Thread: Investigators fail to identify killers of foreign journalists

But the international media doesn't understand Thai culture! That's why their portrayal of the terrorist attack by rabid mobs on the heart of Thailand has to be skewed!

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

I believe you'll find that it is the not so innocent protesters that have been accused of causing terror during their lengthy protest, not the security services.

By whom besides the government agencies? For sure the international media had a different impression.

I would be grateful if you could provide a link to any reputable international media group that has accused the Thai Government/security services of being 'terrorists' whilst lawfully regaining the capital city from those who had unlawfully set siege to it.

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

I would be grateful if you could provide a link to any reputable international media group that has accused the Thai Government/security services of being 'terrorists' whilst lawfully regaining the capital city from those who had unlawfully set siege to it.

Your request is full of unwarrented implications. I don't play that silly game. You started the discussion with the unsustainable argument

Originally Posted by Mr Lick
Nobody is denying that the army used sniper fire to take out those who were using weapons to cause injury to security personnel.

Most every international correspondent covering the events painted a different picture and you know that. It has been the issue of uncounted discussions with links here in this forum.

Originally Posted by tomta

I continue in various forums to insist on this point. Somebody does deny this. The government and the army continue to deny that any of the deaths were caused by them.

wot he said

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

Can't say that i've come across a government statement denying such an occurrence

suggest you do a search they are there

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by tomta

I continue in various forums to insist on this point. Somebody does deny this. The government and the army continue to deny that any of the deaths were caused by them.

wot he said

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

Can't say that i've come across a government statement denying such an occurrence

suggest you do a search they are there

I can recall the PM getting a wee bit upset when some ill-informed people called him a murderer. I cannot recall the government stating that the security services did not shoot anyone during the riots.

As other posters are insinuating that this is not the case and presumably can recall denials by the government/army then i would expect them to produce news articles quoting such. I would be grateful if they did so as i clearly have missed an important declaration by the government/army.

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

The lawyers, led by Picha Wichitsilp, claimed in the letter that police had made little progress because politicians had interfered in their work.

Surely that's not possible in the Land of Smiles..is it?

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

as i clearly have missed an important declaration by the government/army.

indeed you have .

Did unknown snipers kill Bangkok protesters? | The Observers

The opposition "Red Shirts" say the military were shooting people at close range.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva however denies the claims and is blaming the violence on "terrorists".

france24.com

now go and search yourself you lazy plick .

Thanks for the research Mid, however, my response concerning army sniper fire was related to Drovers Dog post concerning the May riots, not those in April whch are the subject of the news article posted.

Having read the article, i take your point although there appears to be a lot of conjecture whether at that time the army were actually using snipers, Red Shirts stating that people were being shot at close range (hardly a sniper scenario) and an injured bystander who identified rooftop shooters as Black Shirts. Not particularly relevent to my post but thanks anyway.

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

I cannot recall the government stating that the security services did not shoot anyone during the riots.

Originally Posted by Mid

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva however denies the claims

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

Not particularly relevent to my post

oh crap

I'll not be wasting any further time on you

there are none so blind as those who refuse to see

he's all yours tomta , if your so inclined

I'll give it a last try, Mid.

Mr Lick

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr Lick Nobody is denying that the army used sniper fire to take out those who were using weapons to cause injury to security personnel. Quote: Originally Posted by tomta View Post I continue in various forums to insist on this point. Somebody does deny this. The government and the army continue to deny that any of the deaths were caused by them.

This was your original statement and my disagreement with that statement.

Let us leave aside the question of whether or not the shootings were justified because that is not the point here. The point is whether the army was directly responsible, whether legitimately or illegitimately, for any of the deaths or injuries.

I contend that although the Government and Army have never issued a statement denying that they killed or injured anyone at all, they have never issued a statement that I am aware of focusing on any particular event during the protests that admits to the probability that their actions caused death or injury.

Moreover, they have never admitted to even one specific death or injury being caused by legitimately deployed army personnel. (They have suggested that people dressed as soldiers who were not soldiers may have shot people.)

This to me constitutes effectively a blanket denial of responsibility. If you can find one instance where the army admits to a specific person being killed or injured by a legitimately deployed army weapon, my case falls apart.

