Bangkok wants to try eight officials for the 2004 Tak Bai massacre
The magistrates' want to investigate their role in the death of 78 young Muslims who were locked up in military vehicles. The incident took place in the far south of the country, the scene of separatist and sectarian tensions for decades. However, the case is under a statute of limitations and risks resurfacing the clash between the ruling party and the military and nationalist establishment.
Bangkok (AsiaNews) - Eight security officials will be tried for their role in the Tak Bai massacre in which 78 young Muslims died in military vehicles on October 25, 2004 for alleged subversive activities in Thailand's restless south.
The decision comes almost 20 years after the event that made official claims of dialogue with elusive and often unrepresentative counterparts irreconcilable, as the stalemate in talks to date has shown; but which, at the same time, highlighted even more the intransigent and colonial-like nature of Bangkok's control over the far south, in the four provinces (Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat) with a majority or substantial Muslim presence, heirs of a sultanate that once extended even over vast areas of present-day Malaysia.
Twenty years ago, following protests that broke out in Tak Bai, Narathiwat province, over the attempted arrest of six alleged local militants, the army and police intervened in force, killing seven protesters, arresting 1,300 and loading a large number of them, one on top of the other, onto trucks. Dozens died suffocating in the sun and unable to free themselves.
The then executive led by Thaksin Shinawatra, to whose government experience the Pheu Thai led by his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra looks back today, had expressed its condolences for the incident but denied any direct responsibility. At the same time, the police had tried to feed the theory of armed extremists among the arrested protesters.
The massacre was the start of a new flare-up of the long-running low-intensity conflict in the southern extremity between local separatist groups and security forces, which had led to prolonged phases of a state of emergency. Resulting in repression on the one hand and devastating demonstration actions carried all the way into the heart of Bangkok on the other, costing 7,600 lives so far.
The announcement of the prosecution of the alleged perpetrators of the event, now on the verge of the statute of limitations, came after relatives of the victims had filed a complaint last month against seven individuals formerly belonging to the security forces. However, only one
of them is on the list presented by the attorney general. ‘The suspects should have foreseen that their actions would lead to the suffocation and death of the 78 people in their charge,’ stressed Attorney General's Office spokesman Prayut Bejaguran at a press conference on Wednesday.
It is significant that the Pheu Thai-led governments in office since last year (the former in coalition with the largest pro-military party, the latter with the former historical opponents of the Democratic Party) have reached this point.
As well as establishing the prosecution of those responsible for the latest coups, if officially denounced. The party's traditional hostility towards the armed forces, the need to achieve greater cohesion of the population on its governing initiatives and to secure greater consensus in southern Thailand, is beginning to become clear. On the other hand, there are not a few who fear that this could resurrect the clash with the military establishment and nationalist forces that in the past, most recently in September 2006 and May 2014, propitiated and preceded the military's direct control over the country.
.png)
12/02/2016 15:14
18/07/2005
