BANGKOK, Thailand -- The horror of 78 Muslim men who were forcibly tied up, laid out like logs in army trucks, crushed until their eyes bled and they suffocated to death, has not been forgotten despite the coup regime's apology.
Ethnic Malay Islamist insurgents continue to unleash fresh attacks against Thailand's Buddhist establishment, pro-government Muslim collaborators, and innocent people.
More than 1,700 people have been killed on all sides since 2004.
Southern Thailand's Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani provinces suffer one of the world's bloodiest Islamist rebel wars outside of Iraq.
America gave helicopters, weapons, technical assistance, and training to Thailand's confused military to kill Muslim rebels in the south.
But some U.S. weaponry, including M-16 assault rifles and Humvees, were used by a Thai army faction when they staged a bloodless coup in Bangkok on Sept. 19.
Now the worried coup leaders are enforcing nationwide martial law, stifling free speech, blocking political activity, and installing a pliant government and constitution to defend themselves.