Slaughter in the Name of a Drug War in Thailand: (Long article)
By Pasuk Phongpaichit, is a professor of economics at Chulalongkorn
University, and Chris Baker are authors of "Thailand: Economy and
Politics
For the last three months, the Thai government has been engaged in a
war on drugs, with the goal of ridding the country of met
amphetamines. The result, however, has been 2,275 deaths — and the
sacrifice of human rights, freedom of the press and Thailand's
reputation as a democratic country.
Drugs are indisputably a problem in Thailand. Met amphetamines have
been surging in popularity since the mid-1990's. According to official
figures, 700 million pills are sold annually, 3 million people take
them, and 300,000 people in a population of 62 million are considered
addicts. The country has been smothered with anti drug slogans.
Everyone from pop stars to retired generals has urged Thais to stop
using drugs.
But such efforts have been failures. So the current government, which
takes pride in tackling problems where its predecessors dallied, tried
a new strategy. Prime Minister Thaksin ****nawatra, a rich businessman
elected in 2001, says cor****ate management principles are superior to
bureaucracy, and has applied them to a crackdown on the met
amphetamine trade.
Provinces are given targets for arrests and for drug seizures. Police
officers are rewarded with a bounty per pill found, and a percentage
of the assets seized. Officials who fail to meet these goals face
dismissal. The result has been a drug campaign in which the rule of
law is less im****tant than targets met.
The government's approach has been particularly lethal because
Thailand has many professional gunmen. During the Vietnam War, the
authorities recruited and armed irregular forces and vigilante groups.
They have never disappeared. They are used to settle personal
quarrels, inheritance feuds and especially business conflicts. They
are hired during elections, when canvassers routinely die. The police
are re****ted to use them to fight gangs that smuggle cars into
Cambodia.
The killings in this anti drug campaign look exactly the same as these
professional hits. After the government said that drug dealers should
surrender or die, the killings started right on cue. Many victims were
on secret, but official, "black lists." Several were shot by masked
men soon after visiting a police station. The police made little
effort to establish whether the victims were indeed drug dealers, or
to chase down who killed them. The government insists only a handful
were killed by the police, and those in self-defense. The rest are
described as "pre-emptive killings" by drug dealers who want to
silence drug dealers who might inform on them. But whoever pulled the
trigger, the result is what the government wants.
The government has also managed the news media's coverage of the
campaign. News anchors announce the numbers "killed by other drug
dealers" without skepticism. Foreign ambassadors at a meeting here
expressed concern about the killings, but the leading daily
newspaper's headline said they had given the campaign full sup****t.
Protests by scholars, human rights groups, and senior public figures
went unre****ted.
Criticism has been met with abuse and intimidation. When a member of
Thailand's National Human Rights Commission spoke to a United Nations
group about the campaign, the prime minister called the action a
"sickening" betrayal. Critics are accused of being in the pay of the
drug lords. International bodies have been told not to interfere. Not
surprisingly, no investigative journalist has dared to look closely at
the killings.
At the same time, the real powers behind the drug trade have gotten
away. So many officials are involved in the trade that the government
a few years ago made a television commercial intended to shame them.
Enough politicians are involved in organized crime groups that the
prime minister publicly warned them last month to quit. When a special
unit raided the house of the one big drug dealer arrested during the
current campaign, two police officers were found inside.
Thailand had 50 years of dictatorial rule that nurtured the abuse of
power. Over the past decade, advocacy groups have promoted human
rights, press freedom and the rule of law in an effort to eradicate
such abuse. Even if this campaign succeeds in getting rid of met
amphetamines in Thailand, it is still a failure, because it has
revived the bad old ways.
Source: The New York Time, OP-ED, Saturday, May 24, 2003
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