NARATHIWAT, Thailand, 31 October 2004 — Hundreds of Muslims were freed in southern Thailand yesterday after being detained last week in the wake of protests that left 85 dead and outraged Muslims worldwide.
Thai authorities said 300 of the 1,200 protesters arrested last Monday would be prosecuted after one of the bloodiest days in a 10-month wave of unrest in the mainly-Muslim south.
About 150 men at a military camp in Pattani province, one of several camps where the protesters were held, boarded four buses for the journey back to Narathiwat, where they had demonstrated against the arrest of six villagers.
“A few shook hands with the soldiers before they drove away,” one witness said.
In Narathiwat, Amnuay Hayeesae, 38, said he had received good treatment during detention in an army barracks but the suffocation incident was caused by mistreatment.
“They ordered us to put our head down and threw us into the trucks and if we made noise they kicked us,” he said.
The poor region, home to most of Thailand’s six million Muslims, is seething with anger after 78 protesters suffocated last Monday after being crammed into army trucks and driven three hours to a military barracks in Pattani.
One survivor said last week that the troops piled up protesters in trucks “like bricks”, and stomped on them when they cried out for air.
Another seven died as a result of wounds suffered at the demonstration, which security forces broke up by firing live rounds, teargas and water cannon.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said earlier that 900 of the detainees would be released from yesterday, but the other 300 would face charges over Monday’s protest and other crimes.
“Gen. Sirichai Thunyasiri, head of the southern peacekeeping command, has informed me that he has accelerated the investigation process and 300 protesters will be prosecuted,” Thaksin said. Sirichai later told reporters a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed in Narathiwat last week would be lifted.
Thaksin, under pressure from close ally the United States and regional Muslim neighbors, said on Friday an independent commission would “investigate the incident with the aim of bringing wrongdoers to justice”.
The panel of legal and cultural experts is to be headed by Pichet Soonthornpipit, a former inspector general of Parliament.
In a letter to Thaksin, rights group Human Rights Watch said the inquiry must be a “credible and legitimate exercise, and not, as you publicly suggested, simply an effort to yield ‘lessons for the future’”.
“Your government’s inadequate responses to previous human rights abuses have created an environment in which security forces trample the rule of law and violate human rights without fear of accountability,” said the letter signed by the group’s executive director for Asia, Brad Adams.
In a televised address on Friday, Thaksin did not single out anyone for blame despite rumors that the army general who ordered soldiers to quell the protest would be sacked.
The Bangkok Post newspaper, citing security sources, said yesterday Lt. Gen. Pisarn Wattanawongkeeree’s removal was only a matter of time.
“We cannot deny local security forces mishandled the case leading to the deaths of so many protesters. Some kind of action has to be taken to show our remorse for the tragedy,” a security officer said.
The newspaper also quoted deputy army commander Gen. Theptut Promopagorn as saying: “The army’s image and credibility have been badly tarnished worldwide with this incident”.
Thaksin has defended the breakup of the protest, saying efforts to end it peacefully had failed and the crowd was becoming violent.
He blamed a shortage of transport trucks for the “regrettable” deaths of the 78 men, and denied that his administration was mistreating Thailand’s Muslim minority.
“This is a matter of maintaining law and order and has absolutely nothing to do with religion,” Thaksin said.
Analysts have said the incident could turn the region, home to a separatist insurgency in the 70s and 80s, into a fertile recruiting ground for foreign militants.
Amid fears of reprisal attacks, the region was hit by bomb bombings that killed two people and wounded more than 30 since Thursday. Violence continued yesterday in the troubled region. Two people riding to work in Narathiwat province were killed by motorcycle gunmen.
The deaths have worried Thailand’s neighbor Malaysia that the situation in the Malay-speaking south, where at least 440 people have been killed since January, may spiral out of control.
