Every time I read about one of these "police clashes" in the South, I think that this is the way that most of the killings during the Thaksin war on drugs were reported:
"Songkhla - Two suspected insurgents were killed in a gunfight with police and soldiers here Thursday afternoon. Police said authorities from the special military-police taskforce clashed with insurgents in Khuan Lan village in Tambon Pien of Songkhla's Sabayoi district at 1 pm."
Needless to say, no one in the Thai press ever bothers to ask how or why two guys got mowed down dead, not wounded, at one o'clock in the afternoon by police and soldiers, with no injuries among the police or soldiers. Was it war or a double execution ?
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingne...led-in-Songkhla
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Two "suspected insurgents" killed in Songkhla
Started by B.I.G., Feb 05 2009 05:37 PM
1 reply to this topic
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Posted 06 February 2009 - 11:44 AM
I share you concern that these "special military-police task forces" are what they used to call "death squads" in the old Salvadorian civil war. You have to wonder whether this double homicide is not part of a tit-for-tat execution in rataliation for the killing of two army troops the day before, or vice versa. With no one to reliably report the facts of these homicides, you just don't know.
Remember, they executed an estimated 2500 people during Thaksin's drug wars and most of us living here, Thais and expats alike, slept through it. It wasn't until long after the killing stopped, and it became politically expedient to criticize Thaksin, that the true facts started to emerge. Even now, years later, I don't believe they have yet to prosecute or jail a single person accused of extra-judicial murder among any of those 2500 deaths.
I was talking to a Thai professional recently who opined that he was encouraged that the insurgency in Sri Lanka was about to be defeated with the fall of the Tamil bases. He was confident that the same thing would eventually happen in the Thai south, that it was just a matter of time.
That may sound good, until you realize it took 32 years of killing in Sri Lanka to reach this point, with over 70,000 dead, ountless more maimed from land mines and a decimated tourist industry. Even if the Tali insurgency collapses soon, it will leave behind a war-torn society filled with hatred between the Buddhist majority and the minority Hindu Tamils. That's what happens when you impose a military solution on a political problem. It's hard to call that a victory for civil society by any reasonable standard.
Remember, they executed an estimated 2500 people during Thaksin's drug wars and most of us living here, Thais and expats alike, slept through it. It wasn't until long after the killing stopped, and it became politically expedient to criticize Thaksin, that the true facts started to emerge. Even now, years later, I don't believe they have yet to prosecute or jail a single person accused of extra-judicial murder among any of those 2500 deaths.
I was talking to a Thai professional recently who opined that he was encouraged that the insurgency in Sri Lanka was about to be defeated with the fall of the Tamil bases. He was confident that the same thing would eventually happen in the Thai south, that it was just a matter of time.
That may sound good, until you realize it took 32 years of killing in Sri Lanka to reach this point, with over 70,000 dead, ountless more maimed from land mines and a decimated tourist industry. Even if the Tali insurgency collapses soon, it will leave behind a war-torn society filled with hatred between the Buddhist majority and the minority Hindu Tamils. That's what happens when you impose a military solution on a political problem. It's hard to call that a victory for civil society by any reasonable standard.
