Sinking into savagery

Prachatai on Sunday reported that Chaiyapoom Pasae, a 17-year-old Lahu activist, was summarily killed by soldiers who claim he was a drug suspect and that he resisted arrest in Chiang Mai’s Chiang Dao District.

The killing of Chaiyapoom raises many questions as he was a youth activist who promoted the rights of ethnic minorities in northern Thailand, says the report.

This story makes us feel that things could have turned dangerous for everyone. Tourists may not want to come here. The regime seems to be getting as bad as a Central American junta. When an American junta doesn’t like someone’s politics, they falsely accuse the person of a crime and execute them.

Has Thailand truly sunk into a fourth world — into brute savagery?

MICHAEL WELDON