Time runs out for justice in Thailand’s Tak Bai massacre

Statute of limitations in the case expired on Friday, but memory of the 2004 atrocity lives on in the Thai Deep South.

Commentary by Don Pathan
BenarNews

It was always a long shot but Malay Muslims in Thailand’s southern border region never gave up hope that the government would amend the criminal code to extend the 20-year statute of limitations in the infamous Tak Bai massacre.

Artef Sohko, president of The Patani, protested in front of the Thai Army camp in
Yala, Thailand, on Oct. 24, 2024. 

They hoped that all 14 suspects, now retired government officials, could be brought to justice for the deaths of 85 unarmed protesters in Tak Bai on Oct. 25, 2004. The statute expired on Friday without any of the suspects being taken into custody, although there were warrants out for their arrest.  

During the past weeks, there were relentless demonstrations and seminars about the incident. These included a Senate hearing and a public protest in front of a military base in Yala province, where people demanded that the government amend the criminal code and demonstrate its commitment to justice. 

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and her Cabinet members sought comfort in the legal procedures, saying these requests must be examined thoroughly and that due process must be observed. While apologizing to victims’ relatives on Thursday, she said it would be constitutionally impossible to extend the statute of limitations in the Tak Bai case beyond Oct. 25.

No one wanted to acknowledge the political underpinnings of the incident, or how the country’s justice system and international standing were at stake. 

Of the 85 victims, seven were shot dead at the protest site. The rest suffocated to death while stacked up like logs in the back of military trucks, after being rounded up and detained. 

They were among nearly 1,400 demonstrators calling for the release of six village security personnel, who were accused by police of willingly handing their government-issued weapons to separatist insurgents.The massacre happened during the holy month of Ramadan, considered sacred by Muslims. 

Gen. Pisarn Wattanawongkiri, the region’s highest military commander who was at the demonstration site, was quickly reassigned. He would retire from the Royal Thai Army honorably some years later. 

Shortly after the killings, a shaky video clip of the incident circulated widely. It showed protesters being kicked and struck with the butts of rifles, as they were forced to crawl into the trucks. 

The message to them and to the Malay Muslims, who make up about 85% of the 2 million residents of this historically contested region, was clear: You’re a defeated people, and there isn’t much you can do but learn how to live with this reality; don’t forget that challenging the authorities comes with a heavy price. The message was rejected outright, of course.

The Tak Bai massacre became part of a powerful narrative, not only for the local Malay Muslims because it reinforced their historical mistrust of the Thai state, but for the separatist insurgents who would use it in their recruitment drive.

In what was billed as a gesture of goodwill, then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched a “peace bombing” campaign to assuage the fury of the Malays in the border region.

He asked the country’s people to fold origami birds, which were dropped from the military planes across the far south. Collecting 20 paper cranes entitled one to a carton of milk. 

Despite the intention, the peace bombings baffled both the militants and the Muslims, who offered an entirely different interpretation of the birds. 

The Islamic understanding of dropping birds is battle, the late opposition MP Surin Pitsuwan, a Muslim, told the Parliament floor. He pointed to Sura 105 of the Quran, (Al-Fil, the Elephant), in which God sends down “birds in flocks” on his enemies to flatten them like blades of grass. 

Leaflet of one of the 14 wanted suspects posted in Bangkok

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, who was installed by a junta after Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 coup, apologized to the family members of the Tak Bai victims during a town hall meeting in Pattani province in 2007. 

But the Thai state and society didn’t feel the need to build on Surayud’s apology. There was no public monument or official event to commemorate the tragic event. 

In May 2009, the Songkhla Provincial Court ruled that security officials who were sent to break up the Tak Bai protest had acted within their duties and that 78 of the victims had died from suffocation. In other words, they died as a result of unfortunate circumstances rather than intentional acts.  Nothing was said about the seven others who were shot dead on site. 

In 2012, the then-government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra – Thaksin’s younger sister – provided compensation of 7.5 million baht (U.S. $ 222,028) to the families of each of the victims.

However, financial compensation was not the same as justice, no matter how hard the Thai officials and Thaksin’s political allies wanted it to be. 

This past August and September, a Thai court decided to try the cases and bring murder charges against 14 men, from military Gen. Pisarn to the drivers of the transport trucks. For some it was a chance for justice; for others, it was an opportunity for closure, to heal the wound and move on as a nation.