Originally Posted by tomta

Mr Lick

The government and army has not come out with one single statement covering the events of April and May that denies responsibility for every death. That would be so patently ridiculous that their case would be revealed as absolutely laughable.

What they do is simply to deny responsibility for every particular death or even wound that the troops are accused of causing. Have you seen one instance of the government or army accepting responsibility for a death or injury? Have the complete results of one autopsy been published six months after the events ?

This shouldn't be too hard. The government could say "Soldier X shot and wounded protestor Y with such and such a gun and ammunition while Protestor Y was looting/shooting/burning." Such an admission would be a propaganda victory for the government in that it would tend to justify their argument that they were using legitimate force. They've had six months to come up with just one such a story and haven't done so,

Mid has provided you with a link to a denial of responsibility for the the shootings at Phan Fa in April. It should be remembered that at first they denied using live bullets. They only admitted to using live bullets when the evidence was so overwhelming that it was pointless to continue their denials.

You must have seen their denials of prominent cases like the shooting of Seh Daeng. Here is Anupong's denial of responsibility for the shootings at Wat Panatharum Bangkok Post : Anupong: Troops didn't kill at temple

You will notice in this article that Anupong claims to have evidence that they didn't shoot anyone but he chooses not to reveal it.

These denials are part of a pattern . Has the army admitted to the killings in 1973, 1976, 1992, No. Tak bai, Kru Sae? Sort of but it was all an accident. Has any army disciplinary committee reccommended that particular persons be charged for these events? Has anyone been charged?

The army and the government has a culture of denial and lying. Look at this typical statement from Sonthi, made during the planning stages of the coup: "The army will not get involved in the political conflict. Political troubles should be resolved by politicians. Military coups are a thing of the past.", 6 March 2006, (Wikipedia).

The denial is perpetrated by many means: lying, active denial of particular events, asserting that the "men in black " shot those on their own side, asserting that the army would never harm the Thai people,refusing to respond to or counter particular allegations with credible evidence, waiting till everyone despairs of getting the truth and gives up asking questions, saying the accusations are all from ill-intentioned people who want to destroy the state and overthrow the monarchy.

The denial is not a single event; it is a process. Notice too that the emphasis of all the "independent" commissions (whose reports are due in three years) is on "reconciliation" not on "truth".

I am totally with you Tomta, as my posts #144 and #153 would indicate. The government cannot deny that events took place but accepting responsiblity, well, lets just say that it's not a Thai trait.

The shootings at the temple and the journalists particularly concern me but i suspect that they will be seen as 'casualties of war'.

When the pressure is on, when bullets are flying and adrenaline is flowing then ones world takes on a whole different perspective. Mistakes are easily made when faced with the enemy who are firing back or merely waiting for you in hiding.
Challenges are important in order to reduce casualties and certainly prevent the deaths of innocent people. Did the military personnel possess those skills? It's certainly no fault of the men on the ground if they haven't been involved in firearms tactical training. It would be the leaders to blame for sending in their troops, putting more lives at risk.

In my view the use of snipers was a good idea, given that the government had made the decision to clear the area and that advancement would most probably would be met with violence.

History tells us that the likely outcome is that an announcement will be made that 'the army were just doing their job'. It's a difficult one to call, if the security services shot the people at the temple, they probably did so mistakingly believing they were at risk and tensions were high. There surely cannot be a justifyable reason why shots were fired unless armed red/black shirts were identified as hiding within. Even if that was the scenario, some form of tactical training would have led them to surround the temple grounds thereby confining the problem.

We hear of many incidents during other conflicts such as the Iraqi/Afghanistan wars where allies are killed by 'friendly fire'. Incidents where innocent civilians are killed merely because they were in the line of fire or troops were high on adrenaline. These troops do not suffer prison sentences, they rarely are charged or come before a court unless it is seen as a malicious killing.

I am afraid Thailand is not alone in denials when it comes to armed conflict. Every government will try to turn things to their advantage. Ten of thousands of innocent civilians/troops have been killed in the middle east on the basis of WMD. I see neither T. Blair or GW Bush sitting in a prison cell.

