This year is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.
The government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident, though in defiance of the ban, the journal
Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD—ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’)—with
its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Thunska Pansittivorakul’s documentary
This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน), which led to
the film being banned. In an interview for
Thai Cinema Uncensored, Thunska explained how viewing the Tak Bai video footage directly inspired him to pivot from making personal films to political documentaries.
In 2023, Patani Artspace held the
รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’) exhibition, the
Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition took place at Silpakorn and Thammasat universities, and Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Tak Bai paintings were shown at the
Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก) exhibition.
Heard the Unheard featured the personal possessions of seventeen people who died at Tak Bai—including a ฿100 banknote retrieved from the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, Imron—displayed alongside recollections from the victims’ relatives.
Earlier this year, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary,
the seventeen artefacts were split between two exhibitions:
Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่) at SEA Junction, and
Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. The items on display were also photographed in
Tak Bai (ลิ้มรสความทรงจำ), edited by Kusra Kamawan Mukdawijitra.
Next week, an expanded version of
Indelible Memory will open at TK Park in Narathiwat, where it will be on display for the entire month of October. This exhibition has a particular sense of urgency, as prosecutions for the unlawful killings are finally under way, just weeks before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires. It will include the premiere of
Along the Road: 20 Years Tak Bai, a documentary directed by Walai Buppha, on 19th October. The film will also be shown on the following day at Hope Space in Bangkok.
Tak Bai photographs were also shown at the
Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน) exhibition in 2022. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s
Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation
Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong.
Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s
Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim, and is reproduced in his book
The Patani Art of Struggle (سني ڤتاني چاراو او سها). It was first installed, a few days after the massacre, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, and the grave markers were accompanied by rifles wrapped in white cloth. In 2017, it was recreated at Patani Artspace and then mounted on a plinth containing Pattani soil at the
Patani Semasa (ปาตานี ร่วมสมัย) exhibition in Chiang Mai.
Two further installations—Jakkhai Siributr’s
78 and Zakariya Amataya’s
Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม)—both include lists of the Tak Bai victims’ names.
Photophobia,
78, and
Violence in Tak Bai were all included in the
Patani Semasa exhibition. (The
exhibition catalogue gives
Violence in Tak Bai a milder alternative title,
Remember at Tak Bai.)
