Victims must be healed, those behind April-May crackdown brought to justice: panel chief

National reconciliation will not last if the truth about what happened last April and May is not accompanied by judicial impartiality, democratic political structure, civilian supremacy over the military and freedom of expression, a panel on post-electoral reconciliation concluded yesterday.

"Reconciliation needs to include reform of the judicial process in order to ensure that it does not come under the influence of any party. We must also look into the role of security agencies in the democratic process," said Kittipong Kittayarak, chairman of a sub-panel in charge of Strategic Planning for Reconciliation that comes under the Truth for Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Kittipong warned that strictly relying on the criminal justice process "might not provide answers" and instead "complicate the problem", while amnesty and amnesia over the April-May crackdown might not be the answer either.

"Those affected must be healed, while those [behind the incidents] held responsible," he said, adding that offering blanket amnesty before people understood what really happened would deprive the Thai society from learning how to prevent such conflicts from taking place again.

Somchai Homla-or, chairman of TRC's Truth-Seeking Sub-commission, said reconciliation could not take place if there was no change in the political structure. He said there were far too many competing views of what a democratic system with the king as head of state ought to be like. The military's role in society should also be reviewed, along with the freedom of expression, which is under threat from the use of lese majeste law.

"Freedom of expression is a very vital and fundamental right. If we don't have it, how can we talk about certain issues with good attitude and back it up with correct information?" he said, referring to speculation about the monarchy's role in last year's conflict.

"Without these changes, it's impossible to have a reconciliation," he said, adding that a post-electoral Thailand without reform would likely lead to more violence.

Even though a year has passed, the TRC has failed to produce a comprehensive report on what happened during the April-May crackdown, which led to 92 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries.

Somchai said no answers have been provided as to why so many red shirts are in detention, while "not a single security officer has been charged". He said that truth and justice was needed and complained that a leaked Department of Special Investigation (DSI) report concluding that security officers were likely responsible for at least 13 deaths had still not reached the courts, even though four or five months have passed since it was written.

General Ekkachai Srivilas, a peace expert from King Prajadhipok Institute (KPI), said the problem was that "some organisations within the state had stronger influence than the state itself".

He said the security sector, including the Army, needed good governance. He later told The Nation that the one example was the deep South, where the government was unable to lift the emergency due to the Army's power.

Prof Chaiwat Satha-anand, another peace expert at Thammasat University, urged society to accept that there were different visions as to what Thai society ought to look like in the future.

"We need a shared future [for reconciliation] to succeed. But I'm not sure if we will have it. Thai society has reached a point where we are talking about different versions of the future, and we should stop deceiving ourselves," Chaiwat said.

When asked how Thai society could come to terms with the truth when at least one version of the truth held by many red shirts could not be publicly told without violating the lese majeste law, Chaiwat said truth was always the casualty in any war or deadly conflict.

However, he added that some informal and private talk about one version of what happened last April and May continued to exist.

"We don't know how to love and we don't understand. We are drowned in fear, and that is dangerous for Thai society," he said, without elaborating which institution he was referring to.

Surakiat Satirathai, former deputy prime minister and a figure close to the palace, said that though an anti-monarchist movement does exist, the number of abolitionists was still small.

However, he admitted that the attacks on the monarchy were on the rise, though critics who had good intentions and were loyal to the monarch should be distinguished from those who were republicans.

"The lese majeste law is possibly being used indiscriminately, which has led to some people being disheartened," Surakiat said.