Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Burning province halls

Die ich rief, die Geister, werd' ich nun nicht los.

from the spirits that I called. Sir, deliver me! ...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling

Fire at the Udon Thani province hall by Doug Udon

Given the amount of unconfirmed news and rumors right - while Twitter is the best source in this chaotic time one has to keep in mind that all tweets have to be taken with some skepticism - I don't know yet for sure how many of the province halls (quite often called city halls though that confuses a lot with the municipality administration) are affected, but from the above photo the one in Udon Thani has been burnt down, including the historical province hall building next to it, and also the ones in Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani and Mukdahan are either occupied by vandals or set afire as well. And these are only the buildings which I deal with in this blog, several other buildings in Bangkok have been set afire as well, like then Central World mall near the former demonstrators stage.

Looks like now the term "terrorist" used by the government used to some of the red shirt protesters finally fits, as these kinds of vandalism are never anything acceptable as a kind of protest against a government in a legitimacy crisis. But that's what one gets by the leaders radicalizing their demonstrators and then cannot stop them anymore when the compromise which nearly gave them their original result of new elections. I am deeply sorry about what's happening in Thailand now, and only hope that there won't be any further casualties and the vandals will be persecuted and get fair trials. But say goodbye to expect any income from tourism for the next years to come.