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RIGHTS-THAILAND: War on Drugs Massacre - Officials Scot-Free
Shortly after Thailand’s military leaders grabbed power in the September 2006 coup, they pledged to rectify the ‘wrongs’ committed during the five-and-a-half years of the Thaksin Shinawatra administration. Securing justice for the victims of a bloody ‘war on drugs’ was one of them.
1/24/08|IPS-Inter Press Service| by Marwaan Macan-Markar

The military-appointed government, under Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, was praised by the families of the victims, lawyers, human rights activists and the anti-Thaksin lobby for promising a proper investigation into the 2003 anti-narcotics crackdown in which over 2,500 people were killed.

During encounters with the press, some lawyers and former politicians even made a case that Thaksin could be tried for war crimes, since the ousted premier and senior government officials had approved a policy that gave the police a ‘’license to kill’’ in going after suspected drug dealers.

Yet any hope of bringing those responsible for excesses in the anti-drug campaign were dashed by a statement made by Surayud, days before handing over power to a new government elected in the late December polls. The independent panel appointed by the post-coup administration to inquire into the killings has unearthed little evidence to punish the perpetrators, he said told Thai reporters on the weekend.

‘’Due to lack of evidence, as many witnesses have refused to come forward to provide vital information to the investigators, this panel couldn’t hold anyone responsible,’’ Surayud was quoted as having told the press in Monday’s edition of the ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper.

It is an admission that has left human rights activists aghast. ‘’This means that the culture of impunity we have in the country will continue,’’ Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, coordinator of the Working Group on Justice for Peace, a local rights lobby, told IPS. ‘’It is shameful that this admission of failure has been made at such a high level, by the prime minister.’’

‘’There have been over 2,500 people who died, and I cannot understand how the police or the DSI (Department of Special Investigation) can tell the panel that they cannot prosecute any of the offenders,’’ Somchai Homlaor, a leading human rights lawyer, added in an interview.

In fact, some sources who have been monitoring the work of the Surayud-appointed committee -- the Independent Commission for Study and Analysis of the Formation and Implementation of the Drug Suppression Policy -- say the weekend’s admission of failure marks a dramatic shift from the tone the committee had maintained till December.

Even before the Dec. 23 parliamentary elections, the committee, which was headed by a former attorney general, informed the public that they had evidence linked to some perpetrators and that prosecutions were possible. Among the evidence the panel admitted having were instructions in writing made by senior officials in the Thaksin administration to local officials to launch a heavy-handed crackdown on the drug networks, the sources said.

It was a tone that had made women like Malai Khamjarsai hopeful that those responsible for the killing of her 33-year-old sister, Umpaipan Roopongpraserd, and her sister’s 44-year-old husband, Pongtep, would be finally tried in courts. The couple was slain late evening on May 19, 2003, near a security checkpoint in Mae Sot, a town by the side of the Thai-Burma border.

These victims of the ‘war on drugs’ were initially framed by the police for being drug carriers, she told IPS. ‘’It was done because my brother-in-law ran a transport business in that area where he refused to pay the police any bribes,’’ she added. ‘’I suspect the police were behind the killings.’’

‘’My appeals for an investigation when Khun Thaksin was in power was ignored. But after the coup, the new government promised to investigate, and even the DSI officers contacted me,’’ she revealed. ‘’But I now fear this case will remain unresolved forever, since the newly elected government is backed by Khun Thaksin.’’

Somchai Turtlunglian is in a similar predicament. His nine-year-old nephew, Jakraphan Srisa-ard, was also killed during the ‘war on drugs’ in Bangkok, when the police pumped bullets into the car that Jakraphan and his mother were travelling in. The police had suspected the mother of being a drug-dealer.

The Thaksin government’s campaign to rid Thailand of its drug networks was launched on Feb. 1, 2003, in response to growing national concern that nearly five percent of the population -- three million Thais, some in their teens -- were hooked on methamphetamines. The police were given instructions to use any means to eliminate these networks, with reduction targets set for each of the country’s 76 provinces. The people targeted were those whose names had appeared on two lists -- blacklists and watchlists -- that had been complied by government agencies, including the police.

Belligerent comments made by government officials confirmed the level of force being permitted in the crackdown. ‘’The (drug dealers) will be put behind bars or even vanish without a trace. Who cares?’’ said Wan Mohamad Noor Matha, interior minister at the time. Added Thaksin: ‘’The government’s strategy is to smoke out pushers, who will be eliminated by their own kind.’’

Local and international human rights groups responded with alarm, given the already notorious record of force used by the Thai police and the culture of impunity they enjoy. To defend the charges of police brutality being unleashed during the crackdown, Bangkok said that most killings were the work of drug gangs eliminating one another.

But such arguments made by Thaksin, who has been living in exile since the coup, did not stick for long. His ouster in the country’s 18th military putsch revived the call for justice, including appeals for the police officers and government officials involved in the brutal campaign to be tried.

This week’s turn of events exposed the junta and its political allies on another count. ‘’This means that there is no hope for criminal justice in Thailand,’’ Sunai Phasuk, the Thai researcher for the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS. ‘’I have completely lost my faith, since not a single official has been prosecuted for being involved in this very brutal campaign. And they cannot say that officials were not involved.’’