Shocked relatives mourn deaths in Thailand

Relatives of Muslim demonstrators hug one another after checking the list of dead people, in front of a military camp in Pattani province southern of Thailand yesterday. At least 84 Thai Muslims died, mainly from suffocation in the back of packed security force trucks, after police and troops broke up a violent protest in the kingdom's troubled south, officials said. PHOTO: AFP

Moderate Muslims here made a grim prediction that militants may press forward with a series of suicide attacks in a desperate move to avenge the deaths of 84 people in army custody in the southern province of Narathiwat after arrest on Monday.

Meanwhile, a separatist group vowed that insurgents would spread their war to Bangkok. "Their capital will be burned down in the same way the Pattani capital has been burned," the Pattani United Liberation Organisation said in a statement posted on its website.

Distraught relatives flocked yesterday to an army camp to claim bodies of the Muslim detainees who perished after soldiers herded hundreds of people into trucks after a demonstration by more than 3,000 Muslims for the release of six village defence volunteers.

The latest bout of sectarian violence that prompted heavy-handed actions from the authorities unfolded scenes of melee. In chaotic moments after use of teargas and water cannons, soldiers fired at protesters, not in the air as the government claimed, witnesses said.

Troops rounded up the demonstrators after 15 minutes of gunfire, forcing men to strip to the waist and lie face down with their hands behind their backs.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), based in Hong Kong, blamed Thaksin for incensing security forces to control the demonstrations with brutal force.

"That so many people have been killed due to the use of live ammunition on crowds and the effects of tear gas and suffocation in trucks after arrest is most disturbing and utterly inexcusable," the AHRC said in a statement.

An inquiry team will investigate the deaths, Thaksin said in an expression of regret to parliament, although he sounded defiant in the face of criticism of his attitude to human rights.

Under mounting pressure after blaming fasting during Ramadan and drug use among protesters for the high death toll, Thaksin apologised for the deaths, but insisted that his security forces were "soft" on the rioters.

Earlier, local newspapers blasted the premier for the callous handling of the tragedy without words of apology on Tuesday -- the day the massacre was disclosed.

He was accused of leaving the shocked relatives to rely on vague press briefings by a forensic expert and some senior military experts.

"The violence will never end if the government continues to handle standoffs with this kind of logic. There has always been a great loss of life in every military operation in the deep South," said Chaiwat Sathaanand, a peace scholar at Thammasat University's political sciences faculty.