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Published on February 23, 2008

Though in power for just one month, the Samak Sundaravej government has already, intentionally or not, rung many alarm bells with those who care about human rights and the truth.

Prime Minister Samak's lame excuse yesterday that he couldn't really remember events three decades ago during the October 6, 1976 massacre is inexcusable.

While at least 46 people were killed, according to the official death toll, Samak said in an interview with CNN just after taking power that only one person died on the day.

Samak may now indicate that he's no longer willing to discuss the incident or entertain any more questions about it from reporters and those who were affected, but merely shutting up will not absolve him of misinformation and his past role in fanning the incident, where right-wing mobs attacked and killed leftist students in broad daylight in Bangkok.

Instead of expressing contrition, Samak chose to misinform and, since that backfired, is now simply trying to evade the issue altogether.

While some may be willing to forgive Samak and let bygones be bygones, or point out that he was not alone but merely part of the large ultra right-wing movement back in the 1970s, or that the Democrat Party is now exploiting the issue by calling for a fact-finding probe despite doing nothing when it was in power, Samak should still have the decency and courage to apologise and admit that what he said was inaccurate and misleading, at best.

Perhaps Samak has forgotten everything that transpired three decades ago, including the fact he presided over the banning of some 200 books when he was rewarded with the post of interior minister after a coup in 1976. Such a past does not bode well for human rights, and his position on that past makes it more worrisome.

Not that Samak is alone in setting off alarm bells. Chalerm Yoobamrung, the new interior minister, added that the whole massacre was started by one drunk police officer and told the public to "forget about it".

Chalerm also declared the new administration would launch another round of the war on drugs started during Thaksin Shinawatra's administration, which became notorious due to the number of alleged extrajudicial killings.

Samak defended Chalerm yesterday, saying there was nothing the government could do if drug dealers ended up killing one another in order to ensure that the drug trail would not lead back to them.

While drug addiction is certainly a big social problem, what both Samak and Chalerm could do is affirm that police officers will not resort to extrajudicial killings and any caught doing so will be severely and promptly punished.

Also, some measures should be introduced and made known to assure the public that they will not end up being wrongly targeted by the police.

Real or imagined, some activists such as Vipar Daomanee say they have fears the new war on drugs might be abused and give police the opportunity to crack down on anti-government activists.

On the media front, the Samak administration, in its very short existence, has already received a letter of concern from the New York-based Committee for Protection of Journalists (CPJ) over the abrupt end to radio host Chirmsak Pinthong's programme on FM105.

Prime Minister's Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair, in charge of state-controlled media, may have said that he was "not stupid enough" to order the station to pull the programme but, extending this line of logic, perhaps he's also not stupid enough to admit it if he did.

Even if Jakrapob is clean, one cannot rule out the possibility that his men or bureaucrats under him did the job, perhaps unasked, in order to please their boss.

Then again, Jakrapob could instead have actively tried to ensure Chirmsak got back on the air, even though he colluded and benefited from the coup staged by the military junta in 2006.

All this, coupled with the new administration's dilly-dallying over abolishing the junta-sponsored Constitution and Internal Security Act, can only point to more troubled times ahead for human rights.

The government said it would scrap the security law towards the end of its four-year term, but there is no guarantee it will serve out its full term. Even then, it might simply claim there is not enough time and the Kingdom will have to live with more draconian laws and powers.

And Samak may not remember all this a few decades from now.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation