One year ago, Sergeant Major Jakrapanth Thomma carried out Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting, killing 31 people after he opened fire at a shopping centre in Korat in the country’s northeast. His actions were sparked by a clash with his superior over a business deal. Security guard Supachai Tangyoo, 42, was injured in the shooting and returned to his post at the Terminal 21 mall last week. A bullet fragment remains lodged in his hip, causing him to walk with a pronounced limp, but he knows he was lucky to escape with his life. “Two of my colleagues died, another was wounded,” he said. “I’ll make merit for them… and everyone else who died,” he added, referring to Buddhist alms-giving ceremonies planned near the shopping centre. The massacre prompted scrutiny of both the deadly gun culture in Thailand, which is awash with firearms , widespread abuse of power within the country’s barracks, and the involvement of soldiers in the army’s business activities, which include boxing stadiums, golf courses, a horse racing track and resorts. The revenue streams for such assets are opaque. Jakrapanth’s rampage began when he killed his commanding officer. He stole a cache of weapons and an army Humvee, before live-streaming parts of his shooting spree over Facebook. He killed soldiers and police, and fired on a Buddhist temple before targeting the mall, where he gunned down shoppers and security guards at random. He was eventually shot dead by police commandos after a 15-hour stand-off. A year later, Korat appears to have moved on from the tragedy. At Terminal 21, lanterns heralding Lunar New Year hang across the forecourt as shoppers stream in and out. But Supachai cannot escape the physical reminders. He was hit twice during the shooting – the fragment in his hip was too close to an artery to be removed. Even after a hard year of recovery, much of it spent in hospital before he was bedridden at home, the injury causes him to wince in pain. “If I’m in too much pain I may have to give up work,” he said. “How will I support my family then?” Still, as a Buddhist, he remains sanguine, refusing bitterness and blame, although he questions the institutional causes of the rampage, which appear to have gone unaddressed. “I’m not mad at the gunman,” he said. “It was my fate – we must have shared sin together [in another life]. But we must look at the system that allowed it to happen.” PRESSURE FOR REFORM Thailand’s military relies on conscription, which requires all men over 21 to enter a draft lottery. The wealthy often draw cards exempting them from service, leaving the ranks filled mostly by poorer Thais. Some are happy for the stable income or the promise of subsidised education but many others dread serving their two-year terms. On the day of the massacre, Jakrapanth posted on Facebook: “Getting rich from corruption and cheating … do they think that they can spend money in hell?” Thailand’s protesters are taking on the monarchy because of the military Details later emerged regarding a business conflict with his commander, arising from a shady property deal gone wrong . The senior officer had urged Jakrapanth, 32, to take out a military loan to buy real estate from a favoured developer. Amid public pressure following the shooting, then-army chief General Apirat Kongsompong vowed to clean up the business deals which spin out from barracks and establish a hotline for complaints from the rank-and-file against officers. Police last month opened a probe after two conscripts fled their base in Chonburi province, alleging they were beaten with a stick and waterboarded by an unnamed senior officer after they were caught with marijuana. Thailand’s army has long borne a reputation for hazing, bullying and exploitation. Despite the promised reforms, “bullying and abuse are still normal”, according to an army sergeant at a provincial base, who requested anonymity. “High-ranking officers think by nature they can bully the lower-ranking ones – they shouldn’t do it, but they must be held accountable,” the sergeant said. However, critics claim corruption within barracks and a culture of impunity remain entrenched. “Sadly nothing has changed,” said Paul Chambers, special adviser in international affairs at Naresuan University, highlighting a “20-year national strategy” designed to address such concerns, but adding “there is no evidence of this [happening]”. Questioned last week about the promised reforms, army spokesman Lieutenant General Santipong Thammapiyaget said some of those assets have been divested or will be turned into “welfare facilities” for soldiers. “Thirty-six golf courses will be developed,” he said, adding that two of the three lucrative boxing stadiums have been “permanently closed” while a panel has been established to review all businesses on a case-by-case basis. Under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former army chief who led the 2014 coup , retired generals sit on boards of major companies, own swathes of prime Bangkok land and fill the inner circle of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn . These relationships reinforce the view among critics that the Thai military is too deeply enmeshed in politics and business for planned reforms to have any serious effect. According to Chambers, any parliamentary pressure to address the exploitative aspects of barracks culture evaporated with the downfall of the anti-army Future Forward Party, dissolved by the courts last year. “The Future Forward Party previously prepared an array of military reform proposals, but those never came to fruition,” he said. Thailand ramps up use of royal insult law, further stoking dissent among activists In the months since, a student-led protest movement has gathered momentum, demanding the military step aside and allow genuine democracy to flourish. Accordingly, the Korat shooting has been seized on by the protesters as a symbol of the rot within the military. KoratMovement, a pro-democracy group, posted a photo on Facebook three weeks ago showing security guards removing a banner hung by protesters inside Terminal 21. The banner read: “Anniversary of mass shooting draws near, what about that army reform?”