Suffocation deaths inflame Thai
south By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - A clash that started early this week
between hundreds of Muslim protesters and Thai troops in
the country's south - resulting in the deaths of
more than 80 people - has delivered a blow to Bangkok's
view that the local communities are on its side.
The showdown on Monday that initially led to the
deaths of six Muslim demonstrators and wounded an
estimated 20 soldiers, police and protesters marked an
ominous sign in a region gripped by spiraling violence
since early January this year. That climate had worsened
by Tuesday evening, when a senior Thai army commander
confirmed that 78 Muslim protesters had died of
suffocation while sitting for nearly six hours inside
packed military trucks waiting to be taken to army camps
in the southern province of Pattani, five hours by road
from where the demonstrators were arrested. Because of
the heat and cramped surroundings, conditions in the
truck deteriorated quickly.
Reporters who
attended a press conference in Pattani quoted
Major-General Sinchai Nutsathit, deputy commander of the
4th Army Region, which handles security in Thailand's
south, as affirming that "over 80% of the deaths were
due to suffocation".
According to the total
death toll so far, this was the second-highest number of
people killed in a day in the troubled southern
provinces, three of which have a predominant number of
Malay-Muslims.
The bloodiest day was April 28,
after a showdown took place between Thai troops and
Muslim assailants armed with knives and machetes. More
than 110 people died that day, the vast majority Muslims
who had attacked police and army posts in Yala, Songkhla
and Pattani provinces. Among those killed were 32
Islamic militants who had taken refuge in historic Krue
Se Mosque in Pattani, prompting cries of "massacre" for
the military's excessive use of force.
Already
the fallout from Monday's clash is being cast in dismal
tones by politicians and human-rights advocates.
"This display of public anger was never the case
before," Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs in the Thai Senate, told Inter Press
Service. "What we have is a collective outcry by Thai
Muslims against the government for the methods used in
the south.
"It is a response to the violent and
tough methods used by the government to quell any form
of protests there," he said. "Thai Muslim communities
are fed up with the government."
After violence
first erupted in January, the government imposed martial
law. That has resulted in alleged human-rights
violations by the police and government troops, such as
arbitrary arrests, tortures, killings and
disappearances, say groups such as Amnesty
International.
Soon after Monday's bloody
clashes, the administration of Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra announced plans to seek out the masterminds
of the protest. First in line for this inquiry will be
the estimated 1,300 protesters who were arrested and
taken to military barracks in Pattani.
Local
newspapers carried large photos of some of these men -
forced to lie on the road, face down, with their hands
tied behind their backs. On Monday night, television
stations provided graphic footage of the clashes that
had erupted in the southern province of Narathiwat.
The protest began at 6am when about 200 people
gathered outside the Tak Bai district police station to
demand the release of six men suspected of stealing
firearms given to civilians to protect their community,
Thai newspapers reported. By that afternoon, the number
had swollen to an estimated 2,000 agitated people and
the police station's security had been reinforced by
close to 1,000 armed soldiers.
Fire engines were
brought in to spray water at the protesters but were
unable to contain the crowd. When security forces fired
tear gas at the protesters, pandemonium ensued. Thai
troops are also being accused of firing live ammunition
into the crowd.
A Thai human-rights advocate
called Monday's outburst "alarming" and concurred with
Senator Kraisak about the possible sparks that triggered
the more than six-hour-long standoff between the booing
and jeering demonstrators and the security forces.
"It is understandable, because of the
maltreatment of the people," Boonthan Verawongse,
secretary of the Bangkok-based Peace and Human Rights
Resource Center, told IPS. "The public in the south
don't trust the government and officials anymore."
Increasing signs of such visible collective
anger by the Malay-Muslim minority toward symbols of the
state in the south have surfaced in recent months. Late
last month, for instance, paramilitary rangers were
forced to flee a checkpoint in Narathiwat after being
confronted by hundreds of villagers, who converged on
the soldiers beating sticks and, at times, throwing
rocks. That animosity grew out of a charge made by the
villagers that the soldiers had allegedly shot a
37-year-old Muslim women with a slingshot.
In
mid-September, a Muslim cleric threatened to bring more
than 50,000 people to the streets to protest against the
manner in which Thai troops were raiding Islamic
boarding schools in search of suspected Malay-Muslim
separatists.
Violence in southern Thailand
erupted on January 4 when assailants stormed an army
camp in the south and escaped with military hardware,
including 380 M-16 rifles. Twenty-one public schools
were also torched that day.
The attacks have
escalated since then, and Bangkok is accusing Muslim
separatists for killing more than 200 people, including
policemen, soldiers, civil servants, teachers, Buddhist
monks and students. According to official figures more
than 350 people have died since fighting broke out on
January 4.
The Muslim minority accounts for 2.3
million of Thailand's 63 million people, the majority of
whom are Buddhists. Militants among this Muslim minority
waged separatist struggles in the 1970s to reclaim the
five southern provinces that are home to the country's
Muslims. More than a century ago, these provinces
belonged to the kingdom of Pattani, which was annexed in
1902 by Siam, as Thailand was then known.
Aside
from religion, the Malay Muslims have a history, culture
and language that are different from the one shared by
the majority of Thailand. According to Boonthan, the
human-rights advocate, this division is bound to grow,
given the message Bangkok is sending out in its policy
toward the south.
"The government seems to think
that only using violence can solve problems," he said.
resulting in the deaths of
more than 80 people - has delivered a blow to Bangkok's
view that the local communities are on its side.
