Cabinet to consider compensation for southern victims
The panel in charge of working out compensation for victims of southern violence will recommend the cabinet at its meeting tentatively on April 3 that four groups of victims should be entitled to compensation.
The four groups of victims are as follows: ordinary people, government officials, victims of certain specific violent incidents such as Tak Bai and Krue Se, and people wrongfully detained by authorities.
According to Thongthong Chandrangsu, permanent secretary of Prime Minister’s Office, some 3,000 out of a total of 5,000 victims who have not received any financial help from the government would, this time, be entitled to compensation estimated at 100,000 baht each. The entire compensation for this category of victims will amount to 500 million baht.
As for the victimized government officials, although they have been taken care of by the government it was suggested that they should be given more help which could financial or other forms of help. A 200 million baht budget will be set aside for this second group of victims.
The third group includes victims from Tak Bai and Krue Se massacres. It was agreed by the panel headed by Justice Minister Pracha Promnok that each of the victims would be entitled to a maximum of 7.5 million baht in compensation, but not all the amount would be in cash payment but in other forms of assistance such as help to secure jobs for the victims’ children or traveling expense for primage to Mecca.
Nonetheless, the amount of compensation for this group of victims has been estimated at one billion baht.
The fourth group of victims are people who lost their freedom from wrongful detention. Budget for this group is estimated at about 300 million baht.
As for these victims, it was agreed that they would be granted 5,000 baht in compensation plus 400 baht a day for each day that they were detained until they were found not guilty by the court. For those who were not tried but simply detained, they would receive only 5,000 bath each.
A daughter of one of the victims of the violence in deep South said she felt the compensation package for different groups of victims was double-standard in favour of victims from certain violent incidents such as Tak Bai.
The woman who lost her father, a former school director in Sai Buri district of Pattani killed by suspected insurgents six years ago, and a younger brother who was killed last year questioned why certain victims were more privileged and were entitled to more compensation than the others.
She said that when her father was killed, her family was given only 500,000 baht in compensation plus 25,000 baht in educational support for only two years.
Mrs Supawan sae Loo, a teacher in Betong district of Yala who was wounded from a gun attack on a van in which she was traveling five years ago, said that she simply wanted equal treatment and nothing more.
Pol Colonel Thawee Sodsong, secretary-general of Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre and a member of the compensation committee, explained that the government gave special emphasis on certain victims such as victims from Tak Bai and Krue Se because the incidents had ruined Thailand’s image in the international community especially in the eyes of the Organisation of Islamic Conference and, therefore, the victims would be given special treatment.