Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s visit on Monday to the southern tourist city of Hat Yai, her first since she took office last year, is welcome -- no matter how belated it is.
Saturday's car bomb explosion in Hat Yai will doubtlessly disrupt the coming Songkran festival and drive many tourists away, but the city is resilient and it will pull through.
Hat Yai has never been a part of the violent far South, but has occasionally been targeted for bombing by Islamic insurgents, probably to remind the residents there – many of them ethnic Chinese and Malay Muslims – that they live on the fringe and are not entirely safe from their reign of terror.
On Saturday insurgents set off a car bomb in the car park of the Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel in the heart of Hat Yai, killing three people, including a Malaysian man, and injuring more than 300 other people. About 130 were admitted to hospital.
Around the same time in neighbouring Yala’s Muang district, insurgents detonated two car bombs – one in front of the Rungruang food shop at Chong Rak and Ruam Mit road intersection and the other in front of a 7-Eleven convenience store on Ruam Mit Road. Eleven people were killed and dozens injured.
The last time this bustling commercial hub, popular with Malaysian males, was attacked was on May 26, 2007 when seven small bombs were detonated, probably by insurgents, and 13 people were injured. Eight months before that, six bombs were detonated in cafes and bars across the city, killing four people and wounding dozens more.
Saturday’s bombings by the murderous insurgents were unexpected and came less than two weeks before the launch of the city’s Songkran Midnight Festival from April 13-16, which was expected to attract tens of thousands of tourists from Malaysia and Singapore.
Although the festival will go ahead as scheduled, many hotel bookings will certainly be cancelled as tourists are scared away and opt for a safer destination.
Hat Yai-Songkhla Hotel Business Association president Somchart Pimthanapoonporn said 25,000 tourists booked into hotels in Hat Yai last Songkran, but he doubted that even half that number would now visit the city this coming Songkran.
As witnessed in previous bombings, tourism and tourism-related business in Hat Yai will be hard hit and it will be several months before tourists regain their confidence and return to the city.
But Hat Yai is well known for its resilience. This has been proven time and again -- after each bombing incident. It pulls through, but maybe it will take a bit longer this time.
Why Hat Yai? First of all, it is a soft target with lax security and easy accessibility. There are also Muslim communities in the city where insurgents can seek refuge and blend in without attracting the attention of the authorities. More importantly, an attack in Hat Yai attracts a lot of media coverage -- and the attention of the government.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (R) on April 2, 2012 visits one of the injured victims of the bomb attack in Songkhla's Hat Yai district. (Photo by Thiti Wannamontha)
And the motives for Saturday’s attack n Hat Yai? I would quess there are several reasons: to undermine Hat Yai’s economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism; to challenge the central government and show the rebels still have the capability to strike terror beyond the adjacent and far more violent far South provinces; and to serve notice to the government that they do not give a tinker’s cuss about the low-level peace dialogue recently begun by Pol Col Thavee Sodsong, secretary-general of Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre, and some separatist groups in Malaysia.
It was quite unsettling that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra did not visit Hat Yai on Sunday, the day after the bombings. This allowed opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva to score the publicity advantage and probably win the hearts of Hat Yai people for visiting the city and the injured first.
But her visit is better late than never. The prime minister cut short the cabinet meeting today and flew by air force plane to the southern city. Belated, but welcome.
Although her personal presence there will not help in ensuring that such attacks do not happen again, it at least shows that she does care for the city and its residents -- even though Hat Yai and the far South are not the political turf of her Pheu Thai Party.
Many southern people feel they are being treated as second-class citizens by the Pheu Thai-led government, the latest Thaksin regime, because most of them support the Democrat Party.
Prime Minister Yingluck has not set foot in Hat Yai or the far South provinces since she was elected in July last year. The farthest south she has ventured is Phuket, which is geographically in the South but far from the area of conflict, during the mobile cabinet meeting about two weeks ago.
The visit to Hat Yai at this moment of misfortune for the people there will lift her public profile and will definitely win some local hearts. It will be even better if she takes this opportunity to also visit Yala and to console the injured people there.
Ms Yingluck should be the prime minister for all people, not just for the people of Isan, including the people of Hat Yai and the rest of the southern region.