Who did what and why on October 7

Did the police know that the Chinese-made tear gas canisters were at least15 years old and contained RDX explosives that could mortally wound a victim if hit directly at close range?

Khunying Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, a member of the police-appointed fact-finding committee, provided some revealing clues when she spoke on the Nation Channel on Monday evening.

She said: "The meeting of senior officials including the Army chief [Gen Anupong Paochinda] and police director [Police Maj Patcharawat Vongsuwan] had concluded that police would not move in to disperse the crowd. But somehow, political influence held sway and orders were later given out to police in the frontline to clear the way in front of Parliament House…"

Short of naming names, she said: "Two deputy premiers were responsible for giving that order. One of them has quit. The other is still in the Cabinet."

If that isn't a clear enough indictment on the men behind the scenes, then we will never hear a more specific statement on who should be held responsible for the bloodshed.

Will Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat ever feel responsible enough to launch a transparent probe into the political manipulation behind the tragedy? Not very likely - since he won't be able to avoid being implicated.

Asked whether the premier would be considered a party to the conspiracy, Khunying Pornthip responded: "Quite so … after all, he was the one who insisted on delivering his policy speech in the Parliament House, no matter what."

The blame game, of course, has been in full play. A close aide to Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who quit as deputy premier in charge of security affairs soon after the chaos broke out, gave a different version of the story to protect his boss. He said he had urged the specially convened Cabinet meeting, chaired by the premier, to avoid any confrontation by proposing several alternative sites where the premier could deliver the policy speech.

The Cabinet was split. But, Chavalit's aides claimed, when a phone call was made to House Speaker Chai Chidchob, the latter was adamant that the parliamentary session would have to be held at the besieged Parliament House - and nowhere else. That command, according to this version of the story, overrode the Cabinet's deliberations. The excuse was that since it was a parliamentary event, the House Speaker, and not the prime minister, should have the final say.

I am sure if you ask House Speaker Chai now, he will have a different story to tell the public.

Precisely because several claims have been made from various interested parties, the prime minister will have no choice but to get the House to come up with a full-fledged investigation board that will be independent and qualified enough to question everybody involved, starting with Premier Somchai himself.

Once the question of who in fact gave the "charge" order is addressed, the second question naturally is: Did the police know what they were dealing with?

The most tell-tale statement came from the Military Ordnance Department chief, Police Maj Gen Puwadon Wuhanakanok, who said a good number of the tear-gas canisters fired on Oct 7 had been bought from China and distributed by his agency to various police and army units 15 years ago.

Questioned on television as to whether he thought the police in charge of dispersing the crowd that morning realised how powerful the Chinese-made tear gas was, the police officer said: "I guess they just thought all tear-gas canisters were the same. They were told to fire - and they simply fired."

The degree of ignorance, even among senior police officers, about the devastating explosive impact of the tear-gas canisters was underlined by the repeated statements they gave out that day:

"Tear gas doesn't tear limbs and legs."

By itself, of course not, but this kind of canister from China contained explosives that killed at least two and seriously maimed a number of protestors among the over 400 injured.

The situation was made worse when the police unit deployed to handle the crowd was not a well-trained anti-riot unit, but border patrol police who opened fire directly into the protestors. Who was responsible for that obvious bungling in the wake of such a serious confrontation?

Unless the government takes full responsibility to do everything possible to obtain nothing but the facts, it will inevitably lose the mandate to rule in a matter of weeks, if not days.

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