Sorry but the interview isn’t that much of a revelation. I also don’t know why you misrepresented Political Prisoners’ Thailand comment which just pointed out that it found Wiwat’s claim he didn’t know his spotter unbelievable. PPT didn’t call for Wiwat to name “all his friends” and didn’t make any comment in relation to the interview about the structure of the PDRC’s armed wing either.
Mj Wilson is also right to point out that the very notion Wiwat is some poor, completely duped and manipulated soul, forced by circumstance to fire a war weapon into a crowd of peaceful voters, is highly problematic.
Taking the “Wiwat is a victim” line – which may have some substance to it – does seem to echo, to some degree, the standard Salim line that the rural, poor Red Shirts were all manipulated by evil Thaksin as well.
I don’t know why you began your response to MJ with a personal attack either – “little snide by yet another commentator of the armchair perspective”.
Judging by MJ’s blog I certainly don’t agree with all their views but judging by their comments here they certainly engaged in no personal attack on you. If you want to have your work put in the public domain then expect a public debate and all that comes with it. A critical discourse, where your work is interrogated, should be expected. Whether that interrogation comes from “snide armchairs” or not.
I am not sure if it matters much but it looks like Popcorn Man was pulled back in the video after the third shot. The recoil of the 5.56├Ч45mm NATO round is relatively mild, particularly in automatic or semi-automatic mode, like an M16, because the ‘reverse thrust’of the excess gases working the bolt back and chambering a new round counteract the recoil. It is much, much less than, say, a 12 gauge pump action shot gun firing buckshot, which could, indeed, knock an inexperienced shooter to the ground. I expect the popcorn bag did, indeed, serve to collect the spent brass as well as hide the gun from view. Not much chance of shooting accurately though with that thing on it.
Anyway no doubt he was an inexperienced shooter, whatever the correct interpretation of the video may be, and rather dim too to just do as he was told and pick up the gun and start firing. Sad story.
MPC is simply EU via that son of dead Shan leader and Norway people- because they looove the underdogs!- funded attempt to get access to resources in armed gang controlled lands while making it look good for the share holders of the global companies because there is “peace”.
Mainstream party line with some factual mistakes as U Moe Aung pointed out.
Difficult to understand why was this civilian government and military coup business keep getting mentioned all the time. There is precious little any civilian about still present government of green fatigue to clown suit thugs. And how the F military coup if they are calling the F ing tune.
Please kindly give a single example of nonmilitary decision on an important matter.
Guess what. That woman who has wasted precious weeks in seach of good photo opportunity post- First Fiminists’ pose girl Thamada Gyi, making history, unthinkable only few years back, blah, blah, blah- is not going to make any difference whatsoever apart from what is seen so far. Squabbling about non-sequiturs. That has been what NLD has been doing since 2011.
I am a “Red dreamer”? Very amusing little snide by yet another commentator of the armchair perspective… 😉
You won’t see any comment of mine at the time speculating that Wiwat may have been a soldier, or a cop, or whatever else. More or less the moment the footage came out it was quite clear to me that he was untrained. I don’t do Twitter either, can’t stand it. I work the old way by building a network of sources.
Irony is quite obviously lost on you as well. The myth over the Popcorn Shooter that at the time was built by both PDRC and their opponents turned out to be nothing but a simple (minded) villager who was quite expendable. The story is about a myth that wasn’t one, and a quite tragic figure. While many villagers are very aware of political contexts – this particular one wasn’t. Which should be obvious from his comments in the interview. And it should also be quite obvious that i do not use the popcorn shooter as allegory for somewhat patronizing views on villagers, especially as you can see in the countless stories i published that i do not harbor such orientalist sentiments.
And yes, quite a few of the perpetrators of 1976 have been very similar. I have interviewed one in 2011 who is still haunted by what he did back then, and how he was (ab)used and brainwashed into doing what he did then. I do not know if that realization arrived already at Wiwat, the last comments he said at the interview may indicate that this process may have started.
