Krungthepian

The 153 Hmong in Nong Khai are widely recognised as genuine refugees fearing serious threat of persecution. While there are many in the camp at Huay Nam Khao - perhaps two thirds or three quarters of the 8300 there are thought to be economic refugees fleeing mainly poverty - the 153 are believed to be in a different category. They include jungle leaders whose children were victims of the April 6 massacre near Vang Vieng, and others who have been locked up in stocks for periods of over 12 months.

This has become a major drama today; the Thai and Lao police have reportedly been dragging the women and children out one by one to waiting buses. But the men were barricaded inside Nong Khai Immigration Detention Centre. There has been a flurry of reports from Hmong contacts in the US saying the men have been gassed and half of them have passed out unconscious. Sounds like tear gas or riot gas of some kind is being used to subdue them and get them out.

At least one of the English dailies is looking into this, along with some of the wire agencies, so I expect some stories on news websites in the next hour or two.

UNHCR has been trying to stop the deportation of these people, which it has said would be contrary to international regulations, as most of these people are already registered as 'people of concern'.

January 30 is set to become Thailand's Day of Shame.

If you know people in Nong Khai tell them to go to the IDC to witness this ugly spectacle and report back. We need witness reports for the media.

Big drama in Nong Khai. Thais allowing the Lao government to forcibly deport 136 Hmong from the IDC there - despite warnings from international community and UNHCR that this is against international rules and will harm Thailand's reputation.

Sorry to be writing off topic. There are buses lined up now to return the Hmong who are refusing to leave their cells - 8.30am tues morn.

Makes me sick, this sort of thing.

These are largely jungle Hmong - genuine refugees - and most are already registered with UNHCR as people of concern. It includes two jungle leaders who activists in the US believe the Lao gvoernment wants to permanently silence because of the info they have about govt massacres, etc.

People are needed to get to Nong Khai to get photos of this crisis to shame the Thais and let the world know what is going on.

I was told today that they were married. Don Henshall, 69, and Pim, 21.

He was from Benarkin in Darling Downs region in Queensland, Australia.

Allegedly living in Thailand for some time, but apparently has family in UK.

His body was cremated, presumably at a nearby wat.

He had flat on 14th flr of Nasa Vegas; don't think it was 18th.

Police at Klong Tan investigated, allegedly no susp circumstances. They have spoken to Pim, I believe.

Don would have been 70 this year.

RIP

Except I'm trying to figure out the coup is going to cost Taksin the Shin deal. It may indeed cost Temask (aka Singpore) a bunch, but Taksin (and family) got their money the first day.

Otherwise, a pretty good post, although somewhat from a western perspective of a very complex situation. Keep in mind, Taksin is not the richest person in Thailand.

TH

(ThaiHome)

My understanding is the funds from the Shin deal are still in Thai banks; that the finance minister, Pridiyathorn, said a month or two ago that the money (from Temasak for the Shinawatras) was still here and had not been moved abroad. The money is legally in the Shinawatra name but the deal is still hanging in limbo while the courts assess various aspects.

I've also seen reports saying that this takeover would have had caveats that should protect, or largely protect, Temasek should something go wrong - as it has; that is allegedly standard in large takeovers. I'm not 100 per cent on this. Indeed, it's something that business or political reporters should clarify, because it's unclear.

I'd be interested seeing a legal opinion or the opinions of insiders who know the particulars of this deal on what the prospects are of Temasek getting a fat chunk of their money back if the great bulk of the deal is torpedo'd - by the courts and Surayud government (which oversees such things as satellite and TV licences), because, to me, that looks virtually certain to happen.

One thing that's always struck me about it is that Temasek were ludicriously naive about the way such a deal would go down with the Thai public. They overstepped the mark wildly, so there's not a lot of sympathy for them. Som nom na.

The only thing is will there be intervention to let Singapore partly off the hook - and minimise their losses? At present it looks like the Surayud govt will follow the courts - so they're gonna have to cut ownership to 49 per cent of all Shin companies .. "but we'll give you a couple of years to do it, cos you're a valued friend and neighbour".

A key issue may end up being, can Temasek take legal action against Shin to get their money back? Because the whole thing is unravelling to the point where there's a very strong argument for them to say they won't get anywhere near what they sort to buy. Could a Thai court in year or two in the future order the Shin deal to be scrapped or drastically re-jigged?

We need a lawyer to tell us that.

