Bangkok inferno puts spotlight on police payoffs
Posted: Thursday, January 08, 2009 11:19 AM
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Bangkok, Thailand
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand – The initial investigation into the pub inferno that killed 64 New Year’s revelers here makes for depressing reading: Not only did Bangkok's Santika Club have no operating license or insurance, there were no heat or smoke detectors, no fire alarm, no emergency lights, no fire escape sign and no sprinklers. It was packed with highly flammable material, electrical wires were dangerously exposed, windows were blocked and the main entrance was just over six feet wide, according to experts quoted in the local media.
It was, in other words, a death trap.
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| PAIROJ/AFP/Getty Images file |
| Thai policemen and rescuers stand by the bodies of victims of a fire that ripped through a nightclub in Bangkok early on January 1, 2009. |
Yet this was not some seedy, underground establishment, hidden from view. It was a large flashy building on a busy upscale Bangkok road, with the capacity for several hundred, frequented by well-heeled Thais and foreigners.
How on earth were they allowed to get away with not adhering to any safety codes?
Police corruption
Newspapers reported Thursday that the police have summoned the pub's manager for questioning, but he's yet to respond to their invitation.
There may be many in the police wishing he never does.
Thais generally have a very low opinion of the honesty of their police, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the relationship between the cops and Bangkok's notorious entertainment business.
A while back I met an academic from one of Bangkok's leading universities. He was compiling a study of Bangkok's sex industry, and was trying to find an accurate figure for the number of sex workers in the capital.
I can't remember what the final sum was, but the most reliable statistics came from the police. The academic told me cheerily that the cops kept detailed logs of how many worked in each establishment in their area, since they based their payoff on this head-count, and no bar or massage parlor could operate without paying the police.
The Santika pub was not a sex establishment, but bar owners who have tried to upset the system of payoffs have found themselves arbitrarily closed down or subject to dubious drugs raids.
‘Tea money’
There's a distinction here between regulation and control. The entertainment business in Bangkok is poorly regulated – safety rules flouted and not enforced, but the bars are tightly controlled by the police, who even have a stake in many establishments in their area.
The pay-offs are generally referred to as "tea-money" for the poorly paid police force. The authorities this week said they are investigating whether bribes were paid by Santika's owners.
That's encouraging, and would be nice to think that out of the New Year’s carnage a proper investigation of this corruption could come about.
The problem, of course, is that we are not talking about a few bad apples in the police force, but an entire rotten system of routine pay-offs.
