Thais to study mass graves in sectarian killings inquiry

Hundreds of nameless bodies dumped at an ethnic Chinese cemetery in southern Thailand are to be dug up and examined in a grim reminder of the neglected chaos on this country's southern border.

After months of foot-dragging, officials have ordered a government forensics team to exhume 300 unmarked graves in Pattani province. Human-rights activists suspect that these unknown corpses might include suspected Muslim insurgents who were abducted and executed by government death squads.

Nearly 1,300 people have died in the 30 months since violence re-erupted in Thailand's impoverished deep south, home to some three million Muslims. The majority of these anonymous bodies turned up in Pattani, a former sultanate near the Malaysian frontier where a dormant separatist insurgency has reignited, but almost 200 more were tracked down in neighbouring Yala and Narathiwat provinces, where bloodshed is increasing. Kidnaps, bombs and beheadings are almost daily occurrences.

The governor of Pattani, Panu Athairat, insisted that 333 of the 435 unclaimed bodies found in early March belonged to migrant fishermen from Cambodia, Laos and Burma. He claimed that around 100 bodies had simply washed ashore from passing trawlers. Authorities denied any link to a crackdown on Islamic insurgents in the three restive border provinces.

Mr Panu stressed: "Only 10 of the bodies were found to be Muslim workers from fishing trawlers, and were given to religious leaders for proper burials in Muslim graves."

But Dr Porntip Rojanasunand, the Justice Ministry forensics chief, was sceptical: "Police believe they were illegal immigrant workers and 80 per cent of them were killed. I plan to perform DNA tests on those bodies." Exhumation will start Monday at the Tong Dek Xiang Teung graveyard in Pattani’s Muang district. 

Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, who last week called for an investigation of the graves, has documented alleged abductions and extrajudicial killings near the border. He said: "The families of the victims in the south feel they cannot go to the Government. It is too dangerous. Many people have been forcibly disappeared in the south and these atrocities must be investigated." He added: "It has at least been confirmed that these notorious mass graves were found. Perhaps killings have been perpetrated on immigrant workers, as well."

When an overcrowded cemetery in Pattani sought permission to cremate unidentified corpses to free up burial plots, 300 unclaimed bodies came to light. Nearly all were male.

"This is very suspicious, given the campaign against the Muslim community," said Senator Kraisak. "We need to exhume and examine the bodies and determine whether deaths were caused by unnatural means. We must be allowed to find the cause - whether there are bullet holes in the skulls, or whatever."

He said the "intensified killings, and almost illogical violence" in the south has been kept out of the news by a political breakdown in Bangkok. Security officers responsible for the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters in October 2004 and 105 Islamic militants in April that year had gone unpunished, in fact most have been promoted.

After an seven-week break, the first thing on Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's agenda last week was the violence in the south. More than 100 government schools in Narathiwat province are now closed because students and staff are too intimidated to attend. Schools have been targeted in shootings. One young teacher is in a coma after villagers held her hostage to swap for two locals arrested as insurgents. A senior army strategist estimated that about 100 of the 1,520 villages in the south were deeply infiltrated by militants.

"There was no real effort to bring ethnic Malays into the intelligence community when things were quiet for nearly a decade," a senior army intelligence officer told the Nation, a Bangkok daily. A new generation of Islamic separatists, mostly trained at religious schools, is asserting itself.

Most businesses are owned by wealthy Buddhists with roots outside the area, fuelling the resentment of local rubber tappers and fishermen. Barely 100 years ago, this distinct region was ruled by a sultan, and the pagodas of Bangkok seemed very remote indeed.

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