Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Province halls destroyed in past

When last year four province halls were destroyed in the aftermath of the forceful ending of the red shirt protests, I thought these acts were unprecedented in Thai history. At that time I only knew that the province hall of Surat Thani was destroyed twice, once during World War II at the Japanese invasion, and once by a bomb planted by communist terrorist in 1982.

Two weeks ago, a short news article by The Nation taught me otherwise. While the main point was about Democrat MP Wittaya Kaewparadai warning the government about the risk of riots if the flood situation isn't brought under control - and the current threats by citizens north of Bangkok to break the flood walls which protect the city and keep only them inundated are not far from riots - the final sentence is the interesting one for the topic of this blog.
After the 1995 floods, people in the South burned down the city hall because they believed the provincial governor was keeping donations to himself, he said, adding that he was concerned about the lack of transparency of the Bt120billion rehabilitation plan.
The Nation, Dissatisfaction with govt performance may lead to riots, opposition warns, November 10, 2010
Sadly, it is not mentioned at which province this riot occurred, or how seriously the province hall was damaged in that riot. I tried to find more with Google, but it seems there's nothing to find about that time in any English website.

If anyone know more details, or know about other cases when a province hall was destroyed in past, I am very curious to hear.

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