As to the accusation of being “emotionally manipulative” – i do not think that readers here are that stupid to be that easily manipulated that way by me. I just give a different perspective, *my* perspective – as i clearly indicate in my text. That is permissible in a commentary, which this basically is. This perspective may not suit simple minded right wing views on humanity, and you are free to disagree, but it is my perspective grown out of the realization that life rarely is just black and white, but mostly consists of shades of grey, and that quite often perpetrators are victims to some measure as well. That particularly counts for Wiwat’s case.
I can recall other videos from different angles from that day where it was more obvious that he was pushed back by the recoil.
As to the interview, it was conducted immediately after Wiwat was presented to the media after his arrest. The journalist, who is a good friend of mine, only managed to do that because he previously went to the home of Wiwat, and spoke with his family and other villagers.
How many interviews of such armed militants in the Red Yellow conflict are existing? Already that makes this interview very special.
All facts indicate that Wiwat was simply what was shown there – a villager who was caught up in a mess way beyond him. Rumor at the time, and still up till now, see much conspiracy in this person. While others involved in that incident were more than just that, Wiwat himself wasn’t.
Just that he straight away confessed in detail, gave this extensive interview, and other shorter statements, shows that he is not exactly professional. Others are, but you do not see them giving such interviews. And you do not see them being dragged in front of a court.
Sometimes things are as banal as they appear, and that can be very revealing in itself as well, in Wiwat’s case – a lack of a developed political awareness, motivated more by peer pressure, a lack of legal knowledge that may very well have contributed to his sentence. And it is quite obvious that he was expendable.
While this interview may not give the answers you and others may have hoped for – about the hierarchies and structural background of the armed militancy of the PDRC (as is said, there are others more qualified who can answer those questions, but they naturally won’t do that in such an interview situation), it does answer other pertinent questions.
Therefore, for me, i see much tragedy in the person of Wiwat, as much victim as he was perpetrator. I would not say the same about others involved in that incident, but they unfortunately are not being prosecuted.
Read it: “Rodrigo Duterte: The Rise of Philippines’ Death Squad Mayor” Human Rights Watch, July 17, 2015.
Compare Duterte: “He then pledged that if he became president of the Philippines he would execute 100,000 more criminals and dump their bodies in Manila Bay.”
With Marcos: “Under Marcos… military murder was the apex of a pyramid of terror–3,257 killed, 35,000 tortured, and 70,000 incarcerated … some 2,520… were salvaged–that is, tortured, mutilated, and dumped on a roadside for public display.”
(from Alfred McCoy’s lecture transcript: “Dark Legacy: Human rights under the Marcos regime”)
But in this blog: Grace Poe’s son’s shoes? toilets in Cambodia? The personal opinions of some person whose only claim to fame is that have committed acts of LM? Rantings of doom for Thailand, with its comparatively low rate of political violence, despite almost a decade of street protests brought to an end peacefully by General Prayut, who uses “attitude adjustment sessions” akin to being sent to the principal in grade school, to enforce the peace, sometimes jokingly suggesting he could use more harsh methods (like “chop the heads off journalists like dogs”) akin to Philippine salvaging, a bad joke by someone who likes to talk too much that is taken literally.
Wiwat contradicts some things that he was reported saying in other news outlets at the time of his arrest.
He apparently told a press conference that the popcorn bag was intended to collect spent shells and that he had been trained to use the gun by the private security guards of the PDRC. http://tinyurl.com/hezjaeh
On Twitter at the time of the incident, there was a lot of “mansplaining” among the manly men, usually journalists and ex-military, suggesting that he was more likely a policeman than a trained soldier. No one was pointing to his absolutely obvious lack of training at the time.
There is no myth here. There is however obviously an attempt by Nick to “mythologize” this particular vicious would-be killer.
Nick says “The mythical masked gunman turned out to be just a simple villager” as if there is some contradiction between ‘villager’ and ‘gunman’. We are meant to feel sorry for the poor fellow, victim of the evil elites whose impunity will ensure they never suffer the fate of this “simple villager”.
I would remind Nick that this poor villager was taking up arms to defend the fascist PDRC as they assaulted ‘simple suburbanites’ who just wanted to vote.