Happy New Year, by the way. Let's hope the injured recover promptly, and the families of the two who died can be somehow comforted amid their tragic loss.

Seems to me that this isn't going to help anyones cause, rather it's someones attempt at revenge, but I'm no expert.

- Rafval

You could be right re the revenge element also. And there is curious symmetry to it also - with Sondhi in Saudi for the Hajj (Thaksin was in NY when the coup occurred).

Thaksin behind the bombings...? That doesn't make sense since he would have cut-off a possible return to Thailand forever.

It's beginning to look like a '24'-scenario with Jack Bauer....

LaoPo

=========

I think you need to try to imagine the sort of legal battles that the former PM is facing and how serious they are to get an idea how much motivation they might be on his side - not necessarily him, but his supporters - to be involved in such incidents as we've seen tonight.

Just from what we've seen in the press in recent weeks, he would probably face many years of tortuous litigation. And when you look at the way things are going - eg military people taking over management of the new airport and ferreting through the contracts there (which are allegedly a can of worms for him and many others), plus possible cases linked to the Drug War killings - he must be very very worried re the future, I would think.

Some people looking into the killings during the war on drugs say it's likely many thousands of people were killed; that investigators of the National Human Rights Commission say people disappeared and are believed to have been killed in hundreds if not thousands of villages right across the North - it should be the subject of a documentary to really bring home what went on, because it was effectively the work of Thai death squads. Many hilltribe people who were not registered as Thai citizens were reportedly just wacked; the toll could easily be 6000 - not the silly 2500 figure we see constantly repeated in the press. All of that extraordinary wave of killing can, media people here say, be drawn right back to the PM and some of the highly emotive speeches he gave to police and local officials; speeches that urged extrajudicial treatment.

But even if nothing happens on the above that might directly implicate the former PM, his massive Shin deal is in tatters. iTV can be taken at a moment and I would have thought ownership of the satellite licence (ShinSat) simply won't be allowed to leave the country. That pretty well just leaves the mobile phone firm AIS, and even that would be blocked under the latest Foreign Biz Law moves.

The coup will cost the former PM $1 billion+ on the Shin deal alone. If the Monson case gets the go ahead it could strip him of another huge sum. And put him behind bars for years. Probably, there are a lot of cases that could see him jailed for many years.

If the Surayud government were to pass a proper witness protection law things could open up dramatically. The current government has only just offered incentives - in the form of 25% of assets for people linked to offences to roll over and say what they know.

Having watched things closely for the last few years I think there is actually a staggering list of misdeeds and corruption. This AEC panel set up to probe such things would need several years to sort through it all. I truly believe the previous government was like an organised crime gang and that the cupboard is full of a lot more than just skeletons.

One or two people have already started to "sing" to AEC panels, as can be evidenced by the death threats they received a couple of weeks back. There's a fair chance that a whole range of former ministers face very serious repercussions.

But if you look at the potential threat that a man of such wealth could pose - particularly when he had/has some cohorts with very bad reputations (ie people from Buri Ram and former ministers prepared to round up forestry officials to physicall attack opponents) - it's no wonder that some experienced Thai journos have been predicting for some time that Thaksin was NEVER going to be able to return.

In terms of who benefits from a wave of bombings in the capital, you can probably suggest 1/ militants from the South, 2/ former govt heavyweights 3/ coup leaders.

However, the intelligence to date heavily suggests no 2 -

What would be the purpose of such bombings?

Probably to destabilise the current government to a major extent; to literally "knock a wheel off the car"; sink the economy and put them into a crisis that might derail or seriously impair some of the legal moves that are hugely threatening to much of the previous Cabinet. Make no mistake, some heavies are going down and they hate it - they have a lot of wealth to fight what's going on, and tonight, the gloves have probably come off.

In regard to why the huge discrepancy - between those two cases: I heard that the judge who dealt with Stewart McLeod's case was a very senior judge and perhaps not afraid to 'throw the book' at him.

He would also have known that the Aussie has a chance to appeal - within the next 30 days (and that is extendable).

They allegedly won't get a copy of the court verdict for 2-3 weeks but one would imagine he would appeal, given his confession and apparent expressions of remorse. He's almost got nothing to lose, given that he looks to have got the maximum sentence.

And Thai courts can reportedly be lenient in regard to 'crimes of passion'.

