Wounds still fresh five years after 2010 bloody red-shirt crackdown
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FIVE years after the April-May 2010 crackdown on the red shirts, relatives of those killed say unrepentant Army rulers have failed in their vow to heal the deep divide.
Nongnai remembers the precise moment her brother died. The 38-year-old teacher was at work when the call came saying her sibling Attachai Anchalee had been struck by a soldier’s bullet just above the heart.
She listened as a friend described the medics’ desperate efforts to stem the bleeding and keep her brother’s heart going with chest compressions. “I was on the phone for 10 minutes ... until he said my brother passed away,” she said.
Attachai, a 28-year-old law graduate, was one of at least 90 people killed during the crackdown. He was among thousands of so-called red shirts loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra who took over key intersections in central Bangkok early that year, demanding fresh elections to replace the pro-military appointed government.
The massive protests brought to a boil years of resentment following the 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin, a move that led to his eventual self-exile overseas.
The military’s first response to the 2010 rallies came on April 10 when units tried to take the Khok Wua intersection controlled by the red shirts. Gun battles broke out between armed protesters and soldiers. By the end of the night more than 20 lay dead, including at least five soldiers and a foreign journalist.
The more comprehensive crackdown that followed from May 13-19 eventually succeeded in clearing the red shirts. But scores were killed inside Army-declared “live fire zones”, including many unarmed demonstrators, another foreign journalist and two medical volunteers.
No soldiers have been convicted of any wrongdoing, although the two civilian leaders at the time are facing an abuse-of-power probe.
The Army insists it was forced to act against armed protesters in 2010, while Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has angrily rejected any suggestion his soldiers targeted civilians.
Yet academics and rights groups who have studied the crackdown say soldiers made little attempt to differentiate between civilian protesters and their armed supporters. Of the 14 inquests carried out so far covering more than 20 deaths, nine found bullets from the military were to blame. In five inquests, the courts were undecided.
When Prayut took over last May, he insisted reconciliation between Thailand’s opposing camps would be a cornerstone of his administration.
But red-shirt supporters say they have seen little of that. Instead their leaders have been detained or silenced, while Yingluck has been banned from politics and is facing criminal negligence charges.
Relatives of those killed say healing the wounds that have torn Thai society apart remains a distant dream while the military stay in charge.
“We know the military are not neutral,” said Nongnai.
Red shirts are also alive to the reality that those “who had their hands in the killings, have today returned to rule the country”, says Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai politics expert at Kyoto University in Japan.
Simmering with anger, the movement remains in lockdown, but the kin of those killed say they are not done yet.
