Anyone reading the recent reports of 84 deaths whether from local press, the UN statements or the BBC cannot avoid but lay some blame on Thai armed forces who chose to act in a manner that would be deemed disproportionate to the alleged threat posed by minority Muslims in the south.

It is most dastardly that humans are heaped in trucks that they suffocated to death. It was stupefying that regardless of Ramadan, bystanders and other innocents were lumped together like cattle to slaughter.

The people and human rights groups of Thailand must take the Thaksin government to account for the second massacre this year. I am surprised that Thai human rights groups have been especially docile in relation to issues affecting the south.

Are the minority Muslim Thais pariahs in this land of majority Buddhists? Why were Thais able to run into the streets of Bangkok in the 70s and 80s to protest the crackdown on their democracy movement but not in the south?

Why were Thais able to stop the military from shooting down demonstrators in cold blood in the streets of Bangkok but not in the south? Is the quality of mercy strained today?