World>Terrorism & Security
posted October 28, 2004, updated 12:30 p.m.

Thai government in human rights spotlight

Death of 78 Muslim protesters while in military custody prompts calls for independent investigation.

By Jim Bencivenga | csmonitor.com

International criticism of Thailand continued to escalate Thursday in the wake of the deaths of 78 Islamic protesters who suffocated while being transported in military trucks Monday for more than five hours to a barracks in the country's largely Muslim "volatile south," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand defended his military's actions in subduing the demonstrators, reports The Washington Post.

[But] facing sharp criticism from political opponents and human rights groups, [the Prime Minister] acknowledged that soldiers had made mistakes after the arrests and said he had ordered an investigation.

Mr. Shinawatra has been "accused repeatedly of using excessive force in dealing with unrest in the south, reports the Post.


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The incident began when seven militants died in clashes outside the Takbai police station in southern Narathiwat province. They were protesting the detention of six men accused of providing weapons to Muslim separatists reports The Washington Times.

The clashes began when about 2,000 protesters demanded the release of six Muslim men who were jailed on suspicion of stealing weapons from pro-government volunteers.During several hours of clashes, when protesters attempted to storm the police station, at least six persons died from bullet wounds, officials said Monday.About 1,300 people were arrested and taken away in army vehicles.

The 78 additional deaths occurred after the arrested people were locked inside "many vans" that "belong to the army," the Times quotes Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunan, a Justice Ministry pathologist. Moderate Islamic leaders accused Thai troops of overreacting to the protest and they warned that an upswing in violence could follow, reports Reuters. Muslims make up about 10 percent of Thailand's largely Buddhist population of 63 million. For years they have " felt neglected and disparaged by the distant central government," reports The New York Times. Muslims in Thailand's southern provinces "have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education and business opportunities," reports Islam Online.

The South was a rich Malay kingdom until it was overrun by the Buddhist kingdom of Siam in the late 16th century when it declared its full independence from its earlier status of semi-independence under the rule of the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.In 1909, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Siam as part of a treaty negotiated with the British Empire. Both Yala and Narathiwat were originally part of Pattani, but were split off and became provinces of their own.There still exists a separatist movement in Pattani that at times erupts in violence like in the late 1980's when the Pattani United Liberation Front (PULO) fought against the Thai forces for a separate Muslim South.

Compounding tensions in the region, these southernmost provinces, have large populations of Malay speakers and have more in common with the people of neighboring Malaysia than with those of the distant capital, Bangkok, reports the Times. Outside groups are also believed to be stirring up the region.

Hundreds of people have been killed there this year, including 107 men, most of them armed only with machetes, who were shot and killed on April 28 when they attacked police outposts and other targets. Many were killed in an assault by government forces on a mosque. On Jan. 4, more than 100 attackers raided a military depot, killed four soldiers and stole up to 400 firearms in an operation whose meticulous planning and execution led to suspicions of outside training and participation. Members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional Islamist group with links to Al Qaeda, are known to have passed through southern Thailand, but no evidence has been shown of their involvement. Thai authorities have recently focused on militant Muslim preachers as a cause of the unrest.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia, which shares a border with southern Thailand, said he hoped the government would prevent the crisis from spreading, reports the BBC. Last week the US State Department redesignated Jemaah Islamiyah as a foreign terrorist organization, reported The Pakistan Times. The two major newspapers in Thailand have criticized the central government, reports the BBC. The Nation calls on Shinawatra to take "a long hard look at himself" amidst fears that "the deep South will continue to burn." It editorialized on Wednesday that:

We have found ourselves in the most precarious state yet as far as the troubled region is concerned. No longer is our problem about coping with cells of bandits playing hide and seek with the authorities. Somehow, the people have been pitted against the state, and communal violence is threatening to escalate.

"Something went terribly wrong," says an editorial in the Bangkok Post. "Monday marked another black day in the history of the restive South."