Pattani, Thailand - A court in southern Thailand on Friday
cleared military personnel of any misconduct in the Tak Bai incident
in October, 2004, an action that resulted in the death of 85
Thai-Muslims.
The Songkhla Court ruled that military personnel were carrying out
their duties in the Tak Bai crackdown, in which 78 alleged
demonstrators suffocated after being stacked like logs on trucks
taking them to prison.
The court, ruling on a post-mortem inquest into the Tak Bai
incident, noted that Thai authorities were acting under an Emergency
Law which states officials could not be subjected to civil, criminal
or disciplinary liabilities arising from their actions while
performing their duty.
'The relatives of the victims are not satisfied with the
decision,' said Anchana Nilaphaichit, whose lawyer husband Somchai
went missing more than five years ago when trying to defend
Thai-Muslims charged with terrorist activities in the deep South.
'The people can't do anything,' Anchana said. 'All they can do is
walk away.' She added that some relatives were expected to appeal the
verdict.
On October 25, 2004, Thai soldiers cracked down on thousands of
demonstrators at Tak Bai, Narathiwat province, 750 kilometres south
of Bangkok, with tear gas, water cannon and batons.
More than 1,000 of the demonstrators were tied and loaded on army
trucks, piled five bodies high, to be taken to Ingkayuthaborihaan
Army Camp in Pattani.
Some 78 of the prisoners died of suffocation en route to the camp.
Seven others died in the crackdown on the demonstration.
The incident, which outraged human rights activists and Muslim
communities around the world, also helped to inflame a separatist
struggle in the majority-Muslim deep South, which has simmered for
decades.
Some 3,500 people have died in the escalating violence in the deep
South - comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces - over the
past five years.
The region's separatist struggle took a more militant turn in
January, 2004, when insurgents raided an army depot, killing four
soldiers and making off with 300 weapons.
The incident sparked a series of brutal government crackdowns,
including the Tak Bai incident, on the separatist movement, which
turned much of the area's 2 million people, 80 per cent of whom are
Muslim, against the central government.
Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent
Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200
years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Bangkok's rule.
Analysts said the region's Muslim population, the majority of whom
speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from
the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.
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