Where is all this going to lead?
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TAK BAI CRACKDOWN: Global outrage as grim details emerge; PM shows no remorse
Published on October 28, 2004
Muslim leaders condemn the ‘inhumane’ crackdown as ‘state terrorism’, a ‘massacre’
There was widespread condemnation from the world community yesterday of the “brutal” and “inhumane” treatment of protesters that ended with 78 young men suffocating in the back of crammed Army trucks in the South.
Muslim nations were particularly savage, damning Monday’s drama as “state terrorism” and a “holocaust”.
Anger and outrage was voiced from far and wide – by religious leaders, government heads and human rights groups in Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan, Hong Kong, the US and more.
The head of Indonesia’s Council of Ulemas, Amidhan, said: “They packed them like sardines into trucks. It’s inhumane during this holy fasting month of Ramadan”.
“It was brutal,” said Dien Syamsuddin from Indonesia’s second largest Muslim organisation, Muhammadiyah. “What happened was state terrorism. We strongly denounce it.”
An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Jakarta was “concerned by the escalating tension” in Thailand, and hoped it could be “resolved in a manner consistent with the Thai government’s commitment to social justice”.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country. It is home to several separatist rebellions, and has battled rising Islamic militancy in recent years.
The Muhammadiyah group issued a statement which “strongly condemns the dehumanising action carried out by the Thai security forces toward Muslims in southern Thailand and demands that the tragedy be referred to as a crime against humanity”.
A total of 78 Thai-Muslim protesters suffocated to death when they were transported in crowded trucks from a protest site in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district to an Army camp in Pattani late on Monday night.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he phoned Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to express concern and tell him that Malaysia was watching very closely what is happening.
“I have also expressed my feelings that in the month of Ramadan, incidents of this nature can bring a lot of unhappiness and create anger and animosity among members of the community,” Abdullah said.
Hatta Ramli, a senior official with the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said the protesters who died of suffocation or convulsions in the back of police trucks were victims of “a holocaust of modern era, which the Thai government is responsible for”.
“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. This latest issue will create more instability and dissatisfaction and we are very worried that people will rise against the government,” he said.
The independent Malaysian Human Rights Commission said that if the Thai government did not end the violence in the South, it could be viewed as ethnic cleansing by some people and exploited by extremist groups.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said “the latest mass killing” was the result of a weakening of controls over the police and armed forces in the restive region. It said Bangkok “has blatantly ignored the signs of impending disaster”.
Largely Muslim Pakistan’s six-party Islamist opposition alliance slammed the deaths as a “brutal massacre” – and called on the United Nations to investigate.
“The killings in Thailand were the outcome of a fear of terror the United States has created all over the world,” said Liaquat Baloch, secretary-general of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance.
Iran joined the condemnation and urged authorities to prosecute those responsible, the state news agency IRNA reported.
Iran “considers these actions inappropriate and unacceptable,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying. “We hope that the Thai government will do its best to identify and prosecute those responsible.”
The incident, which occurred halfway into the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, fuelled fears that extremists could exploit the situation to create further violence.
Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker, Gholamreza Hadad Adel, also condemned the incident, according to student news agency ISNA. “The Thai government should not treat its Muslim minority like this,” he was quoted as saying.
The United States also called for a full probe into the death of the 78 men. It expressed concern over the rising death toll from the Muslim insurgency.
“Thai authorities are responsible for the humane treatment of prisoners and we urge that their current investigations fully examine the circumstances of these deaths,” State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said.
The US, he said, was “concerned about the continued loss of life” in southern Thailand and hopes “that the Thai government will deal with this situation in a way that does not exacerbate tensions”.
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Photographs contradict govt; witnesses tell of protesters beaten, stacked like animals
While Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra uttered no word of apology for Monday’s carnage in which more than 80 young protestors died in Narathiwat, a vivid picture of state brutality and inhuman treatment by security forces began to emerge yesterday.
A photograph obtained by The Nation clearly shows a soldier lying on the ground firing his rifle horizontally, refuting the prime minister’s claim that security forces only fired into the air and not directly at protestors.
The incident happened after more than 3,000 Muslims, the majority of whom were youths, gathered early on Monday morning outside a police station in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district calling for the immediate release of six village defence volunteers detained by the army for allegedly giving state-issued pistols to Islamic militants.
Citing fears that the situation could get out of control, the military decided to end the six-hour confrontation at about 3pm by firing water canon and tear gas at protestors, causing the stand-off to descend into chaos. The sound of gunfire was heard for about 10 minutes, said Nation photographer Charoon Thongnual, who covered the incident.
“Soldiers fired at below knee-level, targeting protestors hiding under a car,” Muhammad Ayuf Pathan, a reporter on the scene, told on-line Prachatham new agency. “They were killed and thrown onto army trucks. There were at least 14 dead bodies, that I could count,”
Another reporter said: “I saw at least three protestors kicked to death with my own eyes.”
Tak Bai resident Tuwaebosu found the body of his 30-year-old son lying dead under a car parked near the demonstration site. At least one Muslim woman was reportedly among the dead.
In contrast to accounts of several eyewitnesses, the authorities claimed only six people died “due to the commotion” during the 30-minute operation.
More than 1,300 protestors were taken to the Forth Army Region Forward Command in the adjacent province of Pattani’s Nong Chik district, located some 130 kilometres away from the protest site, packed into military trucks.
“The authorities should have taken more time to negotiate with the protestors. They should not have rushed to disperse them so heavy-handedly,” said Abdulrauman Abdulsamat, chairman of Provincial Islamic Committee in Narathiwat.
The transportation of protestors sparked outrage in the international community, especially among Muslim nations, when independent forensic expert Pornthip Rojanasunan disclosed the shocking fact that at least 78 Muslims died from suffocation.
Security officials in charge of the military operation were yesterday tight-lipped as to how the protestors were treated during transportation from the protest site to the Forth Army Region Forward Command.
General Sirichai Thunyasiri was cited by the Associated Press as saying that four trucks were used to carry the protestors on a six-hour journey.
A photograph published in the Thai-language newspaper Matichon showed protestors were herded like animals as they were packed onto an army truck in layers. The authorities refused to reveal how many people were put into each truck.
A relative of Gifli Mama, 25, who doctors said died of suffocation, said that Gifli’s neck was broken and his face and body bruised, suggesting that he could have died before being put on the truck.
Another relative gave an account of an injured protestor, who is now hospitalised, that soldiers tied his hands together and threw him onto a truck. Two to three layers of prisoners were piled on top of him. Those at the bottom needed to push their foreheads against the ground to take in air.
When the truck reached the military base, the prisoners limbs numbed and unmoving, soldiers dragged them from the truck and kicked them, he said.
At least nine people are being treated at Pattani hospital for gunshot wounds, a hospital source said.
Fear, animosity and confusion has gripped the predominantly Muslim South. Relatives have been searching for missing love ones and many are afraid of revenge attacks.
The latest victim, Paosi Jehmama, 25, died yesterday in hospital after being detained for two days at a military base, despite being wounded by gunfire, bringing the death toll up to 85.