Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has revived the culture of fear

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has revived the culture of fear and must stop creating pretexts for violence which could spin out of control, speakers warned at a seminar. Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee, said he was mistaken to think the era of violence had ended in Thailand. Many bloody episodes from the southern unrest had gone unmentioned, he claimed. The senator said he joined a fact-finding mission to the deep South following the April 28 siege of Krue Se mosque in Pattani during which scores of militants were killed by security forces. Various inquiries focused on this particular incident and ignored atrocities committed in other localities, he said. Mr Kraisak said he was most disturbed to learn of the mass slaying of 19 young football players in Sabayoi district of Songkhla. The youths were allegedly blindfolded by "state authorities" who shot them in the heads execution style. "This should not be happening," he told the seminar organised by the Peace News Centre, Thammasat University's Foundation for Study of Democracy and Development, and nine civic groups. The seminar on "Thailand in the Last Four Years -- Reality or Illusion", discussed the Thaksin Shinawatra government's policies in the past four years. Human rights were foreign to the authorities, Mr Kraisak said. They only understood how to follow orders and had little idea who issued them.