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This occurred in the Ai Payae Mosque in Cho Airong district of the southern province of Narathiwat – the same district where on April 27 insurgents were blamed for torching a two-story wooden schoolhouse. Unfortunately, an attack like this was hardly unexpected.
On June 1, a court in the southern city of Songkhla disappointingly and ominously ruled that no Thai security officials were guilty of wrongdoing in Narathiwat’s Takbai district on Oct. 25, 2004, where Thai Muslims were effectively murdered by Thai troops who had horizontally packed them into military transport trucks in a roundup of Muslim protestors. By the time the trucks reached an army camp in neighboring Pattani province, at least 85 of the protestors were dead.
During the Takbai incident Thai troops, including senior officers who were obviously giving directions, herded protestors up like animals, kicking them in the face and head, beating and slamming them with rifle butts and generally instilling lasting hatred. The shocking video of this incident can still be seen at http://thailand.ahrchk.net/takbai/.
With all that took place that day five years ago, there is no escaping the fact that Thai authorities were complicit in the October 2004 deaths. Yet on June 1, Thai authorities were granted a “Stay out of Jail Free” card by the courts.
Therefore, just a week later, it should have been no surprise that violence would again hit the region.
Yet this time the Muslim congregation at the Ai Payae Mosque was the target. Questions as to who was behind it immediately shifted to the country’s own security forces, who have been quelling rebellion in the region since Thailand – then called Siam – annexed it at the beginning of the 20th century.
But the Thai military quickly denied involvement. Army spokesman Prinya Chaidilok, of the Internal Security Operations Command, said authorities were not involved in the shooting. He was apparently trying to put a stop to rumors – shockingly not without logic – that security forces had tried to provoke the situation in the far south for their own benefit.
This latest incident comes on the back of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s return from a visit to Malaysia, where unrest in the southern region was part of the agenda in bilateral talks.
"Let me reiterate that my government's approach is based on the belief that the key to peace and security is justice and opportunities," the prime minister said during that visit.
With similar attacks – including the bombing of mosques and the killing en masse of innocent civilians – claimed by Muslim groups in other parts of the world, some have suggested that Muslim extremists might be responsible for the latest violence in Thailand. The primary suspect, however, must remain the Thai military.
Over the course of the country’s history the military has been relatively free to do as it pleased and remain aloof from any serious investigation. The court ruling absolving the military of responsibility in Takbai is only the latest demonstration of the lack of justice Muslims have been facing in Thailand. This is becoming more apparent to the international community, which is beginning to voice objections to it.
Tit for tat will surely follow Monday’s mosque massacre. Because the likely culprit will be deemed to be Thai authorities – who are certainly highly capable of committing such an act both militarily and immorally – shortly we may hear of new attacks on security forces and/or non-Muslims in the province.
The tragedy of an eye-for-an-eye combat policy is self-explanatory – but those involved have no ears. One side possesses the guns, money, equipment and perseverance to keep pressing ahead with a long-despised policy of forced integration into a Siamese sociopolitical ethical code that Muslims in the south never wanted to be part of. As they try to resist, it is certain that Muslims will continue to die.
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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
