Police and the public know pretty much everything about the life of the man in the yellow T-shirt. Everything, that is, for the 20 minutes of that vile life between 6.38pm and 6.58pm last Monday.
In the beginning, he was wearing a backpack and carrying a plastic bag. He hailed a tuk-tuk driven by Suchart Panngam, 37, at Hua Lamphong train station and asked to be taken to “Chula”, meaning Chulalongkorn University. Along the route, he took out his mobile phone, found or Googled a map, and showed the driver he wanted to go to the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok Hotel, as it calls itself.
He got out of the tuk-tuk, walked to the compound of the Erawan shrine and sat on a bench at an iron fence separating the shrine from Phloenchit Road, as far from the actual shrine as possible while inside the compound. He took off the rucksack and tucked it under the bench against the fence. He stood up, walked 200 metres down Ratchadamri Road to Soi Mahatlekluang, where he climbed aboard the motosai taxi driven by Kasem Suksuwan. (In the meantime, the bomb went off, probably from a signal from his phone.)
He said nothing to Kasem, but showed him a scrap of paper with “Lumpini” written on it. On the way, he made a voice call on his mobile phone, speaking to someone in — according to Mr Kasem — a language that was not Thai or English. At the gate of Lumpini Park, the man in the yellow shirt got off the motorcycle.
Before that, nothing is known. After that apparently irrefutable testimony, mostly backed by photographic proof, all is speculation. It was troubling that all security forces claimed they could not get anything more. It was disturbing that the country’s top officials proved they could compete on a level playing field with foolish internet rumour-mongers.
After warning, pleading and suggesting that internet trolls and speculators get out of the way and let the facts speak, leaders spoke in the great vacuum of facts. From them, the nation learned the bomber is a Rohingya-Uighur of mixed blood, living in Isan where he was recruited from the southern insurgent movement by Isis agents financed by the red-shirt leaders trying to destroy the nation by attacking Chinese tourists.
In sheer body count, this is the worst butchery in Thailand in nearly three generations. But murderous violence is no stranger in Thailand. Bloody bombings have targeted tourism in the deep South several times since the first car bomb in Thailand killed five tourists at Sungai Kolok in 2005.
More to the point, Bangkok has had more than its share of blood in the streets, too.
How quickly have those involved tried to bury the very memory of the 50 days of raging violence of 2010 and its killings of innocents. That seven-week horror was only one of a murderous chain of atrocious butchery that has kept ladies and volunteers with soap and brooms scrubbing blood off the streets so often. Lest we forget, the green shirts have killed more Thais in Bangkok since 1973 than has the combined savagery of all the other colours of shirts combined.
Disturbing Point: All decent CCTV images are from commercial cameras. There wasn’t even one camera functioning at Lumpini Park, where the suspect disappeared. Fake cameras have haunted the investigation even more than horrible video quality.
More disturbing point: After the Valentine’s Day, 2012, bombing in Bangkok, police knew before sundown what suspects were in custody and the full identities of the three who managed to get through Suvarnabhumi airport, and where they fled. Now, after six sundowns, police are clueless on when the bomber arrived in Thailand, when he left — even if he arrived or left at all.
Most disturbing point: Authorities in charge refuse to consider that this unique, never-seen atrocity was unusual. Official speculation is sublime and unimaginative, not even a peek or a peep outside the box. They haven’t considered it was a mafia contract, or the worst drug-trafficking atrocity among many. No one has suggested it was a targeted murder — for insurance, say — and the other bodies were part of the cover-up. By refusing to consider all possible motives, authorities may be assuring the terrorists will get away forever.
The barbarity of last Monday touched the nation differently from all previous atrocities and brutality.
More than the dreadful toll of 20 dead and dozens maimed, the sudden, totally random nature of the evening attack on decency itself made it Thailand’s 9/11. The idea that The Man in the Yellow T-shirt has got away makes it desperately agonising.