It might also be worth remembering that the men who beat and raped and incinerated the ‘simple students’ in October 1976 were also likely “simple villagers” out to defend a fascist cause.
Unless we are meant to share the Yellow mindset that prefers to view “simple villagers” as somehow ethically challenged and too stupid to shoulder the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy, I can’t see at all why the “gunman” vs “simple villager” trope should have any meaning at all in the context.
Is there obvious injustice in the fact that only one man has been charged in this incident when so many were involved?
Yes.
Can we expect leaders of the Yellow Hordes to be held responsible for planning and inciting the incident, or for arranging the distribution of weapons?
Not likely. Impunity runs through the system like a cancer, as we all know.
Does any of that change the fact that this man was willing to pick up and fire an assault rifle at his fellow citizens for 300 baht per diem and because his family leans to the fascist side of things in the ongoing Thai political conflict?
Not at all.
The solution to the problem of impunity is to put an end to it, not use emotionally manipulative “journalism” to have it spread to the “simple” folk, who exist only in the mythologies of the Yellow fascisti and the Red dreamers like Nick.
Nick, the video I saw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iC4gdYFoHI) doesn’t seem to entirely match your comment. At least it does not show that “every time he a bullet the recoil of the M16 pushes the shooter back.” In the video he fires three times while moving back. The first two do not show the recoil pushing him back. The third does, but it is unclear if he stumbles, is pulled or it is the recoil.
That he worked in a team and carried communications equipment also suggests much more was going on than a kid who picked up a gun that day and decided to shoot it.
One interpretation of the pop corn bag is that it was to collect spent shells rather than leave them as evidence. Any ideas on that?
I found the interview interesting too, but hardly convincing of anything much at all. I tried to find context for the interview, but there wasn’t much that I could see. Why was the interview conducted and how was it arranged? The special report at TNA is interesting too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch01l5Joa2o).
That he has been used by more powerful people is obvious, but hardly a revelation for Thailand.
Do any of these Thai whitening creams damage the skin, and other parts of a person’s health ? There have been some horrific reports out of Africa of this happening.
I think it highly probable ( but not certain) that India was a dark skinned country that was in the past invaded by lighter skinned Aryans speakers. This accounts for the lighter skinned northern Indians and the continued lightness of Brains ( excuse spelling ). I am not suggesting such lighter skinned invaders were blue eyed blondes.
Thanks for the link. One factual error in it – the Wa are not Han Chinese, only the border bisected their tribal land with greater Chinese influence than Burmese.
The peace process show and the democracy show have gone in tandem with a very uneven success in both so far. The former will prove to continue to be a sham if the incoming NLD govt gets nowhere in salvaging it.
Thein Sein and Min Aung Hlaing have played good cop bad cop for long enough. The minions like Aung Min and the MPC effectively turned it into a lucrative peace industry enjoying fat salaries and perks whuile the army on the ground carry on meting out death and wanton destruction.
The elephant in the room? Let’s pretend not to see it or resort to appeasing it. So long as the top brass does not get overthrown by a mutiny or people power or both, there’s no way we are going to see peace in our time. Why do you think they are dragging their feet and at the same time engaging in this relentless and time honoured divide and rule strategy?
One of the points he raised was this: “Wiwat claims to have never been trained to use the gun (we are led to believe he is firing an automatic weapon for the first time)”.
This is not just what we are led to to believe – this is quite easily to see in the videos of the shooting. Every time he fired a bullet the recoil of the M16 pushes the shooter back. I have asked several professionals on this, and they agreed that this is a clear indication that the shooter was completely untrained. I have never seen this reaction when soldiers or other trained men fired an M16. The low number of people hit by bullets is another indicator for not very good aiming skills, given that the distance between shooter and targets was not very large, and many bullets clearly were not just fired into the air, but as bullet holes have shown (some of them have still been visible the last time i was at IT square a few months ago), were fired at body height.
PPP did not find the interview outstanding because it did not give much information on the identity of the other shooters and structural context of the armed militancy.
