BANGKOK (AFP) - Rights watchdogs and politicians demanded assurances an inquiry into the deaths of 84 Muslim protesters would be rigorous and independent amid mounting criticism of Thailand's rights record.
International groups decried the "unapologetically aggressive and belligerent approach" taken by security forces who broke up a violent protest Monday in the country's troubled south.
Some 1,300 detainees were left piled on top of each other in trucks for at least six hours after the demonstration was broken up leaving 78 dead, mainly from suffocation but also several with broken necks.
Premier Thaksin Shinawatra on Wednesday announced an inquiry into the deaths in the trucks but it was not clear who would sit on the inquiry team and how it would be run.
"It's most important there are very thorough, independent judicial and legislative inquiries," said Nick Cheesman, project officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).
Rights activists have accused Thaksin's government of abuses over the last two years including a war on drugs that left more than 2,500 people dead, a raid on a mosque in April that killed 32 lightly armed rebels and other hardline tactics in the south.
The AHRC called Monday's deaths at Tak Bai in Thailand's Muslim-majority Narathiwat province "most disturbing and utterly inexcusable".
"Their deaths speak to the total absence of professional behaviour and rudimentary respect for human lives on the part of those leading and carrying out this operation," it said.
"Not only the south, but the whole country must now face the bloody consequences of an unapologetically aggressive and belligerent approach to legitimate human rights concerns held by growing numbers of people there."
Amnesty International said Monday's deaths were part of a "disturbing pattern" of excessive force against Muslims in southern Thailand where an insurgency has raged for decades.
Thai senator Kaewsan Atipho demanded a thorough explanation from the government as to why dozens of Thai men died in transport from Tak Bai.
"If the fact was that people had their hands tied behind their backs and were piled into trucks it was the fault of the government, and the government has to give their families justice," he said.
He also called on authorities to immediately release the remaining 1,200 detainees or give them lawyers and allow them to meet relatives if charges would be pressed against them. They can be held for up to seven days under martial law.
Thailand's human rights commission was to send its own four-person fact-finding mission to Narathiwat this week and submit a letter of complaint on Wednesday to Thaksin.
In its letter, the commission rapped Thaksin, saying "the use of force was excessive, and someone should be held responsible," commissioner Saneh Jamarik told reporters.
In a blunt assessment he laid the blame for the southern unrest, which has now left at least 414 people dead this year, squarely on Thaksin's government.
"We have analysed and found that the key problem is government policy. We have proposed advice in previous letters but the government was not interested in our opinions," Saneh said.
He ranked the incident on a par with the brutal April 28 raid on the Krue Se mosque in Pattani province when security forces shot dead 32 lightly armed suspected Muslim militants.
A fact-finding commission concluded that troops were too heavy-handed when they stormed the mosque on a day when 108 militants and five security forces were killed in the south.
The army commander who ordered the mosque assault, General Pallop Pinmanee, resigned over the controversial raid, but Thaksin stopped short of acknowledging any wrongdoing by Pallop.
10/27/2004 - 11:07 GMT - AFP