In an earlier post we noted the birth of the blog Red Shirt. One of its first posts looks at an academic discussion of the Truth for Reconciliation Commission’s report on Sunday at Thammasat University.
A panel of “six professors from multiple universities, argued that the report lacks in raw data and fails to condemn the army’s disproportionate use of force in handling the protests of April-May 2010.”
The panel questioned why the TRC report ignored “the crucial question of whether the Committee [PPT: Centre] for the Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) complied with international standards when it ordered 60,000 combat-ready soldiers onto the streets of Bangkok.”
The panel also noted the emphasis on “men in black,” that was “based on dubious evidence that would not hold in a court of law.” Other missing items or glossed over included the arrest of thousands of red shirts by the Army, forced confessions, and a failure to adequately address some of the well-documented killings by security forces.
One academic concluded that the fundamental conservative and elitist bias of the report was a failure: “Democracy is about conflict, bargaining, and fighting for rights. You can’t be a democratic country if you tell everybody to shut up, smile and move on.”