First of all – this is the only existing long interview, alone that fact makes this interview very special. Getting this trust is not easy, as any journalist will know.
Secondly, one can hardly expect that the just arrested shooter will in a media interview give up his friends. But what i find very special about this interview is that it gives much personal background and insight into his motivations, something that in “hard” news is often missing, but at least to me of much importance.
There are other ways to find out more on the context of the different groups of shooters and how they are connected to leaders and others, and i would assume that much of that information Wiwat himself is in the dark about. Wiwat was quite clearly a very small light in this thing, and much knowledge on secret structures can hardly be expected from that source. These questions can be better answered by others higher up in the ranks.
‘Unified Former Thai Territories’ was the title that Thailand gave to the annexed Shan States in 1942. So the Tai Yai conscripts who formed the majority of the Burmese army in the war of 1765-7 were ethnically Thai. So it was actually Thais who sacked Ayutthaya.
Thai pseudo-history can be a source of endless amusement. I suspect that if you were to remove all Mon, Khmer and Burmese elements from Siamese civilization and culture you would left with almost nothing. Likewise, if you were to remove all Thai-Chinese, Thai-Lao, Thai-Yuan, Thai-Khmer, and Thai-Malays from the population how many actual ‘central Thais’ would be left?
[…] Readers might be interested in Nick Nostitz’s account of the case at New Mandala. He links to an early interview with the gunman and helpfully provides a translation. We do not […]
[…] Readers might be interested in Nick Nostitz’s account of the case at New Mandala. He links to an early interview with the gunman and helpfully provides a translation. We do not […]
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The myth of the popcorn gunman
Nick,
Sorry but the interview isn’t that much of a revelation. I also don’t know why you misrepresented Political Prisoners’ Thailand comment which just pointed out that it found Wiwat’s claim he didn’t know his spotter unbelievable. PPT didn’t call for Wiwat to name “all his friends” and didn’t make any comment in relation to the interview about the structure of the PDRC’s armed wing either.
Mj Wilson is also right to point out that the very notion Wiwat is some poor, completely duped and manipulated soul, forced by circumstance to fire a war weapon into a crowd of peaceful voters, is highly problematic.
Taking the “Wiwat is a victim” line – which may have some substance to it – does seem to echo, to some degree, the standard Salim line that the rural, poor Red Shirts were all manipulated by evil Thaksin as well.
I don’t know why you began your response to MJ with a personal attack either – “little snide by yet another commentator of the armchair perspective”.
Judging by MJ’s blog I certainly don’t agree with all their views but judging by their comments here they certainly engaged in no personal attack on you. If you want to have your work put in the public domain then expect a public debate and all that comes with it. A critical discourse, where your work is interrogated, should be expected. Whether that interrogation comes from “snide armchairs” or not.
The myth of the popcorn gunman
I am not sure if it matters much but it looks like Popcorn Man was pulled back in the video after the third shot. The recoil of the 5.56├Ч45mm NATO round is relatively mild, particularly in automatic or semi-automatic mode, like an M16, because the ‘reverse thrust’of the excess gases working the bolt back and chambering a new round counteract the recoil. It is much, much less than, say, a 12 gauge pump action shot gun firing buckshot, which could, indeed, knock an inexperienced shooter to the ground. I expect the popcorn bag did, indeed, serve to collect the spent brass as well as hide the gun from view. Not much chance of shooting accurately though with that thing on it.
Anyway no doubt he was an inexperienced shooter, whatever the correct interpretation of the video may be, and rather dim too to just do as he was told and pick up the gun and start firing. Sad story.
Peace in President Thein Sein’s time?
MPC is simply EU via that son of dead Shan leader and Norway people- because they looove the underdogs!- funded attempt to get access to resources in armed gang controlled lands while making it look good for the share holders of the global companies because there is “peace”.
Peace in President Thein Sein’s time?
Mainstream party line with some factual mistakes as U Moe Aung pointed out.
Difficult to understand why was this civilian government and military coup business keep getting mentioned all the time. There is precious little any civilian about still present government of green fatigue to clown suit thugs. And how the F military coup if they are calling the F ing tune.
