SUPARA JANCHITFAH
Former senior writer who won many accolades
Joy was what I felt when friend Sanitsuda Ekachai told me she had proposed me for recognition by the Bangkok Post. I had won the most awards of any journalist on the daily.
How fitting that this news should come from the person whose writing had inspired me to leave community development work to become a journalist.
I jumped for joy since, as a full-time cancer patient, the hope to which I am clinging is not massive. Her message made my day.
My memory worked its way back to the many incidents and stories that underlie the articles I had penned.
As a member of Thailand’s mainstream media, perhaps one might consider me a pioneer investigator of the plight of Muslims in the southernmost provinces. My exposes on the topic first appeared on Feb 11, 2001. They were not about violence but concerned the protagonists’ peaceful life and culture.
But my articles were not drawn out of thin air; I studied old news clippings at the Post’s library and conducted rigorous research. At Prince of Songkla University, I read all the PhD theses covering the South. Then I interviewed people — not to extract information but to break the ice. I listened to the people and visited areas where people were, and still are, having difficulty making a living.
Wherever I went, I would live among the people I covered, which allowed me to ask constructive questions. Often I would work through the night at the office, checking the accuracy of what I had written and searching for inspiration that comes from new ideas.
After the 9/11 terror attacks on the US in 2001, I again was drawn to the South. I witnessed the resurgence of violence on Jan 4, 2004; observed unjust arrests and insulting behaviour by low-ranking soldiers; met people with missing relatives; and waited with families whose family head had been “invited” to military camps.
Some government senators who read the English press were impressed by my stories and asked me for further information.
On April 28, 2004, three security officials and 32 men were killed as a result of a raid on the Krue Se mosque. In addition to analysing the role of the media in covering the incident, I interviewed relatives of the slain. The memories of the remaining family members reflected a tragedy of enormous proportions.
Arrested on Oct 25, 2004, were 1,324 protesters, 78 of whom — hands tightly cuffed behind their backs, bodies piled up to four deep — reportedly suffocated while being trucked to military detention facilities. The next day, I was with relatives of the arrested and slain; the atmosphere was filled with sorrow.
I followed a young man who, at Prince of Songkla University Hospital, had his right leg amputated, and I witnessed the bitterness with which his mother had made the decision to approve the operation.
Later, I found myself held with three others at an isolated military checkpoint in the deep South. We could have been killed. I let the soldiers search my documents and attempt to delete my camera’s memory card. I also allowed them — at gunpoint — to take a photo of me holding my Thai ID card.
In closing, I believe that those involved in the “peace process” should also be aware of one crucial matter: a Buddhist minority lives in the South. A Buddhist mother, whom I met at Pattani Provincial Court and whose son had been beheaded, asked me: “Are you Buddhist? Why don’t you help us?”