Human rights groups call on Thai government to arrest defendant Tak Bai – The Diplomat

Calls are growing for the Thai government to take strong action to ensure justice for those accused of involvement in the 2004 Tak Bai massacre, in which 85 Malay Muslim protesters were killed in southern Thailand.

In August, after years of legal efforts, the Narathiwat Provincial Court in southern Thailand agreed to accept a complaint filed by the families of 48 victims from Tak Bai. The lawsuit seeks to prosecute seven officials, including former high-ranking military personnel and police officers, for their involvement in the massacre. Last month, Thailand's Attorney General's Office also announced the opening of a second trial into the massacre involving eight defendants.

However, the 20-year statute of limitations on the murders expires at midnight tomorrow and none of the accused, all former or current high-ranking officials, have yet appeared in court in Narathiwat. If this doesn't happen by tomorrow, the case will be dismissed – and a rare chance for justice will be lost.

As the Bangkok Post reported, 43 civil society organizations signed an open letter on Monday calling on Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, as well as the interior minister and the national police chief to ensure that the seven defendants in the case are brought to justice before the deadline become.

In a statement the following day, human rights group Amnesty International called on the government to take urgent action to arrest the defendants, some of whom were said to be abroad. “The Thai authorities must take all necessary steps to ensure that in this case there is no impunity for those suspected of criminal responsibility for serious human rights violations,” Amnesty’s Thailand researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said in the statement.

The Tak Bai massacre is one of the deadliest incidents during the conflict in southern Thailand, where Malay Muslim organizations have been fighting for autonomy from the Thai state since the middle of the last century.

The killings occurred on October 25, 2004, when a group of 2,000 protesters gathered outside the police station in Tak Bai, a town in Narathiwat province. Protesters demanded the release of six Malaysian Muslims who were arbitrarily detained by Thai security forces on suspicion of supplying firearms to local separatist insurgent groups.

In the subsequent crackdown, seven protesters were killed by gunfire and about 1,370 Malay Muslim men were arrested. Seventy-eight of them were suffocated or crushed to death after being stacked on top of each other in army trucks and then transported to a military camp about 150 kilometers away in Pattani province.

The Tak Bai massacre came nine months after martial law was imposed in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces in response to an increase in separatist attacks. The conflict in southern Thailand has since claimed the lives of more than 7,600 people.

The incident is now seen as a symbol of the impunity of the Thai security forces. The fact that the two proceedings were initiated so close to the expiry of the statute of limitations, giving the defendants the opportunity to withdraw until after the expiration of the statute of limitations, only underscores this point. It is no surprise that none of the seven defendants showed up when they were summoned to court on September 12th. Two of the defendants, including General Pisan Wattanawongkiri, the former commander of the Fourth Army and until recently a member of parliament for the ruling Pheu Thai party, have reportedly fled abroad.

For their part, government officials say they are doing their best to track down these suspects and bring them to justice.

The likelihood of the case being dismissed has led some to call for more radical action from the government. Prinya Thaewanarumitkul, a law lecturer at Thammasat University, argued this week that the government could potentially issue an executive decree to extend the statute of limitations. The National Human Rights Commission has also called on the government to adopt an amendment to the law that would remove the statute of limitations for all future cases of serious human rights violations by state officials. Amnesty International also expressed the view that “there should be no statute of limitations for serious human rights violations or crimes under international law, including extrajudicial killings and torture.”

Attention is also focused on the question of what impact the dismissal could have on the further course of the conflict in the Deep South. In an article for Fulcrum this week, Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University, said a failure of the process could undo the progress made in southern Thailand since the current Pheu Thai government took office in September 2023. The government has a Introduced a series of reforms to its southern policy to make it “more committed to the people.” This period also saw increased dialogue with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, the largest insurgent group in the Deep South, which, together with the Thai government, created a framework for a Joint Comprehensive Peace Plan (JCPP) earlier this year.

However, Chambers argued that the government's efforts “have been and will continue to be hampered by ongoing military resistance and unresolved grievances over cases like Tak Bai.” If the government fails to charge or even convict those accused of the massacre, the Political consequences could be “significant,” he wrote.

“There could well be an end to the JCPP process, a breakdown in conflict resolution and even an increase in violence,” Chambers warned.