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Unanswered questions linger about victims of deadly Thailand protests
Agence France Presse - August 29, 2010
Didier Lauras, Bangkok – Elisabetta Polenghi is still waiting for answers from Thailand's authorities about her brother's death more than 100 days after he was killed in a bloody army crackdown that crushed anti-government protests in Bangkok.
Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi was killed on May 19, but despite repeated calls for information on the deaths of scores of people during two months of demonstrations, questions remain.
Elisabetta received the preliminary post-mortem report on May 24, the day of her brother's cremation, but since then she and families of other victims have heard nothing from the Justice Ministry's powerful Department of Special Investigation.
"The only thing I can I say now is that I won't give up," she said.
Pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government and the DSI, which is heading the main inquiry, to come up with answers about those killed in clashes between security forces and "Red Shirt" protesters.
"The conflicting accounts of virtually every incident during this period underscore the need for a thorough and impartial fact-finding commission to determine what happened," the International Crisis Group said in July.
The Red Shirts began a campaign in March aimed at bringing down the Abhisit government by occupying an area of old Bangkok.
An initial military operation on April 10 against the protesters ended with 25 people dead after the army failed to disperse them.
The Reds, who represent Thailand's underprivileged rural and urban masses, moved their protest to Bangkok's commercial and tourist heart and fortified their position with bamboo barricades.
Talks failed, and after several days of street battles and numerous incidents, the country was left with a total of 91 people dead and nearly 2,000 injured.
In June, Abhisit appointed the 73-year-old Kanit Nanakorn to head a Truth and Reconciliation commission, a move denounced as a "whitewash" by the opposition, who said the former attorney general was too close to the government.
At the same time, the DSI was put in charge of the main inquiry.
But Police Colonel Naras Savestanan, deputy director general of the DSI, said last week he had no new details to announce.
"We cannot complete an overall picture of the dead and who did it," he said. "The difficulty we're facing is that most of the bodies were moved, transferred from the scene to hospitals. It's very difficult to process information."
Last week, the government ordered the DSI report to be prepared within 60 days, and Suthep Thaugsuban, deputy prime minister in charge of security, said clarity was vital.
"I can say that results must be clear in every case," Suthep said. But for now, Thailand continues to wait.
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