In less than five days from now, or by Friday October 25, the statute limitations for the seven people wanted for their involvement in the Tak Bai massacre, which led to the deaths of 85 Thai-Malay-Muslim protesters due to suffocation as they were hurled on top of one another while being transported on army trucks to an army camp in Narathiwat province, will end.
As it stands, it’s most unlikely that any of the seven, including the highest profile fugitive, recently-resigned former ruling Pheu Thai Party MP Gen Pisal Wattanawongkuri (who was back then commander of the Fourth Army Region) will ever be arrested in time. If the justice system cannot do anything to Pisal and six others by Friday, the statute of limitations is 20 years will expire. This is not just justice delayed but justice denied, and a mockery of the justice system.
Without the arrests, Thai-Malay-Muslims in the deep south will be served with another solid proof that their lives matter less – that they are second-class citizens in their own country. It will fuel more anger and inevitably strengthen the call for an independent Patani homeland – through the ongoing armed struggles which have led to over 4,500 deaths over the past two decades and over 2,700 injuries.
We can expect more deaths and injuries. Parliament President Wan Muhammad Noor Matha warns today that separatism-related violence will become more frequent if no one is arrested before this Friday’s deadline.
Wan was right and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that. For nearly 20 years since the tragic incident, which occurred when Thaksin Shinawatra was PM, no one has been held responsible for the needless and cruel deaths of these young Thai-Malay-Muslim protesters. For nearly 10 years under the military junta and subsequent semi-military rule, Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, who was army chief during the incident, was the deputy junta leader and Deputy PM.
If anything, the deep state sees these protesters as enemies of the state and there’s no motivation to bring anyone to justice – in fact the opposite is the case as can be seen by how Pisal eventually became an MP for the ruling Pheu Thai Party (despite his track records) until less than a week ago.
I still vividly recall standing next to the mass graves in Tak Bai shortly after the incident nearly two decades ago. It was dusk and backhoe loaders were used to place dozens of these bodies into the mass graves in a rush, amidst the pain and sorrow of the families of those who died. During that trip in Narathiwat province’s Tak Bai district nearly 20 years ago, I also spoke to a senior police officer at the provincial level.
Our discussion touched on the possibilities of locals electing their own governor so they could play a greater role in determining the future of their homeland. “The moment they can elect their own governors,” said the police officer, referring to the three-southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala, which was formerly an independent Pattani kingdom until roughly a century and a half ago, “You can start counting down toward the secession of these provinces.”
I took a break of around 15 minutes in penning this column late Sunday morning, October 20, to call a prominent senator on the phone.
I asked her if it’s possible to call for an emergency joint-meeting of both houses, the senate and the House of Representatives, to amend the related legislature in order to extend the statute of limitations for this particular case as it’s no ordinary murder but a massacre with over eighty deaths that involved the state, particularly the army, and has a deep repercussion in terms of the perception of Thai-Malay Muslims’ relations to the Thai state.
The senator told me on the phone she will do what she can, given the limited time that’s left.
This is the least that members of parliament and senators can do. This is the least we, as members of Thai society, owe the relatives of those who died while being piled on top of one another and could not breath as they were transported to a military base, like animals, which was then under the direct command of Gen Pisal.
As a Thai citizen, I feel I have failed. It’s nothing short of a collective failure of Thai society itself.