Please kindly give a single example of nonmilitary decision on an important matter.
Guess what. That woman who has wasted precious weeks in seach of good photo opportunity post- First Fiminists’ pose girl Thamada Gyi, making history, unthinkable only few years back, blah, blah, blah- is not going to make any difference whatsoever apart from what is seen so far. Squabbling about non-sequiturs. That has been what NLD has been doing since 2011.
The myth of the popcorn gunman
I am a “Red dreamer”? Very amusing little snide by yet another commentator of the armchair perspective… 😉
You won’t see any comment of mine at the time speculating that Wiwat may have been a soldier, or a cop, or whatever else. More or less the moment the footage came out it was quite clear to me that he was untrained. I don’t do Twitter either, can’t stand it. I work the old way by building a network of sources.
Irony is quite obviously lost on you as well. The myth over the Popcorn Shooter that at the time was built by both PDRC and their opponents turned out to be nothing but a simple (minded) villager who was quite expendable. The story is about a myth that wasn’t one, and a quite tragic figure. While many villagers are very aware of political contexts – this particular one wasn’t. Which should be obvious from his comments in the interview. And it should also be quite obvious that i do not use the popcorn shooter as allegory for somewhat patronizing views on villagers, especially as you can see in the countless stories i published that i do not harbor such orientalist sentiments.
And yes, quite a few of the perpetrators of 1976 have been very similar. I have interviewed one in 2011 who is still haunted by what he did back then, and how he was (ab)used and brainwashed into doing what he did then. I do not know if that realization arrived already at Wiwat, the last comments he said at the interview may indicate that this process may have started.
As to the accusation of being “emotionally manipulative” – i do not think that readers here are that stupid to be that easily manipulated that way by me. I just give a different perspective, *my* perspective – as i clearly indicate in my text. That is permissible in a commentary, which this basically is. This perspective may not suit simple minded right wing views on humanity, and you are free to disagree, but it is my perspective grown out of the realization that life rarely is just black and white, but mostly consists of shades of grey, and that quite often perpetrators are victims to some measure as well. That particularly counts for Wiwat’s case.
The myth of the popcorn gunman
I can recall other videos from different angles from that day where it was more obvious that he was pushed back by the recoil.
As to the interview, it was conducted immediately after Wiwat was presented to the media after his arrest. The journalist, who is a good friend of mine, only managed to do that because he previously went to the home of Wiwat, and spoke with his family and other villagers.
How many interviews of such armed militants in the Red Yellow conflict are existing? Already that makes this interview very special.
All facts indicate that Wiwat was simply what was shown there – a villager who was caught up in a mess way beyond him. Rumor at the time, and still up till now, see much conspiracy in this person. While others involved in that incident were more than just that, Wiwat himself wasn’t.
Just that he straight away confessed in detail, gave this extensive interview, and other shorter statements, shows that he is not exactly professional. Others are, but you do not see them giving such interviews. And you do not see them being dragged in front of a court.
Sometimes things are as banal as they appear, and that can be very revealing in itself as well, in Wiwat’s case – a lack of a developed political awareness, motivated more by peer pressure, a lack of legal knowledge that may very well have contributed to his sentence. And it is quite obvious that he was expendable.
While this interview may not give the answers you and others may have hoped for – about the hierarchies and structural background of the armed militancy of the PDRC (as is said, there are others more qualified who can answer those questions, but they naturally won’t do that in such an interview situation), it does answer other pertinent questions.
Therefore, for me, i see much tragedy in the person of Wiwat, as much victim as he was perpetrator. I would not say the same about others involved in that incident, but they unfortunately are not being prosecuted.
Presidential hopefuls in the Philippines
Read it: “Rodrigo Duterte: The Rise of Philippines’ Death Squad Mayor” Human Rights Watch, July 17, 2015.
Compare Duterte: “He then pledged that if he became president of the Philippines he would execute 100,000 more criminals and dump their bodies in Manila Bay.”
With Marcos: “Under Marcos… military murder was the apex of a pyramid of terror–3,257 killed, 35,000 tortured, and 70,000 incarcerated … some 2,520… were salvaged–that is, tortured, mutilated, and dumped on a roadside for public display.”
