For victims and relatives, nothing can get rid of the pain and anguish
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"I cannot forget that incident, even though it was many years ago," said a mother, who lost a son in the Tak Bai incident, that left 85 Muslims dead, most of them dying during a post-crackdown transport to a military base.
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the infamous incident. Despite large sums being paid out in compensation, the survivors based in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district still live in agony.
Tragedy has chased Kamoh, 59, whose second son died during the crackdown outside Tak Bai Police Station on October 25, 2004, while her husband had died of natural causes two months earlier. Her eldest son died of an illness later and she now lives alone, as her youngest child works in Malaysia.
She said the money given to her as compensation could never remove the pain of losing her second son. “It is like I had received cash in exchange for his life. I can never forget the injustice I have endured in the past 10 years.
“The authorities never accepted their guilt, and I don’t like wrongdoers who never show remorse. I shall never forget what the officials did that day,” she added.
The alleged use of violence on the protesters during the crackdown, and suffocation in the trucks, have left many survivors disabled. Sanusi Jehmae, 38, has lost control over the movement of his right arm after surviving the agonising 200km transport to the military barracks in Pattani.
On October 25, 2004, a large crowd of Muslim men, who were protesting outside the Tak Bai Police Station, were detained and piled into military trucks, face down, one on top of the other. Many of them were found dead after the one-hour drive to the barracks, either crushed under the weight of others, or from suffocation.
Sanusi, 38, said he was unable to walk for two days and there was no medical attention during his two days at the barracks, before he was admitted to a hospital. His right arm was heavily swollen and he lost control over it. It became numb after he returned home and since then he has been unable to use the arm.
During the transport, Sanusi said he thought he was going to die, as he was at the bottom of the human pile, almost crushed by the weight of the people above him.
Many men, who were beaten by rifle butts or assaulted, kept moaning in pain while people on the top urinated or defecated, he said. “I could only listen to the moaning and tried to keep myself awake, while having trouble breathing,” he added.
Sanusi is still single, and works as a hand at a construction materials shop. He said he was fine with the money given, as he believed it was the amount Allah had fixed for him. “But the money’s not worth what I suffered and the disability,” he added.
He said officials had often told him not to “reopen the old wounds” during frequent discussions. “But if they do not accept that they had wronged me, there is no justice. I don’t want to talk about this but what happened has been deeply imprinted in my mind and I have never forgotten it,” he added.
