Remember prior crackdowns

MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2015
Remember prior crackdowns

Eric Bahrt is right - up to a point. The jailing of the 14 students and the use of a military court is not defensible to those of us imbued with so-called Western values.

But I fear the villainy of the military junta pales into insignificance when you recall the 84 men asphyxiated in the back of lorries at Tak Bai in 2003, or the 2,500 deaths of “drug dealers” in Thaksin Shinawatra’s narcotics crackdown, or the massacre of men, women and children when bombs were thrown into the anti-Yingluck Shinawatra encampments prior to the May 2014 coup. All these atrocities occurred under elected governments. Still, as Eric well knows, today’s news is tomorrow’s history.

Barry Kenyon