Thai bloodbath drowns hopes for a democratic Asean

comments     Farish A Noor     Published     Updated

That 84 Thais have been killed by their own security forces most of them suffocated as a result of being crammed into the narrow confines of trucks as they were brought to an army detention centre should serve as a warning to all Asean citizens.

In Thailand, as in many parts of Asean today, we are witnessing the return of fascism to our shores. The brutal killings of the Thai Muslims also reminds us of the killing of dozens of Burmese pro-democracy activists in 1988, when they were crammed into lorries with exhaust pipes diverted into the trucks and were subsequently choked to death by the fumes. Perhaps this was yet another case of one brutal Asean regime learning from another?

If anything it was proof that the struggle for democratic reform in Asean is far from over and that Asean's inter-governmental policy of 'non-interference' in domestic affairs is a convenient way to allow the respective governments to go on butchering their own populations.

That such casual manslaughter can take place in Thailand today, under the leadership of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, speaks volumes about the man's total disregard for the value of human life and fundamental rights.

The editorial of the Thai newspaper The Nation summed up the moral vacuum in the country aptly when it blared: "His (Thaksin's) contempt for human rights has resulted in a scattering of personal tragedies, masked by the proclaimed success of the war on drugs. But now this flawed trait of his leadership is threatening to plunge the country into the bitterest and most detrimental divide between the people and the state."

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