The question is whether the judge figured this crime was pre-meditated. McLeod admits he lost it, but it would seem the judge didn't rate his attack in an alleged fit of rage as a spur of the moment thing.

One interesting thing to bear in mind might be how courts or judges respond when the accused can talk to them directly. In some other cases farang have been treated very leniently when they have pleaded their claims directly to the bench. There was a young Brisbane man, Marc Beatton, who was convicted of throwing his a friend of his girlfriend off a fifth or sixth storey flat window (or glass door), while very drunk and involved in a domestic argument. One claim was that the girls were having a lesbian affair but it's unknown whether that is true. The girl died, but the Beatton ended up out after just five or six years, courtesy partly of the large amnesty this year linked to the King. Beatton originally got 16 years then that was halved at appeal. In a way, he largely talked his way out of it, thru his gift with languages. There may have been other factors, including his young age, and heaven knows what else.

But, the discrepancy between Beatton's case and some of the huge terms that Westerners get for drugs - anyone dealing with drugs - seems massive.

A notorious pedophile called Bradley Pendragon got out around the same time as Beatton - middle of 2006 - after serving about a decade. He is yet another example of the big judicial discrepancies you get here. Pendragon was convicted of violent sex with/rapes of underage girls, who were well underage; ugly stuff if you look at the details. Yet he too was freed while people who tried to smuggle hard drugs, sometimes not in very large quantities, are still inside. A comment was made at the time - "it's as though they're releasing the killers and pedophiles first".

Sadly, the media here don't do a very job of reporting these cases; more details are desperately needed to know why McLeod got so many years. He reportedly had one of the top lawyers in Bangkok but that didn't help. It's been said that he attacked his wife after she'd gone to bed - not during a fight - I don't know whether that's true, but if it is it suggests scheming to kill rather than an explosion of rage while arguing.. another rumour was that he was having an affair and his wife confronted him over that, then said she's heading back to Toronto.

At the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of sense. He lost it big time, and he knows it now more than ever.

On another note, the Thai judiciary has felt empowered - it seems - since the coup. It's almost as though the chains have been released and judges are now launching into verdicts long pondered and stifled in some way by the Thaksin administration, which is suspected of having interfered with many matters.

Next big decision, will be Jan 5 - whether they give US businessman William Monson a chance against Thaksin. Many believe it would be very fitting if they did.. given the claims that the former PM was partly to an illegal takeover of a highly profitable business.

An early story on the Beatton case:

19 year old Aussie held on murder charge in Thailand

AFP 26-2-01

BANGKOK - A 19-year-old Australian man has been charged with murder after a Thai woman fell to her death from the sixth-floor window of an apartment building in Bangkok, police said Monday.

Police said Marc Beatton, who was working as an English teacher here, was drunk when he allegedly pushed Saipin Sopamas through a plate-glass window.

"Saipin Sopamas, 23, was found dead on the ground below the sixth floor window, and Marc Beatton, 19, was found in the room with cuts from broken glass from the window," a police report said.

"Another 25-year-old Thai woman, Rungsri Nongkran, told police Marc was her boyfriend and he got drunk because of the death of his father, and his mother was not supporting him financially. He had a fight with her and she ran out of the room, then she heard glass breaking," the report said.

Australian embassy deputy head John Griffin confirmed an Australian citizen has been arrested in connection with the death of a local woman, but declined to give a name.

"An Australian is in hospital under police guard in connection with the death of a Thai woman. We've been in touch with him," he said.

tp-de/agr/cl AFP 260924 GMT FEB 01

============================

It does look like Anand's remarks are a bit xenophobic. But I think he's right - the reactions from Downer and Helen Clark, in particular, to the coup lacked any sympathy for or understanding of the situation in Thailand.. they may well have been comments for their "domestic constituents" but they are two very experienced politicians and should know everything they say is replayed around the world and up here.

As an Aussie living in Thailand, I felt very disappointed in the remarks Downer and Clark made when news of the coup broke.. Thaksin was regarded as having led one of the most corrupt administrations in re cent years. There were massive protests in the streets of Bangkok for weeks early this year, and his record on human rights abuses - inciting the slaying of 3000 or more people in the "war on drugs" in early 2003, repeated acts of media suppression and utter disregard for the slaying of at least 20 activists protesting against things such as power stations and local land grabs .. people such as Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, whose abduction has now been linked directly to someone in the PM's Office .. who was allegedly in contact with one of the five police said to have been involved on the very night of his disappearance .. look into Thaksin's business record and you can see very clearly he was close to a corporate crook for much of his career .. note particularly his involvement in the highly controversial seizure of a cable-TV company set up with Seattle businessman William Monson .. the Thai man who introduced Thaksin to Monson claimed in The Nation not long ago that was how Thaksin made his first billion baht)..

