Tak Bai Assault Vcds Hot Item In The South

[nogutsnoapplepie]

WASSANA NANUAM

Video compact discs depicting soldiers assaulting apprehended protesters at the Oct 25 riot in Narathiwat's Tak Bai district are selling well in the Muslim-dominated southern province, a source said yesterday.

The source said producers recorded television news footage of the bloodshed as well as digital camera shots onto the VCDs, which show soldiers beating and trampling on the detainees, who were made to lie face down with their hands tied behind their backs.

The VCDs are not sold openly. The police and military were trying to track down the producers and distributors.

Eighty-five people died in the Tak Bai riot _ seven at the scene and 78 others during their transport in trucks to a military camp in Pattani.

The Fourth Army, well aware of lingering resentment against the military among Tak Bai residents, has pulled out the navy marines who were charged with quelling the protesters on Oct 25, and replaced them with army infantry units with experience in anti-riot and psychological operations, the source said.

Members of the Petcharawut task force, comprising soldiers from the Bangkok-based 11th infantry division and 31st infantry division based in Lop Buri, had been visiting villagers to win back their trust since early this month.

The soldiers had also decorated their camps with paper birds, a symbol of peace. On Dec 5, when 62 million paper birds would be air-dropped over Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, the soldiers would help collect them and string them together to make decorations.

The Petcharawut task force also looked after Waeng, Sukhirin and Sungai Kolok districts in Narathiwat, Than To and Betong districts in Yala and villages along the Thai-Malaysian border.

Muslim communities in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat had put up roadside billboards with a message from the Muslim World League printed in Thai, English and Arabic, warning Islamic believers against getting involved in the southern unrest.

There were also billboards carrying Her Majesty the Queen's speeches delivered on Sept 29 and Nov 16 calling on all Thais to help restore peace to the deep South.

BangkokPost

[toastwars]

Anyone know where I can get one?

[Crushdepth]

The soldiers had also decorated their camps with paper birds, a symbol of peace. On Dec 5, when 62 million paper birds would be air-dropped over Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, the soldiers would help collect them and string them together to make decorations.

Oh how nice, I'm sure that will make the situation much better. So long as nobody accidentally suffocates under a big pile of paper. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

[dugdig]

Can we assume that none of the footage(discage) came from iTV?

[george]

Thai authorities move to suppress video of Tak Bai violence

BANGKOK: -- The Thai government is moving to suppress a video CD of security forces beating Muslim protestors in the restive south on a day in which 87 demonstrators were killed.

A defence ministry spokesman said police had been instructed to investigate potential charges against the VCD's producers, whom he said were part of a group already well known to authorities and linked to the current violence.

"The VCD producers want to create more violence and want to make it harder for the government to solve the unrest in the south," said spokesman Major General Balangura Klaharn.

"We already know which people are making these VCDs but we don't want to reveal their names right now," he said.

The VCD shows soldiers beating and trampling on protesters whose hands are bound behind their backs after a riot at Tak Bai in Narathiwat province on October 25, according to the Bangkok Post.

The daily said the video was compiled from news footage as well as private video coverage of the day in which 87 Muslim demonstrators died, most of them through suffocation after being piled onto the backs of army trucks.

Tensions have risen sharply in the Muslim-majority south since the Tak Bai deaths leading to a spate of gun, bomb, and arson attacks mostly targeting state officials and buildings.

An outlawed Thai Muslim separatist group on Friday offered a bounty of over 2,000 US dollars for the killing of governors or senior government officials in the troubled Muslim-majority south.

Concern over the unrest in southern Thailand is expected to be an issue when Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet in Laos next Monday and Tuesday.

However, Thaksin has warned he will walk out if leaders raise the Tak Bai case.

More than 550 people have been killed in the south since an attack on an army base in January left four soldiers dead and sparked the current unrest.

The violence has been confined mainly to Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala, the three southernmost provinces of the mainly Buddhist kingdom.

--AFP 2004-11-27

[ovenman]

Concern over the unrest in southern Thailand is expected to be an issue when Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet in Laos next Monday and Tuesday.

However, Thaksin has warned he will walk out if leaders raise the Tak Bai case.

I'm sure Mr. Big needn't prepare his walking shoes. Since when does ASEAN ever raise a topic that may be embarrassing and potentially cause a member-state to lose face?