculated about who was behind it, and a military Internal Security Operations Command’s spokesman said the blast was “unlikely to be related to the insurgency in southern Thailand. It is more likely to be politically motivated”.

Prime Minister Surayud also suggested the bombing was politically motivated, but of course, he was just guessing.

And that was it. Just another explosion in Bangkok thrown into the “don’t ask us” category. Bombs in big cities aren’t normal, so why isn’t anybody coming up with any answers?

On January 30, two grenades exploded at the Daily News newspaper’s HQ and the Rama Garden Hotel car park. Anybody know who did it?

In April, a bomb exploded outside Major Ratchayothin complex. It was linked to the new Year’s Eve bombings… but that was as far as police got.

Who is blowing up Bangkok?

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. After the drama, the panic, the fear, the indifference, the finger pointing, the accusations, the insinuations, the allusions, the half-truths: after all that, the Bangkok Post this morning broke a story suggesting that Southern separatists were behind the New Year’s Eve bombings.

The police team investigating the New Year bombings in Bangkok and Nonthaburi has concluded that a southern separatist group was responsible for the nine explosions.

A highly-placed source in the investigation team said the insurgent group responsible for the nine bombs wanted to show its capability to launch terrorist attacks outside its home region.

“After examining evidence thoroughly, it was found that the bomb detonation circuits are the same [as the circuits used by a southern insurgent group]. Moreover, the materials used to make the bombs are all the same,” the source said.

The investigation team is now focusing its investigation on one insurgent group.

If I’m not mistaken, it was at one point stated that the types of bombs used were NOT the same as has been used by Southern separatists. The prime minister himself remarked: “Based on various reports of intelligence agencies and evidence available, it was the work of people who lost political benefits,” Bangkok Post. General Sonthi said: “If southerners came up here to Bangkok they would get lost and wouldn’t have been able to escape,” Bangkok Post. The Nation reported the prime minister had said that “forensic reports showed that the bombs were assembled to look like those used by the Southern insurgents but that detailed examination of the explosions indicated no link.” Everyone was pointing fingers elsewhere.

Remember this from the Bangkok Post?

Assistant national police chief Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Chuthanont claimed to know perpetrators behind Bangkok bombings that took place on New Year’s Eve. “We know the bombers,” said Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Tuesday, after chairing a police meeting on the deadly blasts. “They belong to the group that people suspected” - apparently meaning members of the former Thaksin regime.

It has not been made clear which specific group the investigation team is now saying was responsible. All of this could, of course, turn out to be untrue. The details are a little sketchy, especially with all of the conflicting information that we have been given over the past two-and-a-half months. If it is true, then the terrorists have successfully caused panic and disillusion in Bangkok, making the government look foolish. Ironically, they have also made Thaksin look like a victim. The former-PM must be chuckling to himself uncontrollably.

This could also mean that Jemaah Islamiah is in some way connected with the bombings, although this is pure speculation at this point.

So what on earth will happen next?

Techno’ tags: Terrorism in Thailand, Bangkok bombings, South Thailand insurgency, South Thailand separatists

So here we are, back to where we started after the Bangkok bombings of New Year’s Eve. No arrests, no evidence, no charges. So what have we got? Well, there’s the coup that didn’t exactly go as smoothly as everyone thought; there’s the escalating problems in the south, where this morning two couples were gunned down in Songkhla as they rode to work on motorcycles; there’s the airport from hell; there’s the galavanting former-PM and his censored propaganda; and now, after all the fuss that was made last week, the 19 people who were taken in for questioning over the New Year’s Eve bombings have all been released.

From the International Herald Tribune yesterday:

“All of them have been released because we don’t have evidence they were involved in the bombs,” Lieutenant General Prayudh Janocha, commander of the army’s central region, said Saturday.

So why were they taken in at all then? And I was sure that Assistant National Police Chief Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Chuthanont had gone on record as saying he knew who had blown up Bangkok, although in the same statement he did say it was hard to find evidence to convict criminals, so maybe we should give him a break, poor guy.

Those 19 people must have been arrested for some reason. Now we have come full circle and we still know absolutely nothing. Jemaah Islamiah has already denied any involvement, so the door is wide open to all theories.

As if the fallout from the mysterious bombs was not enough, today the transport ministry decided to reopen Don Muang Airport. Lucky for Thaksin he is not in power so that he has to deal with the shambles he created in making Thailand a travel hub for Southeast Asia. Domestic flights are due to resume soon in order to take some of the burden off the almost 4-billion baht Suvarnabhumi Airport. We were promised Rolex, we got a Casio calculator watch, and now it’s broken.

On a positive (?) note though, it was very, very cold today; so much so that I woke up shivering. The weather has gone completely barmy and it’s forcing me to consider buying a water heater.

Techno’ tags: Terrorism in Thailand, Bangkok bombings, Suvarnabhumi Airport

Rather than being in the grip of terrorism, at the moment it feels like we are in the grip of confusionism. I’m certainly confused. The Council for National Security (CNS) has created a whirlwind of publicity for the deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The CNS is terrified of Thaksin and they have so little faith in their own abilities to use their power-base to discredit the former-PM’s actions. That’s what is worrying: that the people in charge of Thailand have no faith in themselves.

Thaksin’s actions and words are not without their own misgivings, so it would not be too hard for the CNS to just let Thaksin do what he does and use that against him, rather than pushing him into this victimised position where cube-head is winning more and more support. The corruption that formed the basis of the CNS’s justification for the coup never materialised into an actual court case. The CNS has failed to prove once and for all that Thaksin is the villain that he has been made out to be. This is not to say that he is not a villain, but when you stage a military coup and implicate someone as responsible for terrorist attacks, you should be able to back up what you say.

Thaksin’s government was very good at putting the squeeze on the media. The CNS, while apparently being all for press freedom, is playing into Thaksin’s hands by confusing people. Nobody has been arrested for the New Year’s Eve bombings, but so far Prime Minister Surayud has accused “Those who lost power” and then retracted his own accusation.

The best piece of news I’ve read for awhile came from the Bangkok Post this week:

Assistant national police chief Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Chuthanont claimed to know perpetrators behind Bangkok bombings that took place on New Year’s Eve. “We know the bombers,” said Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Tuesday, after chairing a police meeting on the deadly blasts. “They belong to the group that people suspected” - apparently meaning members of the former Thaksin regime. Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak said, however, that police have not arrested anyone yet because they still lacked evidence, especially eye witnesses, to ask the court to issue arrest warrants.

“We need more evidence,” he said.

“Probing officers have tried their best,” said Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak. “But it’s not easy to find evidence to convict wrongdoers.”

I’ve never heard anything quite like this before. It’s not easy to find evidence? Well, at least the police “know” who did it and they are trying their best, bless them. The CNS should start making a point to censor stupid comments made to the press.

Another piece of news that came in today was that Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont may be investigated for a suspicious asset-movement. From The Nation:

The National Counter Corruption Commission will Thursday rule whether to open a graft investigation into the possession of a vacation home by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Thursday’s ruling will be based on four factors - unusual increase in wealth, suspicious asset accumulation, sudden drop in assets and suspected illgotten gains while holding office, he said.

The plot thickens.

Techno’ tags: Terrorism in Thailand, Bangkok bombings, Thai politics