Strong Criticism on Front Page of The Nation

[torrenova]

So why do it now ?

[Guest]

Here is a comment I found recently in the Malaysian Star:

http://thestar.com.my/news/list.asp?file=/2004/10/31/focus/9275449&sec=focus

 

__________

 

Blood on Thaksin?s hands

Writer's Journal

By KARIM RASLAN

 

LET?S imagine that a news report catches your eye one morning. It?s the fasting month so you?re reading it over an empty breakfast table. You have a few minutes before you have to leave for work and it sounds innocuous enough at first ? a minor disturbance in some godforsaken town, somewhere you?ve never heard of.

 

You read on. Well, since you?re fasting, you?ve got to do something to make you forget how much you?d really like a cup of coffee.

 

Over 1,300 protestors have clashed with government security forces outside a provincial police station. After considerable violence ? at least six people died and 17 others were injured ? the angry crowd is subdued and the demonstrators arrested.

 

After being forced to take off their shirts, the men are then made to lie on the open ground. Later, they are herded onto trucks which are then covered with tarpaulin. These trucks are then driven over 120km to a neighbouring province where the demonstrators are to be processed. The journey takes six hours. You wonder how many lorries are used and how the young men are loaded onto the trucks.

 

In the crush and the terrible heat ? remember this is the fasting month and the prisoners are predominantly Muslim ? 78 men die.

 

Autopsies reveal that 80% of these deaths are caused by asphyxiation. Another 20% are thought to have been crushed to death ? some are reported to have broken necks. You shudder.

 

The head of the government is later reported as saying (while trying to dismiss the rumours) that ?some deaths were possible? among those arrested due to weakness as a result of fasting. Another government spokesman adds: ?The bodies of people who were arrested were weak because of fasting. It caused them to be fatigued and when they got into the crowded trucks, there was no air to breathe.? No air to breathe? You pause. Are you reading a news report? This is like an episode from a Latin American novel.

 

Where did this ghoulish atrocity take place? Was it in the northern fastnesses of Afghanistan? You remember that the Taliban were notorious for cramming their prisoners-of-war into containers which were then towed to an isolated spot where the men would be left to die ? suffocating to death inside an airtight container under the baking sun. Could it be Iraq? Saddam Hussein was similarly cruel and inhumane towards those who challenged his authority. No. You look again.

 

This atrocity ? because there is no other way of describing what happened to the 1,300 unarmed and defenceless men after they were arrested in the small town of Tak Bai ? took place in the ?Land of Smiles?, our next-door neighbour, Thailand. You feel sick. You were there ? in Phuket ? for a conference only a few weeks before. Besides, you?re always in and out of Bangkok on business.

 

Thailand? In the past when people talked of Asean?s shame, people generally pointed the finger at the generals in Myanmar. Now you wonder why they don?t do the same for Thailand. The government?s total lack of remorse makes you furious. Does this mean that Thailand, like Myanmar, is a pariah nation ? a country where leaders disregard human life?

 

But you feel uneasy. Your memories of Thailand are still fresh in your mind. You know it?s wrong to blame an entire country of over 63 million for the crimes perpetrated by a tiny minority. Then you remember what people told you about the country?s nascent culture of violence and intolerance and how it emanated from one man and his excessive belligerence.

 

You feel sick. Somehow you can?t stop thinking about those men ? crammed into lorries like animals ready for slaughter. You remember how dreadful you feel in the last few minutes before the break of fast ? the dryness in your throat, the lethargy and the tiredness. You can?t even imagine what it must have been like in one of those trucks.

 

Thaksin. He was the man they all talked about. He was the CEO turned politician turned premier. He was the one that all the businessmen and journalists complained about. They?d told you about the way he launched an anti-drug crusade two years before that resulted in over 2,000 extra-judicial killings. You remember the steady flow of stories about his heavy-handedness and the allegations of corruption.

 

Thaksin. He?s the man who?s turned the clock back for Thais and Thailand (a.k.a. the Land of the Free). He is ultimately responsible for the kind of evil behaviour that leads to young Muslims being treated like animals ready for slaughter. Thaksin has rolled back all the hard work of the Thai monarch King Bhumibol, transforming a peace-loving, cosmopolitan and tolerant nation into a cauldron of hatred, criminality, corruption and violence. You know there are so many sensible, responsible people who loathe him ? virtually everyone you meet has condemned the Prime Minister?s callous brutality.

 

You know there is an election coming up. You hope and pray ? for the sake of the Thai people ? that this man, a man who condones the slaughter of young men, is removed from office before his nation is damaged even further. As you put down the newspaper, the image of the young men trapped on those lorries ? thirsty, desperate for air, slowly suffocating to death ? remains in your mind.

 

 

 

# Karim Raslan is a regionally-syndicated columnist

[Guest]

Here is a comment I found recently in the Malaysian Star:

...

Does this mean that Thailand, like Myanmar, is a pariah nation ? a country where leaders disregard human life?

This is incredible, coming from the country whose former leader is Mahathir Mohamad. Remember, this is the guy who, as a Prime Minister, refused to condemn Islamist terrorist acts, and who to this days continues to spew his anti-Western rhetoric and hatred.