Investigating disappearances

Protesters have kept a focus on two disappearances: people and monuments.On the latter, we assume many readers will have seen Prachatai’s excellent report on its efforts to uncover the truth about the disappearance of the Constitution Defense Monument.

The story begins:

The approximately 4-metre-tall concrete monument located near the Lak Si roundabout disappeared without trace on 28 Dec 2018, even though it was situated in front of Bangkhen Police Station. However, no one has been able to answer – how did the monument disappear even when 5 months earlier it had been registered as a National Historic Site in the Royal Gazette?

The monument lauded those who lost their lives defeating the 1933 royalist rebellion led by Prince Boworadet and defending the People’s Party and its constitution.

Prachatai has used the Official Information Act to seek information from several government agencies. These efforts produced fake claims that no one in any of the agencies contacted knew anything about the removal of a very large monument of great historical importance. It is as if each of the agencies and their senior bureaucrats have had selective amnesia.

Of course, the reason for official amnesia is that the removal was probably done by the military on orders (or presumption of favorable response) from the palace and King Vajiralongkorn.

As with the disappeared, murdered, and presumed murdered activists in neighboring countries, it seems that the dull leadership of the regime, including the dullards of the military and the slow minds in the palace, believe that disappearing people and monuments that cross the official royalist historical narrative will allow those events and counter-narratives to be forgotten.

Interestingly, “[a]lthough government agencies do not know how and where the Constitution Defence Monument disappeared, there is one group of people that heard news about its relocation and went to watch events from the night of 27 into the morning of 28 Dec 2018.”

Those people know who was responsible for official vandalism:

military personnel and police officers order[ed] that no photos be taken. …[a] plainclothes military officer … claimed to be from ISOC (Internal Security Operations Command). Later, journalists and other people began to enter the area. The officials tried to prevent them from taking any photos or recording any videos. They … delete[d] any photos.

We applaud Prachatai for continuing to remember and for seeking to hold official vandals to account.