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BANGKOK —Friday's lapse of murder charges in Thailand against 14 people, including former police and army officers, for the deaths of 85 protesters two decades ago is raising fears of a spike in violence in the country's long-restive south.
The 14 were charged with murder and other felonies earlier this year for their alleged roles in the so-called Tak Bai Massacre on October 25, 2004, named after a district in the far south of Thailand, a predominantly Muslim and ethnic Malay part of the country.
On that day 20 years ago, soldiers and police shot and killed seven people at a protest that called for the release of suspected Islamic militant collaborators in police custody. The officers also bound and stacked many more protesters several rows high inside police trucks where 78 of them died of suffocation, according to a state inquest five years later.
Although the inquest found fatal flaws in the security response to the protest, authorities did not pursue the charges, and no one was ever put on trial.
The courts issued arrest warrants for all 14 of those charged earlier this year, but none has been arrested. Under Thai law, anyone charged with certain serious crimes, including murder, must appear in court in person before the statute of limitations expires for a trial to proceed. Otherwise, the charges are dropped.
The 14 are believed to have gone into hiding or abroad to wait for the end of the statute of limitations in their cases, which expired late Friday.
For Muhammasawawee Auseng, whose older brother Abdulhadee, then 19 years old, was among those who died in the police trucks, the end of criminal liability for the accused feels like a fresh trauma.
"Since the Narathiwat provincial court issued the arrest warrants, we all hoped deep down that we could get justice from the authorities," he told VOA.
"Now it feels like our old wounds are opening up again," he said. "The cases may expire, but the feelings and the pain of the villagers will not expire; they will remain in our hearts."
Auseng said the authorities' failure to put the accused on trial reinforces feelings among many of Thailand's Malays and Muslims that they are second-class citizens in a country where ethnic Thais and Buddhists make up the vast majority.
"All the [Tak Bai] victims and relatives are losing their faith in the authorities and their justice system. This incident was committed by government officials, yet the authorities cannot do anything to put them through the legal process," he said.
"The Tak Bai incident proves that the authorities treat us different because we are Malay," he said.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra issued a public apology Thursday "on behalf of the government" to the victims and their families for what they have lost and suffered. But she said the constitution did not allow the government, as some academics had suggested it does, to extend the statute of limitations to give the police more time to arrest the accused.
Police officials had said for the past several weeks that they had done everything possible to find them.
But their failure to do so will add not only to impressions of racial and religious bias, but of impunity for the well-connected, said Somchai Homlaor, a senior adviser and co-founder of the Cross Cultural Foundation, a local rights group.
"That confirms the belief of the people in the south that the criminal justice system in Thailand is still under the ... influence, especially if the wrongdoers are high-ranking government officials or influential people," he told VOA.
Of the 14 people charged, most of the attention landed on Pisal Wattanawongkiri, a retired general who headed the army's southern command at the time of the 2004 protest.
Pisal won an elected seat in the House of Representatives with the ruling Pheu Thai party last year, granting him legal immunity. Although Pheu Thai announced his resignation from the party and house on October 15, authorities claimed they did not know where he was.
Some rights groups and analysts fear the failure to find and arrest Pisal or any of the other accused in time to take them to trial may spark a new wave in violence in Thailand's deep south.
Once the seat of a Muslim sultanate, the southern provinces of modern-day Thailand were deeded to the then-kingdom of Siam by the British in 1909. Refusing to accept the transfer, several Malay Muslim armed groups have been waging a guerrilla war against the Thai state to win back independence for the region.
More than 7,000 people have died in related violence since fighting picked up in January 2004.
"Some of the ... armed groups may use [the end of] this case to make some violence," said Somchai.
"Because [of] the failure of the authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice," he explained. "It's the reasons that can be used - impunity among the high-ranked officers, and the [impression that] Muslim Melayu people are just only like the second citizens."
Don Pathan, an independent security analyst who has been following the conflict for decades, says insurgent groups already have picked up the pace of attacks and bombings in recent weeks, as they usually do ahead of each anniversary of the Tak Bai protest and crackdown.
"But not as big as this [year], because this is the 20th anniversary," he said. "And it's just not the number, the 20th year; it's also about the statute of limitations expiring, so it gives them that extra reason to carry out more attacks."
The government and the largest of the armed groups, Barisan Revolusi Nasional, have been in talks over a possible cease-fire deal aimed at curbing the attacks and lifting the emergency laws most of the south of Thailand has been under since 2004.
Pathan and Somchai say the dropping of the charges in the Tak Bai cases could make those talks harder if the insurgents use it as a reason to toughen their demands. They say it will also serve to keep the events of October 25, 2004, as a potent recruiting tool for armed groups looking to replenish their ranks with fresh fighters.
Until Thailand learns to reckon with the events of that bloody day and get to the bottom of exactly what happened and why, Pathan said, the country will struggle to move on.
"You're not going to heal, you're not going to be able to move on as a nation if you can't settle this," he said. "How do you put this behind you? You have to be fair, you have to be honest, and you have to do it keeping in mind ... human dignity, and right now I don't see any of that."