Sorry for going on, but the point is our embassies knew all this stuff and a lot more. Both Clark and Downer should have been told many times how grubby Thaksin was .. and they should also have been able to find out fairly quickly that General Sonthi and Surayud were/are military leaders with impeccable records.. Men of extraordinary discipline and with absolutely no history of having any sort of political ambition and both linked very closely to the Palace. How much of a risk would it have been for them to suggest that, "actually, you know, this may not be so bad.. there was a real threat of blood on the streets similar or worse than 1992.. talk of a coup had been reported on for months and months .. to the point where the big question was which side would stage one first .. and with a leader as selfish and unscrupulous as Thaksin, gosh, was it actually surprising that he did lose power the way he did?

One columnist has said the way that the timing and nature of Thaksin's departure may well have been a deliberate act of leaving the door open to what occurred .. with all the luggage he reportedly took with him (however many suitcases, etc).. for a man as Machiavellian as old Square Face, you really can't discount such a thing. One Burmese man I know reckons the junta's top generals would never have made the sort of "mistake" that Thaksin made by leaving on an extended trip at such a point. And journalists have been wondering what his real motives were; Is he as superstitious as they say? And did the disabled Burmese he reportedly saw, weeks earlier, convince him to leave the country because the negative power of two supposed solar eclipses in the second half of September were so bad he should not be in the country? It's wild and incredibly fanciful stuff, yet, was it a factor in what occurred?

The trouble is, he's such a compulsive liar, short of him becoming a radical Christian convert or becoming a devoted Buddhist like his former friend/foe Chamlong - we may never know.

Back on the topic, I can easily imagine how someone like Anand - who has copped a lot of flak from the Rich One, now exiled in London (or lurking in China or somewhere just over the northern border, god knows..) might feel upset at the lack of "understanding" from the West for what has occurred here. You don't expect someone like George Bush to stand up and say something enlightened (unless it's a month of Sundays perhaps), but very few Western leaders have broken out of the standard all-coups-are-bad mould.

My firm belief is Surayud will lead one of the best regimes this country has ever seen, and that Thais such as Giles Ungprakorn, who may have fair reasons to attack military interventions given what his family went through, will be spewing into their cornflakes long after Surayud is replaced by the hopeless greedy bozos that lined up shamelessly behind Thaksin for the past five years.

Let's just hope that a good number of them are defending themselves in court for some of what they allowed while in office by the time the election is staged - probably in early 2008.

I recently applied for a new passport from the US embassy in Bangkok. My old one was due to expire in five months and I'll be flying to Singapore in mid-October. The airline would not let me fly with less than six months on my passport.

The embassy said it will take two weeks for the new passport to arrive, two days before I am due to fly.

The trouble is that my visa stamp - a one-month extension of a 60-day tourist visa - will expire 10 days before my new passport arrives.

I have my old passport. The question is whether I should risk trying to cross into Laos to get a new stamp. Is there any risk I will not be allowed back in?

To recap: my visa will expire 10 days before my new passport arrives and I can leave the country. Should I try to get a new stamp with my old passport, which will expire in five months?

Any advice would be appreciated!

Talking to some officials in Bangkok yesterday, they agree this case smacks of political action to draw media attention away from the fact that high-ranking Thai Rak Thai people were involving in land deals on Samui.. at a time when there is a lot of damaging publicity about land rip-offs, scams, etc.

The high-ranking people include Thai Rak Thai deputy PM and Agriculture Minister sudarat Keyuraphan. The wife of govt spokesman (and former ICT minister) Surapong Suebwonglee, Pranee, also admitted on Monday to having done land deals on Samui. They may have done legitimate deals, but certainly the ruling party was looking to limit damage. In fact, you could see that from the fact the Environment Minister Yongyuth lead a fact-finding team down there.

All of these people are in Thaksin's inner circle; his close allies.

And the party is essentially in election mode - although whether it will survive the threat of dissolution is another thing. Sadly, signs are emerging that the independence of the top court (Constitution Court) has been "challenged" with the selection of a new president who the Bangkok Post says is close to the PM.

