The Asian Human Rights Commission joins in the condemnation of the attack on a minivan in Yala, southern Thailand, which left nine people dead. As has been widely reported, the vehicle was stopped in the morning of March 14 as it was travelling on the Yaha-Bannang road, and its occupants were shot. A small bomb was exploded as rangers approached the scene, hindering efforts to save any of the persons inside. One died in hospital; only the driver survived.
Although the far south has been subjected to unceasing violence that has seen hundreds of casualties in the last month alone, this latest attack is apparently a deliberate move to escalate the conflict even further by spreading fear in the region and provoking outrage across the rest of the country. It is calculated to draw an even more ferocious response from the state, coming just two weeks after the interim prime minister ordered an increase in the number of police being transferred to the south.
In May 2006 the National Reconciliation Commission on the south, established by the former government, concluded that “the violence that took place in the area was a reaction to the state’s excessively harsh tactics and measures”. It pointed to structural factors, particularly the denial of justice to the local population, as the key causes of the problems. It detailed a range of measures to improve accessibility to justice and build trust in state institutions. None were ever seriously considered, either by the previous administration or the military regime that took power last September 19. Rhetorical commitments to justice and reconciliation have not been matched by action.
Today, all parties to the conflict in the south are operating free from accountability. All are pushing further from the use of justice as a solution and towards outright lawlessness.
However, it is the state that has a special duty to act according to the standards of international law, to which it has subscribed, and in the best interests of all persons in Thailand. Human rights law obliges it to investigate with due diligence and wherever possible prevent all alleged abuses. “The legal obligation to effectively punish violations,” writes Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, “Is as vital to the rule of law in armed conflict as in peace.”
The Asian Human Rights Commission unequivocally rejects the killing and wounding of all civilians, no matter by whom or in what circumstances. It urges the interim government of Thailand not to react to this shocking and unjustified attack with more violence, which will be inevitable if the numbers of police and soldiers in the south are further increased. It calls on it to abide by the standards of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which it is a party, and ensure that no person in the south is beyond investigation and prosecution. It calls for the retraction of the Emergency Decree over the southern provinces and an end to abduction and incommunicado detention in places outside of official detention facilities, torture and extrajudicial killing by state officers. Finally, it urges the active implementing of measures proposed by the National Reconciliation Commission as the only way to prevent even worse atrocities in the days, weeks and months ahead.
