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October 31, 2004

Rights Groups Urge Probe of Thai Carnage

Muslim detainees were treated inhumanely

BANGKOK, October 27 International rights groups, world capitals and politicians demanded October 27, that an inquiry into the deaths of 84 Muslim protestors in police custody be rigorous and independent.

Rights groups also decried the unapologetically aggressive and belligerent approach taken by Thai security forces in dealing with Muslims of southern Thailand, amid mounting criticism of Thailand's human rights record.

The carnage, meanwhile, threatened a Muslim revolt against Bangkok, in light of repeated blood-letting of Muslim blood in the south.

London-based Amnesty International, for its part, called for an independent inquiry saying there was a disturbing pattern of Thai security forces using excessive force against Muslims in the south.

The human watch group said allegations that authorities may have used excessive force in suppressing the demonstration must be immediately investigated.

In a statement faxed to Malaysian news agency Bernama, Amnesty International Deputy Asia Director Natalie Hill said all deaths related to the incident, including that of at least 78 persons who suffocated after being transported in inhumane conditions after the arrest, must be promptly, effectively and independently investigated.

Those suspected of responsibility should be suspended from duty pending the result of legal proceedings and brought to justice, she said.

Some 1,300 detainees were left piled on top of each other in trucks for at least six hours after the demonstration was broken up, leaving 78 dead, mainly from suffocation but also several with broken necks.

Inquiry
Thai forces are accused of using inhumane force against Muslims in the south. Stopping short of apologising for the carnage, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced an inquiry into the deaths, but it was not clear who would sit on the panel or how it would be run.

It's most important there are very thorough, independent judicial and legislative inquiries, said Nick Cheesman, project officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Rights activists have accused Thaksin's government of abuses over the last two years including a war on drugs that left more than 2,500 people dead, a raid on a mosque in April that killed 32 lightly armed rebels and other hard-line tactics in the south.

The AHRC called Monday's deaths at Tak Bai in Thailand's Muslim-majority Narathiwat province most disturbing and utterly inexcusable .

Their deaths speak to the total absence of professional behavior and rudimentary respect for human lives on the part of those leading and carrying out this operation, it said.

Not only the south, but the whole country must now face the bloody consequences of an unapologetically aggressive and belligerent approach to legitimate human rights concerns held by growing numbers of people there.

Explanation
Thai senator Kaewsan Atipho demanded a thorough explanation from the government as to why dozens of Thai men died in transport from Tak Bai.

If the fact was that people had their hands tied behind their backs and were piled into trucks it was the fault of the government, and the government has to give their families justice, he said.

He also called on authorities to immediately release the remaining 1,200 detainees or give them lawyers and allow them to meet relatives if charges would be pressed against them. They can be held for up to seven days under martial law.

Premier Under Fire
A defiant Thaksin stopped short of offering Muslims an apology

Thailand's human rights commission was to send its own four-person fact-finding mission to Narathiwat this week and submit a letter of complaint Wednesday to Thaksin.

In its letter, the commission rapped Thaksin, saying the use of force was excessive, and someone should be held responsible, commissioner Saneh Jamarik told reporters.

In a blunt assessment, he laid the blame for the southern unrest, which has now left at least 414 people dead this year, squarely on Thaksin's government.

We have analyzed and found that the key problem is government policy. We have proposed advice in previous letters but the government was not interested in our opinions, Saneh said.

He ranked the incident on a par with the brutal April 28 raid on the Krue Se mosque in Pattani province when security forces shot dead 32 lightly armed suspected Muslim militants. A fact-finding commission concluded that troops were too heavy-handed when they stormed the mosque on a day when 108 militants and five security forces were killed in the south. The army commander who ordered the mosque assault, General Pallop Pinmanee, resigned over the controversial raid, but Thaksin stopped short of acknowledging any wrongdoing by Pallop.

Muslims Fury
Meanwhile, the main Islamic political party in neighboring Malaysia called the deaths a real massacre , warning it could lead to an Islamic uprising in southern Thailand.

This is tragic and a real massacre of a group of people who are just peacefully demonstrating and this will have a great effect on the feelings of southern Thai people, Muhammad Hatta, chairman of the external affairs committee of the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), was quoted by Al-Jazeera.net Web Site as saying.

This latest issue will create more instability and dissatisfaction and we are very worried that people will rise against the government.

Furthermore, a Thai Muslim group threatened of taking the fight to Bangkok to avenge the Monday deaths.

Their capital will be burned down in the same way the Pattani capital has been burned, the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Source: IslamOnline.net & News Agencies.