Given those factors, it would appear Peter Jones and Crispin may well have been scapegoats - to lure the erratic watch of local reporters off where it should be. This government has been incredibly clever in that regard. Whenever it has faced some sort of crisis - a day when bad publicity was likely - bingo, some other rabbit gets pulled out of the hat. It's like holding major government meetings on the days when a big world cup soccer match is played - everybody is so distracted they miss the events of real substance.

Someone said Peter's an Adelaide man. And that he got bail yesterday (Thurs).

Anyone seen him back on Samui?

I got the impression from DSI comments a day or two ago that they realised he wasn't a biker gang member or dodgy - the fact he's out on bail suggests they may be aware these charges, and the police descriptions of them stretch credibility.

All in all, it shows you the sort of garbage that can go on in a country run by someone who has little regard for the rule of law. Makes you wonder how many crimes they will commit trying to hold on to power.

There are often Christian groups that are caring for these kids, usually with approval of local authorities. What is not said in The Nation report is the number of these kids that have HIV/Aids. Because, as you prob'ly know, there has been great fears among Thais about that disease "spreading". Those fears are lessening, but still prevalent and powerful in more rural parts.

Western Christian groups appear to be filling the need - taking some of the pressure off state orphanages, which may have been overloaded at some occasions over the past 10-20 years (cos of parents of many kids dying of Aids and relatives just abandoning children who they feared had Aids or would be too much trouble for them to take care of).

In Chiang Mai, the Agape Home, set up by Canadian missionary Avis Rideout, looks after about 60 kids (could be even more now as they shifted into a huge new building a couple of years ago).

In Nong Khai, US Redemptorist priest Father Mike Shea oversees the care of dozens of kids in several homes.

There is also a Christian group from Oz (Mercy International) that takes care of abandoned kids or kids with HIV in Phrae, Phetchabun, and Khon Kaen.

In Mae Sai, a former Bangkok man (Thai) cares for street kids - mainly Burmese.

There are also western NGOs (non-govt groups) helping to care for kids in Mae Sai and other towns bordering Burma - Mae Sot and Ranong in the South. World Vision is one of these.

In the Klong Toey slum in Bangkok, Father Joe Maier has set up the Mercy Centre, which looks after maybe 200 kids.

In Pattaya, Father Ray Brennan (died couple of years back) set up not only an orphanage but a formidable array of other needed services - schools for deaf, blind and handicapped. They cater for about 800 kids from toddlers to young adults. It has people also trying to help street kids, as does Father Joe's operation in Klong Toey.

In Saraburi, a German group is looking after a few dozen kids - HIV affected - near the famous Aids temple, Wat Phrabaht Nampho (where many Aids victims have been dumped over the years).

One of the most interesting things about it all is that, the abandoned children with HIV are nolonger dying at the rapid rate they used to because most are now getting anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), cos the govt is helping to provide them, following a lot of pressure from Aids groups and very good people such as former Senator Jon Ungprakorn.

That is the bulk of the ones - orphanages I know about - but if people know of others I'd be fascinated to hear about them.

The farang and Thais staffing and running these places often do wonderful work; inspirational in fact. You have to take your hat off to them.

Above report - Wrong Place, Wrong Time - was published in Brisbane Saturday June 24.

(as well as the other one above: Bullet to give lead to killer - An unwelcome spotlight on the unseen dangers of travel in Thailand).

The wrong place, the wrong time

By: Andrew Perrin

Courier Mail, Brisbane

Pamela Fitzpatrick was doing what many young travellers do. Then she was shot. Andrew Perrin reports from Thailand

THEY were, in the words of the guesthouse owner where they stayed in Thailand, two beautiful girls who were obviously close.

They were sisters, born six years apart in Johannesburg, whose family had moved to Springwood in Brisbane in the 1990s to escape the violence in South Africa.

But now here they were in Thailand, in Kanchanaburi, the popular tourist town 130km west of Bangkok, and the site of the World War II Burma railway and bridge over the River Kwai.

Pamela Lesley Fitzpatrick, 26, a nurse, and her sister Jennifer Ann Fitzpatrick, 20, were at the beginning of a month-long holiday travelling together through South-East Asia.

They were staying at Apple's, a popular guesthouse and restaurant in Kanchanaburi, famed for its banana pancakes and a 170-year-old mango tree growing out the back.

