I received this e-mail from a girl in England on Friday last week:

I’m just after some advice. I’m doing some traveling next year and I want to spend some time in Thailand. My Mum’s freaking at the idea, she thinks it’s too dangerous. Some of the books I’ve read have emphasized there is a lot of mugging, etc. going on. Is it really like that? Bangkok isn’t really appealing, but seeing some of the country’s islands is what I’m after. Any advice?

It made me think about my Mum and how she also thinks that Bangkok is one big slum where people are shot and hit over the head with baseball bats on a daily basis. I asked the girl who sent me the e-mail why she thought it is a dangerous city, and I got this reply:

My mum thinks it’s unsafe for a few reasons: My aunt and uncle went, and my aunt had a bad time and apparently got groped. My mum is a driving instructor and has taught Thai women who have told her they are treated pretty bad over there. She mentioned something about a lad being killed over there for his mobile phone? Funnily enough, she hasn’t mentioned anything that has been in the news, such as the bombings, or the two Russian women who were shot on the beach last week.

It seems to be a common line of thought that Bangkok is a risky city in which to live, but I, foolishly or not, have never felt unsafe here, even walking around late at night. But with everything that has happened over the past six months, and all the troubles that seem to be escalating in public eye, are we at risk just walking the streets? The e-mail I received got me thinking.

It’s not so much the threat of petty crime that bothers me at the moment, but more so the possibility of terrorism taking a hold of the city. I’m uncertain about how well prepared Bangkok is for such a spate of attacks.

I found this on the web last week:

The defense minister warned that Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand could extend their attacks to Bangkok after the rebels demonstrated their strength this week with a string of high-profile attacks. Gen. Boonrawd Somtat, who said the insurgents include 1,000 armed fighters and 10,000 second-line hard-core sympathizers, said the rebels were infiltrating universities in the capital, which could be used as launching pads for assaults. Acknowledging a security failure, he said the government’s “control measures are not working 100 percent perfectly.” Recent attacks include 29 coordinated bombings.

Then there was this, from All Headline News, a few days later:

Authorities in Thailand on Saturday placed the capital city of Bangkok on high alert after three western nations as well as Japan warned of possible terror attacks in the city. The governments of Australia, Canada, Britain and Japan warned of an imminent terror attacks in Bangkok and issued travel warnings to its citizens to avoid venturing out in the Thai capital. The advisory told foreign nationals to avoid crowded places such as shopping malls and other public places.

Travel warnings are nothing new, and in the past I have only paid loose attention to them from my own embassy, but it was the warning from the Australian embassy that got me thinking. It was from an Australian news source, if you’ll remember, that the story of the New Year’s Eve bombings possibly being connected to militant Islamic organization Jemaah Islamiah was first broken.

Ever realizable as a source of information, I checked out Bangkok Pundit’s blog to see what he was making of the present climate:

This is the first time I have read of [the Australian embassy] updating their travel advice for Thailand to mention a specific threat. I have been involved in writing travel advice in the past and for a government to issue such a specific warning would only be done if there was specific intelligence indicating there are plans for an attack. This does not mean there will definitely be an attack.

For example, if the government increases security any such attack might be called or delayed by the perpetrators. This is particularly relevant to Thailand as there have been no instances of suicide bombings so the perpetrators will want to flee the scene. If it was me, I would follow the Australian advice for today.

Just because there wasn’t an attack, does not mean that one was not planned. That’s a frightening thought. More recently, the Associated Press ran this:

Security was tightened at shopping malls and other public places in the Thai capital, and authorities ordered security forces to be on “full alert” for attacks by Muslim insurgents ahead of a major Buddhist holiday. Shoppers were advised not to enter malls wearing sunglasses and baseball caps — a disguise used by insurgents — to ensure they are not confused with “the bad guys,” said Col. Sansern Chaengkamnerd, a military spokesman.

Is that how the insurgents have been getting away with it in the south? By wearing hats and shades? In this era of confusionism that we seem to be living in here in Bangkok, the government has struggled to quell the volatile situation.

“As the body in charge of national security, CNS insists we are fully prepared to maintain security in the city,” Colonel Sansern said, in a report in the Bangkok Post. Panic will hurt confidence in the nation’s economy and overall society, he said. “The people can be assured that they can carry on their daily lives as usual as the security agencies can deal with any incident,” the colonel asserted.

It wasn’t long ago that there were assertions made about “those who lost power” being responsible for the Bangkok bombings. Then there was the fiasco at the end of January in which 19 people were arrested, detained, and released in connection with the incident. And now, in an about turn, the authorities are on full alert for further attacks at the hands of Muslim insurgents, while Thaksin continues to gallivant around the world, defiantly gaining popularity as he goes. The military junta itself has now spoken of the threat of impending attacks. From Asia-Pacific News just a few days ago:

Thailand’s junta warned of possible terrorist attacks on the capital, Bangkok, in mid-March by Muslim militants whose three-year-long violence spree in the deep South has already claimed some 2,000 lives. Saprang Kalayanamitr, assistant secretary-general of the Council for National Security (CNS) - as Thailand’s junta has styled itself - said terrorist attacks on Bangkok were possible between March 13 to 15.

It’s a telling sign that the junta itself has made these comments. It had no choice really. Even the Bangkok Post, which has largely been in favor of the coup, ran a front-page story on February 27 saying that insurgents from the south had infiltrated Bangkok. “We cannot control them, because they exploit the liberty of students to move freely about Bangkok,” Defense Minister Gen. Boonrawd Somtas said in an interview a couple of weeks ago. That somewhat contradicts the words of Colonel Sansern.

It’s an uncertain time. I’m yet to see the talked about increase in security across the city. If anything, it’s been looser than it was throughout January. There are less soldiers on the streets, and less physical presence that was, to me anyway, reassuring. It feels as if the pressure is mounting, and at some point the lid will pop on all of this. I’m not trying to scaremonger here, but the situation is real and needs to be discussed. What are we supposed to think?

Techno’ tags: Terrorism in Thailand, Bangkok bombings