Compared to its neighbor next door, the Burmese junta, Thailand’s government usually looks pretty good. However, the suffocation deaths of 78 Muslim men taken into custody after a demonstration in southern Thailand last week has focused attention on the increasingly authoritarian rule of the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Deadly abuses of civil liberties are not confined to Thailand’s predominantly Muslim south. As part of a crackdown on narcotics traffickers in 2003, police shot and killed over 2,200 suspected drug dealers, earning international condemnation for extrajudicial killings. Mr. Thaksin’s interior minister at the time expressed a total disdain for the victims, who should be jailed “or even vanish without a trace. Who cares?” Last month, Mr. Thaksin resumed the drug crackdown, which is part of a broader campaign against “dark influences,” a vague phrase capable of manipulation by Thai officials. Mr. Thaksin was equally indifferent when he suggested “family problems” explained the March 11 disappearance of Somchai Neelapajit, a respected human rights lawyer who defended suspects in the southern Muslim insurgency. According to Thailand’s Nation newspaper, Mr. Somchai is one of 16 human rights and environmental activists to disappear or be killed during the three years of Mr. Thaksin’s rule.

Nor has Mr. Thaksin shown regard for defenseless and vulnerable Burmese refugees. At a time when Burma’s repression is as harsh as ever, he wants to curtail Thailand’s role as a haven. Mr. Thaksin appears to harbor plans to deport many refugees, and relocate others to vulnerable camps. “He wants good relations with Burma, says, Brad Adams, executive director of human rights watch’s Asia division, “and will give up a few hundred thousand people to get it.” Close ties and financial dealings with Burma would be good for Thai businesses, including Mr. Thaksin’s own mobile phone company, which stands to gain from Burma’s market. The effect of Mr. Thaksin’s tilt toward Rangoon is that the country most able to isolate a brutal regime is instead its collaborator.

Mr. Thaksin also wants “positive news,” and a pliant press that will produce it. According to press monitoring groups, journalists have been fired, or pressured to tailor their news to suit the government. Advertising is manipulated for the same purpose. Government-owned stations and an independent station Mr. Thaksin bought before taking office have dropped political debates and hard news. Libel suits are used to target critics, like the activist, Supinya Klangnarong, and the Thai Post editors who published her findings that Mr. Thaksin’s company had benefited financially from his policies. Opposition politicians have also been targeted by libel suits. In November 2003, associates of Mr. Thaksin bought 20% of the respected, independent Nation Multimedia Group that publishes the Nation, a major English-language daily. When the Nation launched a Thai-language newspaper, corruption investigations were opened into its senior staff.

The most worrisome problem is the predominantly Muslim south, however, where Mr. Thaksin’s mishandling of tensions could have devastating consequences both for Thailand and for the region. Thailand’s transition to democracy helped Thailand’s Muslims, who increased their representation in national politics and secured greater religious freedom. But legacies of prejudice and exclusion persist, with the area vulnerable to overtures by radicals.

Mr. Thaksin has elected a course that is bound to exacerbate rather than alleviate tensions – declaring martial law and failing to discipline local officials and security forces. He was initially callous about last week’s deaths in custody of the Muslim protesters saying the victims died because they were weak from fasting during Ramadan. The details of the tragedy – a prisoner’s account of “screams as people underneath him slowly suffocated during a five-hour truck journey” reported to the Financial Times, forced him to appoint a commission to investigate. That may not be enough. No one has been held accountable despite an investigation into the deaths of 107 alleged insurgents in April, which concluded excessive force had been used. Says Mr. Adams of Human Rights Watch, “Friends of Thailand are really scared that jihadis are going to start showing up in large numbers. The government is making that more, not less likely.”

Nothing in Mr. Thaksin’s record suggests he will deal effectively with Thailand’s Muslim insurgency and the problems that fuel it. Quite the opposite. Thailand’s progress over the past dozen years was one of Asia’s democratic success stories. Today, Mr. Thaksin is one of its disappointments.

Ms. Bork is deputy director of the Project for the New American Century.