The militants had resurfaced in mid-2001, after a decade-long hiatus. But their presence was not officially recognized by Thaksin’s government until they pulled off a major arms heist from a military weapons depot in Narathiwat province, where Tak Bai is located, in January 2004.

Twenty years later, more than 7,500 people have been killed from insurgency-related violence, and the end is still nowhere in sight despite several attempts at negotiations with the rebels. 

Peace initiatives have never moved beyond confidence-building measures. With the military and conservative establishment in a firm place after a Faustian deal with the ruling Pheu Thai Party, the peace negotiation is likely to be even more difficult than in the past. 

As the 20th anniversary of the incident approached, violence in the far south spiked. But this year’s attacks were much more vicious, perhaps because the statute of limitations in the Tak Bai incident was going to expire, and because separatist militants needed to remind the country – particularly Thai security forces in the heavily militarized Deep South – the case was far from being closed. 

Today’s ruling party, the Pheu Thai, an offshoot of Thai Rak Thai, is headed by 38-year-old Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn. Pisarn became a senior member of the party and an MP until his resignation on Oct. 14, seemingly to distance the ruling party from the case. 

Like others who have been charged by the Thai court in August, Pisarn is nowhere to be found. The same could be said about national reconciliation. 

Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security analyst. The views expressed in this column are his own and do not reflect the position of BenarNews.

https://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/time-runs-out-for-justice-in-thailand-tak-bai-massacre-10252024122934.html

Crisis in south rooted in ethnic Malay identity

Govt's charm offensive may be winning support abroad, but it won't end bloodshed in region 

Don Pathan
The Nation

Not long after Thai soldiers and police stacked hundreds of unarmed Muslim demonstrators on the back of military transport trucks - suffocating 78 of them in the process - the Thai Foreign Ministry went through their rolodex's looking for Muslim organisations.

The aftermath of the Tak Bai tragedy generated all kinds of fears and concerns.

Besides the possibility of a diplomatic fallout with Islamic countries over the death of 78 unarmed demonstrators, many were worried the incident would change the course of the insurgency in the deep South, turning local grievances into a struggle for Islamic causes. But nearly three years later, the banner is still very much Malay nationalism.

Prior to the Tak Bai incident, the then Thaksin Shinawatra administration didn't give much thought about generating political capital from international Islamic organisations or institutions.

But like most organisations, foreign or local, an institution is only as good as what you churn out of it. The previous government of Chuan Leekpai succeeded in securing a "permanent observer" seat in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). In doing so it dashed the hopes of separatist movements such as the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) or Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) from using it as a launching pad to attack Thailand.

As part of its effort to get the Muslim countries off its back, Bangkok launched a charm offensive. Diplomatic old hands and Muslim VIPs were dispatched to the Middle East and to OIC meetings.

There were some difficult moments, however. The OIC rattled the government's cage on more than one occasion, issuing some strong statements in 2005 over Thailand's handling of the far South.

After more than two years of diplomatic offensive, Thailand has succeeded in obtaining some breathing space.

But Bangkok also made some concessions. In a joint press statement in May 2007, the Foreign Ministry had to acknowledge the OIC's desire for "prompt and effective investigation of any allegation of human rights abuses". It also said that "long-term solutions to the problem in the South should entail granting the people of the region greater responsibility in governing effectively their local affairs".

Although no one knows what this will translate to in real terms, diplomatically speaking, the language of the joint statement suggested that the tricky topic of structural or administrative reform could be on the table in the future.

But while its charm offensive gives Thai officials some breathing space in the international arena, back in the deep South, the government's campaign to win hearts and minds is being clipped by reports and allegations of targeted killings and heavy handed measures.

Moreover, Muslims in the restive South, as well as those living exile, said Bangkok has been barking up the wrong tree with its insistence on playing the Islamic card.

The problem in the restive region is not about Islam; it is deep rooted in the ethnic Malays' refusal to embrace the pillars and values that define Thailand's nation-state building, they insist.

But Thai officials continue to ignore the complexity of the long-standing problem of assimilation and the question of identity the ethnic Malays face.

Oversimplifying the problems in the deep South tends to turn many Muslims off, particularly those who would like to work with the state but are disgusted by the government's futile policies.

Although it has put off many Muslims around the country, the government continues with its search for a model Muslim citizen, or "moderate", as the government likes to say, for others to emulate.

One big problem for Bangkok is that the model isn't catching on - no one wants to be seen as a "Muslim Uncle Tom".