(from Alfred McCoy’s lecture transcript: “Dark Legacy: Human rights under the Marcos regime”)
But in this blog: Grace Poe’s son’s shoes? toilets in Cambodia? The personal opinions of some person whose only claim to fame is that have committed acts of LM? Rantings of doom for Thailand, with its comparatively low rate of political violence, despite almost a decade of street protests brought to an end peacefully by General Prayut, who uses “attitude adjustment sessions” akin to being sent to the principal in grade school, to enforce the peace, sometimes jokingly suggesting he could use more harsh methods (like “chop the heads off journalists like dogs”) akin to Philippine salvaging, a bad joke by someone who likes to talk too much that is taken literally.
Enough to make Socrates cry 🙁
The myth of the popcorn gunman
Wiwat contradicts some things that he was reported saying in other news outlets at the time of his arrest.
He apparently told a press conference that the popcorn bag was intended to collect spent shells and that he had been trained to use the gun by the private security guards of the PDRC. http://tinyurl.com/hezjaeh
On Twitter at the time of the incident, there was a lot of “mansplaining” among the manly men, usually journalists and ex-military, suggesting that he was more likely a policeman than a trained soldier. No one was pointing to his absolutely obvious lack of training at the time.
There is no myth here. There is however obviously an attempt by Nick to “mythologize” this particular vicious would-be killer.
Nick says “The mythical masked gunman turned out to be just a simple villager” as if there is some contradiction between ‘villager’ and ‘gunman’. We are meant to feel sorry for the poor fellow, victim of the evil elites whose impunity will ensure they never suffer the fate of this “simple villager”.
I would remind Nick that this poor villager was taking up arms to defend the fascist PDRC as they assaulted ‘simple suburbanites’ who just wanted to vote.
It might also be worth remembering that the men who beat and raped and incinerated the ‘simple students’ in October 1976 were also likely “simple villagers” out to defend a fascist cause.
Unless we are meant to share the Yellow mindset that prefers to view “simple villagers” as somehow ethically challenged and too stupid to shoulder the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy, I can’t see at all why the “gunman” vs “simple villager” trope should have any meaning at all in the context.
Is there obvious injustice in the fact that only one man has been charged in this incident when so many were involved?
Yes.
Can we expect leaders of the Yellow Hordes to be held responsible for planning and inciting the incident, or for arranging the distribution of weapons?
Not likely. Impunity runs through the system like a cancer, as we all know.
Does any of that change the fact that this man was willing to pick up and fire an assault rifle at his fellow citizens for 300 baht per diem and because his family leans to the fascist side of things in the ongoing Thai political conflict?
Not at all.
The solution to the problem of impunity is to put an end to it, not use emotionally manipulative “journalism” to have it spread to the “simple” folk, who exist only in the mythologies of the Yellow fascisti and the Red dreamers like Nick.
The myth of the popcorn gunman
Nick, the video I saw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iC4gdYFoHI) doesn’t seem to entirely match your comment. At least it does not show that “every time he a bullet the recoil of the M16 pushes the shooter back.” In the video he fires three times while moving back. The first two do not show the recoil pushing him back. The third does, but it is unclear if he stumbles, is pulled or it is the recoil.
That he worked in a team and carried communications equipment also suggests much more was going on than a kid who picked up a gun that day and decided to shoot it.
One interpretation of the pop corn bag is that it was to collect spent shells rather than leave them as evidence. Any ideas on that?
I found the interview interesting too, but hardly convincing of anything much at all. I tried to find context for the interview, but there wasn’t much that I could see. Why was the interview conducted and how was it arranged? The special report at TNA is interesting too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch01l5Joa2o).
That he has been used by more powerful people is obvious, but hardly a revelation for Thailand.
Nationalism and genetics: Thai obsession with race
Do any of these Thai whitening creams damage the skin, and other parts of a person’s health ? There have been some horrific reports out of Africa of this happening.
The myth of the popcorn gunman
I found your style quite refreshing so please continue in that vein.
