In 1983, Vietnamese occupation troops in Cambodia crossed into Thailand and sparked fighting that was heavy at times. A battalion from the 2nd Infantry Division under a Thai colonel thought to have high potential for leadership became bogged down, and a second Thai colonel brought up his battalion to relieve the pressure.
No relationship is closer than battlefield friendship. It is, literally, a blood brotherhood. Which explains why you don’t hear Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the first colonel of the 30-year-old battle, bad-mouthing Gen Udomdej Sitabutr, the second.
Gen Prayut indicated last week he knows as well as the rest of us that the building of Rajabhakti Park involved some very interesting shenanigans. Like the whole country, he knows Gen Udomdej — battlefield friend, career colleague, loyal minister in his cabinet, founder of the park project — has lots of information about said funny business including kickback demands, because Gen Udomdej said so.
Then he went quiet. But the public and the media did not, and that’s the problem the two friends and the Tiger of the East and their junta now face. The worst “investigation” of the year attempted to apply a thin coat of whitewash, and here we are in a second investigation likely to bury the scandal so deep in jargon, obfuscation, confusion, distraction and contradiction that no one will ever be able to determine exactly what went down. As the National Anti-Corruption Commission said so very strangely: “No corruption has been proved.”
In the meantime, though, for this to succeed, Gen Udomdej has to take one for the Tigers. In only three days, he went from (paraphrasing) “no way I’m quitting” to “before the New Year”.
Between today and New Year’s Eve, the entire funding of the park will be even more obscure than the prime minister’s purchase of a spiffy new Airbus executive jet that cost far more than the list price. The government employs layers of accountants with PhDs in obscurantism, who specialise in conversations like this:
Q: What does the paperwork show the jet actually cost?
A: How much do you want it to show?
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva urged the “person at the centre of the park scandal” — no name, please — to step down. Gen Prayut allowed that Gen Udomdej was sharp enough to realise what he should do, without mentioning what that should be.
Gen Udomdej had admitted in November that demands for kickbacks were made at two stages of the park’s construction — the actual forging of the huge statues of the seven great kings by foundries, and then again when asking for (ahem) “donations” from the public.
Then he went silent until last Tuesday, when the media successfully ambushed him when he arrived with his police escort and military bodyguards for the weekly cabinet meeting.
He explained he was not personally involved in any of the funny business in planning or building his park, a great reassurance for the nation. But he was not so explicit about the actual bad guys, identifying them only as ill-intentioned people you can see for yourself, opportunists seeking to undermine the country, politicising everything, never letting good, clean people get on with their tasks. A cynic might say that includes a lot of people.
Two names he didn’t mention: Maj Gen Suchart Prommai and the ex-colonel Khachachart Boondee. Last year, these were his fair-haired boys. Now, both are either outside Thailand or under it, no one seems sure.
Shortly after the May 22, 2014, coup, both were appointed and praised by Gen Udomdej as highly reliable, patriotic and, especially, pro-junta officers entrusted with (a) command and deputy command of the 11th Infantry Circle, the King’s Guard, always a coup threat and (b) executive positions in the Rajabhakti Park construction and (c) helping at a senior level with organising the Bike for Mom event. Now, both are charged with ripping off both projects, and planning the same for Bike for Dad.
Gen Udomdej had praised the integrity of these two important officers who are no longer around. Maj Gen Suchart was removed from King’s Guard command and appointed as an “army expert” at last October’s military reshuffle. By then, colonel Khachachart had already been stripped of rank and awards. The media quoted “military sources” who said he fled to Myanmar.
Last week, the red shirt leaders Jatuporn Prompan and Nattawut Saikuar figured they would go along to the park and do some sleuthing or, more likely, some politicking. The military shut them down, but there was more than the blindfolds and the attitude adjustment and the signed promise to refrain from such future action.
As the Bangkok Post’s political analyst Nattaya Chetchotiros wrote, the two red shirt leaders reminded the military that in all the excitement since the coup, it had forgotten to crush the red shirts.
The former US congressman Tom Petri noted: “It’s not the scandal that gets people in the most trouble, it’s the attempted cover-up.” Hollywood made this pithier: It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. And Hollywood added that to unravel a scandal, “Follow the money.”
It seems unlikely that the financial mysteries lurking in the records of building the park of the seven great kings will ever be unravelled.