Nikorn Srikamma, 29, was arrested in July last year for his participation in the red shirt rallies on 19 May in Chiang Mai, and jailed for nearly 5 months, before being released as his sentence was suspended by the court.  On 7 May this year, he received a summons from the court attached to a copy of an appeal by the public prosecutor who considered that his sentence was too low.

Before his arrest, he had worked as a labourer laying tap water pipes, and when the summons came he was about to return to the same job as a vacancy was available for work in the town of San Kamphaeng, not far from where he lives, Tambon Huai Kaeo in Mae On district.  He worries that if he misses the job this time, he would probably never get the chance again.

He lost one eye to a car accident about ten years ago, and he has two metal splices in his leg, which cause pain if he has to do hard work.

While he was on remand last year, his family’s grocery shop had to close down for lack of labour, and their debt grew.

On 2 Dec last year, the court sentenced him to two years in prison, but suspended it because he pleaded guilty.  He was fined 3,000 baht and was released on a one-year parole.  No prosecution witnesses were heard.  His lawyer advised him to confess, because the evidence included a photograph of him holding a cigarette lighter at the scene.

3 days before the verdict, when he was granted bail with the help of officials from the Ministry of Justice under the government’s ‘reconciliation’ policy, he responded to reporters’ questions, ‘This does not mean anything. I’ve not asked the Abhisit government to help me. Neither have my family.  When they stepped in to offer help, I just accepted it.’  This answer did not get reported.

After being a casual participant in political gatherings, Nikorn actively joined red-shirt rallies only last year.  He said, ‘I don’t hate anybody. I joined the red shirts because I felt that this government did unjust things. I disliked it, so I came out.’

Of course, Thaksin is his icon.  Thaksin was the first prime minister, he said, to show him tangible developments, including, for example, replacing a rough gravel and concrete road to his village with an asphalt one in 2001, which reduces travelling time from hours to less than half an hour, the village fund, public health facilities, etc.  Resorts, home-stay services and coffee orchards emerged with the influx of foreign tourists.

Nikorn returned to Chiang Mai from the red-shirt rallies in Bangkok on the same day that Seh Dang was shot and killed. On 19 May, when a security booth in front of the Public Relations Office in Chiang Mai was set ablaze, he headed to the spot on his motorcycle with a slingshot he had brought back with him from Bangkok, despite a phone call from his mother warning him about police checkpoints blocking red shirts. He had just changed into a black shirt. 

He lives with his wife, who is a Thai Lue without an identification card, a 4-year-old daughter, and his parents, 63 and 61, who collect bamboo shoots when the season comes.  He and his wife are hired from time to time to pick coffee seeds at another tambon about 20 kms away.

To this day, he insists that he has nothing to ask from the government.  But he wants his fellow red shirts to help find him a job or a scholarship for his daughter’s education.

Reported by Prayun Kotekotha