Two bombs rocked southern Thailand yesterday, wounding at least 20 people, as Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed there would be no cover up of the deaths of 87 Muslim detainees in the volatile region.
Yesterday's coordinated bombings followed a blast late on Thursday that left two people dead and about 20 wounded after a separatist group vowed revenge for the detainees who died in the custody of Thai security forces.
Thailand's Muslim-dominated south is in the grips of a violent separatist insurgency that surged to life early this year and has since left at least 417 people dead. It has rattled Thaksin's administration, which has come under fire for its handling of the unrest.
"In my national TV address [scheduled for later yesterday], there won't be anything covered up," Thaksin vowed amid domestic and international concern over allegations of excessive use of force in the predominantly Buddhist kingdom.
The latest bombings happened in the southern town of Yala during morning rush hour. Eight people were wounded, including three police, when the first bomb went off beside the road near a tea shop and kindergarten, police and hospital officials said.
Another device exploded less than 90 minutes later at the same location, wounding 12 police, including forensics experts investigating the first bombing, police said. Local television showed officers carrying away their wounded colleagues who appeared to be screaming in pain.
It was the third bombing in just over 12 hours in the south.
A Malaysian man and a Thai bar worker died on Thursday night in the border town of Sungai Kolok when a bomb exploded outside a beer bar, officials said. About 20 others were wounded.
The blast came shortly after Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted as saying Malaysians should avoid southern Thailand because it is "not peaceful and unstable."
An outlawed separatist group had vowed revenge over the deaths of 87 Thai Muslims after a protest on Monday in Narathiwat province.
Six were shot dead at the demonstration and another 78 were crushed to death or suffocated after they were arrested and crammed onto military transport trucks.
Three more drowned in a river near the protest site, the foreign ministry said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called on Thailand "to conduct a swift and independent investigation into each death, to refrain from excessive use of force and from the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
Thaksin has launched an inquiry by government officials but stopped short of an apology. He defended the actions of his officers, blaming fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and drug use among protesters for Monday's high death toll.
Most of the dead suffocated when 1,300 people were arrested and stuffed into vehicles for at least six hours, after police and troops had used water cannon, gunfire and tear gas to break up the demonstration.
Detainees, however, told a visiting senators' delegation that they had been beaten by police and troops and stacked five-deep in trucks, where many fellow protesters suffocated or were crushed to death.
"They said they were beaten up before they were put on the trucks," where they were "laid as high as five people deep," Senator Kraisak Choonhavan said on Thursday after meeting dozens of the detainees.
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