The dispersal and arrest of demonstrators in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district on October 25 left 85 people dead. Seventy-eight of them died in military trucks while being transported from Tak Bai district to Ingkhayuthaborighan military camp in Patani. This incident was shocking and left many wondering what had actually happened in Tak Bai. After the incident, three Senate committees visited the area on a fact-finding tour.
Personally, I found the truth about the Tak Bai incident to be the following:-


(1) The officers’ actions were premeditated
The officers set out to capture approximately 100 leading demonstrators and filmed the demonstrators beforehand to determine which ones they wanted to arrest. While negotiations were still going on with the demonstrators, four military trucks were sent from Ingkhayuthaborihan camp to Tak Bai, ready to transport the targeted 100 demonstrators. However, before the crowd was dispersed, the wanted men scattered into it. The officers then arrested about 1,300 demonstrators in order to get those they were after.

Observation:
Prime Minister Thaksin has stated that the demonstrators were dispersed only after officers tried to negotiate, deciding on a gentle approach out of concern that the situation would be prolonged and lead to widespread rioting. This is obviously not in line with the facts.


(2) Transportation was poorly organized.
For the transport of the demonstrators from Tak Bai to the camp in Patani in the custody of the security officers, a total distance of 150 kilometers, 25 military trucks and a number of police cars and hired vehicles were used to move the 1,300 detainees. The detainees, with their hands tied behind their backs, exhausted from the clash and weak due to fasting, were tossed into the trucks and forced to lie face down. They were stacked in four or five layers for the entire five or six-hour journey.
Close to death, those towards the bottom of the heap were suffocating. Screaming for help, they were instead trampled on by some of the soldiers, hit with the rifle butts and told: “(I) will teach you Hell exists”.

Observation:
Some of the officers’ treatment of prisoners was inhumane. They had no regard for human dignity or the human rights guaranteed to all citizens by the Constitution.


(3) Despite the dead bodies found on the first truck to arrive at the camp, no measures were taken to prevent further loss of life
The first truck arrived at Ingkhayuthaborihan camp around 6.30 pm. One person at the bottom of a stack was found dead. It was learned no one had warned the other trucks about the possible fate of the detainees packed into the trucks, whereby their fate might have been prevented. The trucks made the journey slowly, with some arriving at the camp as late as 3 am.

Observation:
Despite knowing that this procedure would result in death, they did not try to prevent the tragedy while they could. It is therefore not unreasonable to say that this was an act intended to cause more deaths in the other trucks. Twenty-three bodies were found on the truck with the highest death toll.


(4) Condition of the injured in hospital.
Some had bruises. In some cases destroyed muscle cells had circulated into the vascular system, causing kidney malfunction. Some serious cases needed to be treated with blood purification at Songkhla Hospital. In some cases there were gunshot wounds to the legs and abdomen. Some had broken bones.

Observation:
The injured detainees gave the same information as did the other demonstrators detained at the camp, saying that at the time of dispersal officers had not only shot into the air but also straight at them, contrary to what the prime minister said. Also, while the detainees were being brought to the camp there was only one doctor and approximately nine nurses there, despite a clear need to care for the exhausted and injured.


(5) Conditions of the detention facility and the detainees
We found Ingkhayuthaborihan had the worst problems. Even on the day of our visit, three days after the incident, the detainees had not been allowed to bath or otherwise clean themselves and had not been given basic toiletries. After being arrested, some demonstrators had their personal belongings taken away and may never get them back.


(6) The officers must be charged in order to take responsibility for what they did
The 85 deaths were a tragic loss. People died in custody. Government officers should therefore take responsibility. They were negligent and treated the detainees brutally. They should at least be charged with negligence resulting in death. The officers may even have intended to kill the detainees.
I therefore conclude that:

(1) As prime minister, Thaksin sent a signal in his policies allowing the use of violence, for example in the war against drugs that saw 2,800 people killed, many of them innocent. Part of it came from the prime minister’s policy advocating violence, especially in the south. Thaksin rejected peaceful solutions presented to him and applied a tough policy instead. The Constitution gives great power to the prime minister, but Thaksin has used his power in so extreme a manner as to have become himself a symbol of violence.
(2) The tough policy management and state propaganda suggesting that what happened in the south was caused by hostile bandits, extremist Muslims, troublemakers, drug addicts and separatists has fostered hatred and mistrust among Thais, as we can see from people gloating on radio, television and the Internet over the deaths. Many Thais now have an us-versus-them mentality.
(3) Thaksin is playing into the hands of separatist groups. The government’s policy allowing security forces to use lethal force against militants and protesters has put some local residents in sympathy with separatist groups.
(4) Policy mismanagement caused the violence and large number of deaths, defaming the country in the world arena. Thais are now viewed as barbaric.
While Thailand as a democracy will have to make amends and peace and justice must be upheld, Thaksin Shinawatra no longer has the legitimacy to run the country.