Nationalism and genetics: Thai obsession with race
I think it highly probable ( but not certain) that India was a dark skinned country that was in the past invaded by lighter skinned Aryans speakers. This accounts for the lighter skinned northern Indians and the continued lightness of Brains ( excuse spelling ). I am not suggesting such lighter skinned invaders were blue eyed blondes.
Peace in President Thein Sein’s time?
Thanks for the link. One factual error in it – the Wa are not Han Chinese, only the border bisected their tribal land with greater Chinese influence than Burmese.
Peace in President Thein Sein’s time?
The peace process show and the democracy show have gone in tandem with a very uneven success in both so far. The former will prove to continue to be a sham if the incoming NLD govt gets nowhere in salvaging it.
Thein Sein and Min Aung Hlaing have played good cop bad cop for long enough. The minions like Aung Min and the MPC effectively turned it into a lucrative peace industry enjoying fat salaries and perks whuile the army on the ground carry on meting out death and wanton destruction.
The elephant in the room? Let’s pretend not to see it or resort to appeasing it. So long as the top brass does not get overthrown by a mutiny or people power or both, there’s no way we are going to see peace in our time. Why do you think they are dragging their feet and at the same time engaging in this relentless and time honoured divide and rule strategy?
The myth of the popcorn gunman
I just saw that political prisoners of Thailand made some comments on this story – https://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/ , especially on the interview i linked.
One of the points he raised was this: “Wiwat claims to have never been trained to use the gun (we are led to believe he is firing an automatic weapon for the first time)”.
This is not just what we are led to to believe – this is quite easily to see in the videos of the shooting. Every time he fired a bullet the recoil of the M16 pushes the shooter back. I have asked several professionals on this, and they agreed that this is a clear indication that the shooter was completely untrained. I have never seen this reaction when soldiers or other trained men fired an M16. The low number of people hit by bullets is another indicator for not very good aiming skills, given that the distance between shooter and targets was not very large, and many bullets clearly were not just fired into the air, but as bullet holes have shown (some of them have still been visible the last time i was at IT square a few months ago), were fired at body height.
PPP did not find the interview outstanding because it did not give much information on the identity of the other shooters and structural context of the armed militancy.
First of all – this is the only existing long interview, alone that fact makes this interview very special. Getting this trust is not easy, as any journalist will know.
Secondly, one can hardly expect that the just arrested shooter will in a media interview give up his friends. But what i find very special about this interview is that it gives much personal background and insight into his motivations, something that in “hard” news is often missing, but at least to me of much importance.
There are other ways to find out more on the context of the different groups of shooters and how they are connected to leaders and others, and i would assume that much of that information Wiwat himself is in the dark about. Wiwat was quite clearly a very small light in this thing, and much knowledge on secret structures can hardly be expected from that source. These questions can be better answered by others higher up in the ranks.
To TPP or not to TPP – that is Jokowi’s question
Thanks.
Nationalism and genetics: Thai obsession with race
‘Unified Former Thai Territories’ was the title that Thailand gave to the annexed Shan States in 1942. So the Tai Yai conscripts who formed the majority of the Burmese army in the war of 1765-7 were ethnically Thai. So it was actually Thais who sacked Ayutthaya.
Thai pseudo-history can be a source of endless amusement. I suspect that if you were to remove all Mon, Khmer and Burmese elements from Siamese civilization and culture you would left with almost nothing. Likewise, if you were to remove all Thai-Chinese, Thai-Lao, Thai-Yuan, Thai-Khmer, and Thai-Malays from the population how many actual ‘central Thais’ would be left?
The myth of the popcorn gunman
thanks Nick… important reporting
and your writing style helps make it feel real!
The myth of the popcorn gunman
[…] Readers might be interested in Nick Nostitz’s account of the case at New Mandala. He links to an early interview with the gunman and helpfully provides a translation. We do not […]
The myth of the popcorn gunman
[…] Readers might be interested in Nick Nostitz’s account of the case at New Mandala. He links to an early interview with the gunman and helpfully provides a translation. We do not […]