I suspect individual soldiers will not be charged with any killing, indeed i would be amazed if that did occur. Were the government complicit in the killing of innocent civilians? Well in my view they had a duty to clear the area and were prepared for violence. Soldiers were no doubt briefed beforehand but sitting in a room listening to senior officers is a wee bit different to being on the ground with bullets flying. The government/army generals will say that the soldiers were correctly briefed in minimising the loss of life.

Yes, i would prefer the Thai Government to acknowledge that mistakes were made by individual soldiers during the conflict which they clearly were but then in every armed conflict this occurs.
If the government state something to the contrary then not for the first time they will be making fools of themselves.

So, Mr Lick, you now agree that the government's consistent default position is to lie. I'm glad to hear that.

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

The government cannot deny

Or do you get the message? My point is that the government can and is denying the blatantly obvious. They are liars, not to be trusted.

Having cleared that issue out of the way, I'll leave someone else to deal with the spurious nonsense and lame excuses you make by catch phrases and notions such as "rules of engagement, casualties of war, mistakes were made, unlawful killing not murder, heat of the battle, accidents happen, the judgement of history" and so on.

Until we ascertain the means and mechanics of the deaths , which some people (not the DSI, not the government, not the army) are trying to do (Robert Amsterdam is one person who is collating that information in a coherent and testable way) all of your other stuff is speculative wish fulfilling nonsense.

Tomta - excellent Post #186 - will green that. (sorry tried - but it told me to give to others, (as one would do unto oneself I guess)

Originally Posted by tomta

lame excuses you make by catch phrases and notions such as "rules of engagement,

Personally, i've never heard of International Law such as the 'rules of engagement' ever being called a catch phrase.

These rules are used by NATO, British Armed Forces, US Military etc: and until one understands the concept of these rules, well frankly, they are not even on the first rung of the ladder to sit in judgement of an investigation concerning an armed conflict.

To take sides in such a conflict can unfortunately lead people to becoming emotional and blinkered to events. Robert Amsterdam has been employed by Mr T. to discredit the government over the riots and perhaps he may succeed but to be fair Mr T. was himself complicit in the lead up to the events so not much credit will be flying in his direction.

BTW, admitting nothing and denial are not one of the same. The Constitution Court Judges are playing a similar game at this very moment.

On a previous post i have suggested ways to pin down those responsible for the deaths of those in the temple and the journalists. IMO a separate investigation should take place as these people were being employed by outside agencies. Again, it really depends on how motivated those investigating are and of course their remit.

Ok Mr Lick, against my better judgement, I'll ask you these questions

1. Precisely, what were "the rules of engagement" at Ratchaprasong in May? Do you have any inside information?
2. Do you offer the example of the Constitutional Court judges in the recent events as an example of proper behaviour?
3. Thaksin Shinawatra has been accused of heinous crimes. He has engaged lawyers to defend him. Is this wrong? If you were accused of a crime, would you not engage a lawyer?
4. And just in case you still think that the government and army is not in complete denial of their role in killing and wounding people (legitimately or illegitimately), would you look at this article? Yes, I know it's been written by a hireling of the evil one, but the argument it makes and the facts it presents may nevertheless be valid and true.

CRES, the ICC, and Accountability | Robert Amsterdam Thailand

Because of the internet and electronic communication technology the ways of the axis of evil, ie elite, army, and you know who, have now been thrust before the international community,
Amsterdam is doing a sterling job of getting the abuses of the axis of evil recorded out there.
These murderous criminals will see Justice.

Originally Posted by sabang

Just out of curiosity, has the Thai 'government' actually admitted that the military shot one single protester yet?

NO ...

Originally Posted by LooseBowels

These murderous criminals will see Justice.

Perhaps, although my guess would be probably not.

Of course, in these situations you also have to ask- where do the 'murderous criminals' begin, and their Henchmen end? It's usually only the Henchmen that take the fall.

From the POV of the groundswell of people that support the Red cause, they are looking for Justice in the fair and impartial, rather than revenge, sense. Whatever 'deal' may or may not be arrived at, it is certainly not unique to Thailand that it might well involve whole or partial amnesty for a number of people. Add to that, TIT. Many if not most (if not all) of the 'players' on both sides have dirty laundry anyway, in this highly corrupt country. Carnt really jail or shoot them all.

rules for war