The sisters shared a room, No. 9, that came with a fan and a shower. The room cost $15 a night, the cheapest room in the place. Their money had to travel a long way.

They had been in Kanchanaburi for only a day but already they had seen a lot, travelling 80km out of town to Hellfire Pass, the memorial to Allied prisoners of war and to the spectacular Erawan Falls.

The next trip on their itinerary was a journey into Laos, the sleepy communist country to the north. They had just received word the Laos embassy had finally processed their entry visas and the sisters planned to travel to Bangkok the next day to pick them up.

But there was still some things the sisters wanted to see. The Socceroos were playing Brazil in the World Cup and, like every Australian, they wanted to watch the match. Their guesthouse was on Mae Nam Khwae Rd, the backpacker strip near the centre of town, and at night the road came to life in a blaze of gaudy neon as rows of cheap bars and restaurants competed to lure in the backpackers wandering along the kilometre long road. The sisters ended up watching the game on TV in one of them, Rascals.

When the game was finished about 2am, the girls started walking back to their guesthouse with three Western backpackers, two men and a woman, with whom they had struck up a friendship in Rascals. The group intended to have a nightcap at Apple's restaurant to complete the night.

When they got close to the guesthouse, at the end of the road, they stopped on the sidewalk. Two men on a motorbike drove past, the only vehicle on the road. But that's not what made them stop. From where they stood they could see that Apple's restaurant had closed. The five tourists stood together in a huddle considering their options.

The Up2U Bar had little to recommend it. A sofa out the front where people were supposed to sit was full of holes, its foam stuffing falling out. Inside, the owner, Natchaya Kraimung, 30, stood behind a bar that held a small selection of near empty bottles of spirits and a fridge stocked with a dozen bottles of beer. The small room had a few pictures of the Thai royal family on its white walls and just two bar stools for people to sit on. There were no customers in the bar.

But one thing about the Up2U was appealing to the backpackers -- it was open, when everything else on the strip was shut, or about to be. The group walked into the empty bar to order what Jennifer would later say was just one last drink.

IF ONLY APPLE'S restaurant had been open. If only the Up2U Bar had been shut. If only they hadn't walked into the bar at that moment, 2.38am, on Monday, June 19, then Pamela would still be alive today, travelling with her sister, Jennifer, through Laos, two anonymous backpackers exploring the well-trodden tourist trail.

Instead, Pamela Fitzpatrick now lies dead in a Bangkok morgue, her body awaiting shipment back to Australia and a Brisbane family is shattered by a killing that has robbed them of a sister and a daughter, and left them searching for answers, when it seems precious few are to be found.

What police know for certain about the events of that night is that when the group walked into the bar, Pamela was the last to enter.

Two people in the group sat down on the sofa outside, while one man walked into the bar to order drinks for everyone. Jennifer was standing facing the couple on the sofa, while Pamela stood behind her, her back to the road.

What she couldn't see was that the motorbike that had passed the group two minutes before they entered Up2U had turned around up the road and started slowly driving back towards the bar.

When it reached the bar the pillion passenger, a young Thai man of 22 or 23, pulled out a revolver and opened fire. Four shots were sprayed into the bar. Three of them hit the rear wall inside. The other one struck Pamela Fitzpatrick in the back of the neck and lodged in the top of her spinal column. She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and was later driven in an ambulance to a hospital in Bangkok.

Three days later, on Wednesday, Pamela died.

Police have now thrown everything they have at solving the case. They have more than 60 officers working on it, and on Thursday homicide detectives and forensic teams from Bangkok were brought in to help as well.

``We must solve this because Kanchanaburi is a tourist area and if something happens to tourism in this town then it is in trouble,'' says Police Colonel Vorapat Vadhanavisala, head of the investigation. ``So we need to make sure the tourists feel safe.

``If anything happens to tourists, it immediately becomes top priority.''

Police say they are confident of catching the killer but the clues they have so far are hardly case closers.

Eyewitnesses have helped police construct an identikit picture of the suspect. Meanwhile, the bullet lodged in Fitzpatrick's spine was removed after she died and with it police hope to be able to identify the make and model of the gun, believed to be a Colt revolver, which may lead them to the shooter.

While police search for the killer, finding a motive for the shooting is proving equally elusive.

Initially, police believed that the shooting was a vendetta against the bar owner who only two days before the shooting had become involved in a dispute with a Thai customer over money and a girl.

