BANGKOK
An official investigation has been launched into the deaths of four suspected Muslim insurgents in a recent Thai military raid after their parents and community leaders denied their connection to a separatist rebellion in the country’s south.
Local media reported Sunday that a fact-finding panel composed of local religious leaders, community leaders, military and police officers, and representatives of the Pattani province-based Fatoni Islamic University has been given seven days to investigate the case.
The findings of the panel, led by the Pattani Provincial Islamic Committee’s chairman, Waedurame Mamingji, will then be reported to Thailand’s military-run government and the public.
The raid on a construction site was launched Wednesday evening after an informant told authorities of a coming rebel attack in Pattani’s To Chud village.
Four men aged between 23 and 32 were killed by a joint military and police team, while 22 others were captured, detained in military camps and interrogated about their possible connections to the insurgency.
Police at the time had told The Anadolu Agency that automatic rifles and pistols were found near the men’s bodies. Police also told local media that the four men were linked to the Rundan Kumpulan Kecil, one of the most active separatist groups in the Muslim south.
Almost immediately, the parents of the killed men and local community leaders cast doubts on the official account of the raid, with the mother of one of the dead -- Saddam Wanu – telling the media her son had no links to the insurgency.
Nasae Doko, To Chud village chief, said he was prevented from accessing the clash site for several hours after the incident. When he was allowed in, he saw automatic weapons displayed next to the bodies.
He told Khaosod Online Friday that the young men were known as drug addicts in the village, but had never been associated with the rebellion.
"Saddam Wanu was out of prison [jailed for a drug offense] just last week. How could he manage to own a war weapon already?” he told the website. "I am confident that the weapon did not belong to that young man."
On Friday, Fatoni Islamic University released a statement saying that two of the dead were students who had no record of involvement in the insurgency.
"They did not do anything that endangered national security and were not involved in the RKK," said the statement published by Isra News website, referring to the separatist group by its acronym.
"Furthermore, they have no previous arrest warrants on national security cases and the university was never told by authorities that the two students did anything that affected national security."
After a meeting with local religious and community leaders Saturday, Colonel Pramote Promin, Forward Military Command spokesman in the south, sent his condolences to the families of the four men.
Of the 22 arrested Wednesday, 13 had been released the same day as they were found to have no connections to the rebellion.
In the past, there has been a number of incidents where civilians with no links to the insurgency were killed by the military, police or paramilitary forces.
Last September, an army ranger shot and killed a 14 year-old Muslim teenager who was riding a motorcycle in Narathiwat province, before reportedly placing a gun in the victim’s hand and claiming he was an insurgent. A police investigation concluded that the military volunteer had tried to cover up the killing, leading to him being charged with manslaughter.
Pattani and Narathiwat are among three southern provinces -- where 80 percent of the population is of Malay Muslim origin – that have been facing a rejuvenated separatist insurgency since 2004.
The area was an independent Islamic sultanate with great religious influence in the Southeast Asian Muslim world until its incorporation into Siam after a 1909 Anglo-Siamese agreement. Great Britain was then the colonial power in Malaysia and exerting a degree of control over the region.
The government tried to impose Thai culture on the Malay Muslims, who sought political and cultural autonomy.
In the 1960s, when the Thai military regime tried to wrest control of Islamic schools, several Muslim groups launched a guerrilla war against the state.
The insurgency petered out towards the end of the 1980s but was renewed in January 2004 when a wave of attacks against the military, police and Buddhist monks rocked the region.
Since then, violence has continued unabated, leaving more than 6,000 dead and around 11,000 injured.
Following last May’s coup, the junta announced its willingness to pursue a dialogue with the rebels that had been initiated by the previous elected government. However, there has been no solid progress and some insurgent groups seem reluctant due to the exclusion of the issue of political autonomy from the discussion topics.