The customer was interviewed on Wednesday but police could not find any evidence to link him to the crime.

Now police are working on the theory that the shooting was committed by men either paid to shoot up the bar to frighten off customers, or else a couple of drunk, gun-toting hooligans blowing off steam.

Either way, they are certain that Fitzpatrick was an innocent victim, someone unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That was also the conclusion of the Australian ambassador to Thailand, Bill Patterson, who this week described the shooting as a freak occurrence.

But Fitzpatrick's shooting is not as random an incident as some would make it out to be. While Kanchanaburi's reputation will remain undimmed among tourists who come here for its incredible history and rolling green hills, among Thais its reputation is mostly for violence.

In an area of town called the Pier, on the River Kwai's edge, a five-minute drive from Mae Nam Khwae Rd, gangs of youths hang out, drinking long into the night.

Shootings and stabbings here are an almost weekly occurrence.

This year five people have been killed and dozens injured in the violence.

Down on the Pier, everyone has a gun or else knows someone who does. A revolver can be bought in Kanchanaburi for as little as 4000 baht ($A145) on the black market.

Life is even cheaper.

In a part of town where many people earn less in a month than a budget backpacker spends in a day, a shooter can be hired to shoot up a bar for, according to Colonel Vadhanavisala, the price of a drink.

``The violence is killing this town,'' says Prasert Soonkirt, 62, a retired official who has lived his whole life near the Pier. ``With every generation it is getting worse.''

Even before this week's tragedy, the tourists areas were not immune from the violence. In 2004 a decorated Thai police officer was jailed for life after shooting two British tourists in a bar dispute.

On Mae Nam Khwae Rd tourist strip, where Fitzpatrick was shot, there have been at least four shootings in the past two years. In February, in an attack identical to the one that killed Fitzpatrick, a Thai man was shot and killed in a bar, just 200m along from the Up2U Bar.

Ask any Thai who lives here when the most dangerous time is they will all tell you that it's after 2am. That's when the shooting always starts.

FITZPATRICK KNEW NONE of this about the town when she walked into the Up2U Bar early on Monday morning. It's not the kind of information you find in a guidebook. Instead they walked inside and, according to Penpuk Makajan, 24, a waitress at the adjoining bar, Fitzpatrick and her sister walked in looking happy.

Penpuk recalls the motorbike driving past and paid special attention to it because the driver of the bike had on a full faced helmet, unusual in Thailand, she says, unless you are trying to hide something.

She watched them travel a few hundred metres up the street, then turn around and come slowly back towards the bar. The driver was wearing a white shirt. The man sitting on the back was wearing a black shirt. They were young, fit, and the man on the back with no helmet, was handsome, she says.

As they passed the man on the back pulled out a gun, a black Colt revolver, yelled ``Hey'', and opened fire.

Penpuk said the gunman's face was expressionless as he fired the gun using both hands. Then he was gone.

At first it appeared that no one had been injured, but then she saw Pamela lurch to one side, then right herself, before slowly sinking to the ground, convulsing. Jennifer saw it too, and started screaming, ``Pamela, Pamela''.

She picked her off the ground and held her in her arms.

Then she started trying to save her sister's life. She gave her mouth to mouth for at least 10 minutes.

Fitzpatrick did start breathing again, but, in truth, she had been handed a death sentence the moment the bullet entered her neck. It had shattered her spinal cord.

On Wednesday, with his daughter lying in a coma in a Bangkok hospital, Kevin Fitzpatrick read a prepared statement on the condition of his daughter. He said his daughter remained in a critical condition and the situation remained very serious.

He didn't discuss his daughter's chances of recovery.

He didn't have to.

His eyes betrayed him.

They were without hope.

Later that night, when the media had gone, her life support was quietly turned off. The statement released the next day said she had died from injuries sustained in the attack.

She was the 22nd foreign tourist to die a violent death in Thailand in the past two years.

Just one more sad and sorry statistic from the Land of Smiles.

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I read that the lady, Pam Fitzpatrick, had just arrived in Thailand. Came to see sister. Had just watched Brazil vs Aust match, 1-2am Mon. Was allegedly a drive-by shooting at the Up To You bar; don't know it. Run by a Brit. Three shots; one hit lady; who is still unconscious (Tues morn).

Bad wilun? Papers called it local feud; no details.

No good.