by Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Thai government is
declaring victory in its nationwide,
U.S.-backed war on drugs, despite criticism
over the killing of at least 2,625 people, most
of whom perished in mysterious
circumstances.
Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich
After 2,625 Deaths Thailand Declares Drug War Victory
Thai security forces targeted
methamphetamines, which they condemned
as "yaa baa" or "crazy drug" because users
were hailing the pills as "maa baa" or "horse
drug" in praise of its ability to allow people to
work harder.
Methamphetamines were created early in the
20th century from amphetamines, which the
U.S. Air Force currently prescribes for its
pilots as "go pills" while flying combat
missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Various forms of methamphetamine are
known in America as "tweak," "speed,"
"crank," "crissy," and ''tina".
In Thailand, widespread methamphetamine
use, especially among youngsters, has
shocked parents, teachers, politicians,
security forces and others because some
addicts have flipped out and attacked people
or engaged in crime to feed their habit.
"The government would declare a victory in
the drug war on Dec. 2," the prime minister's
office promised earlier this year.
"The government's victory of freeing Thailand
from illicit drugs" will be presented three
days later, on Friday, to honor King Bhumibol
Adulyadej who was born on Dec. 5, 1927, it
said.
"We are now in a position to declare that
drugs, which formerly were a big danger to
our nation, can no longer hurt us," a pleased
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced
on Monday (Dec. 1).
"Many Thai people now have their sons and
daughters back," he said.
Prime Minister Thaksin, a former police officer
who received a PhD in criminal justice at Sam
Houston State University, in Texas, dismissed
most of the 2,625 deaths as the result of gangs
who killed each other during the
government's drug war to silence potential
informers.
"It may be a mark of Thai cynicism that almost
no one believes these claims," the Bangkok
Post said in an editorial on Tuesday (Dec. 2).
"It is also no matter of pride that many Thais
support extrajudicial killings if they make
drug peddlers disappear," the editorial said.
"This does not mean that drug problems have
disappeared, but is intended to affirm the
determination of all parties to continue
fighting against social problems until they are
eradicated," Bangkok Governor Samak
Sundaravej said on Monday (Dec. 1).
The anti-drug death toll included at least 31
police and soldiers, according to the Thailand
Research Development Institute and official
statistics.
After the crackdown began in February,
police arrested at least 91,000 people for
alleged drug-related crimes, according to
the government's Drug War Coordination
Center.
"Most names are drawn from the results of
community meetings, which offered an
opportunity for officials with conflicts to enter
the names of people unrelated to the drug
trade," the National Human Rights Commission
warned in a confidential summary sent to the
prime minister on Nov. 25.
"Relatives of those accused are also lumped
into the same category," the summary said,
according to the Nation newspaper which
published extracts on Tuesday (Dec. 2).
Officials also tested the urine of 118,489
people, nabbing 3,942 who tested positive for
drug use, according to the Drug War
Coordination Center.
Officials impounded or froze nearly five
million U.S. dollars worth of assets linked to
illicit drugs during the campaign, and seized
more than 40 million methamphetamine pills,
the center said.
Local and foreign human rights organizations
expressed concern that the 2,625 dead
included an unknown number of possible
"extrajudicial" executions by officials
brandishing hit lists and trying to meet the
government's demand that their zone be
"drug-free".
The government threatened some officials
with dismissal if they failed to meet statistical
targets, and promised others cash rewards if
they succeeded.
Pictures of corpses, splattered with
congealed blood, appeared on TV screens and
in newspapers during the first few months of
the campaign while the government proudly
announced the latest toll of dead and injured.
When the killings attracted international
concern, the government clamped an end to
the gruesome updates which hit 2,625 in
November.
Much of the methamphetamine production is
blamed on laboratories across the border in
Burma where minority ethnic guerrillas
create or tax various drugs, including opium
and heroin, for shipment to Thailand and
other countries.
"They [drugs] are still illegally smuggled into
the country in huge amounts," said Jurin
Laksanavisit, an unimpressed deputy leader of
the opposition's Democrat Party.
Many Thais were said to be selling the
addictive stimulant to get rich quick, amid a
societal shift toward status-conscious
consumerism in this rapidly modernizing,
Buddhist-majority nation.
Critics of the war on drugs insisted only
low-level dealers and users were killed or
arrested, while most of Thailand's' drug lords
remained untouched.
The government, however, pointed to
spiraling prices for the little pills as proof that
the suppression was successful.
Last year, one meth pill cost two or three U.S.
dollars in this Southeast Asian nation, but now
reportedly fetch up to 10 U.S. dollars each,
officials said.
The widespread killings, they insisted, were
difficult to prosecute because the country's
police and investigative skills were not
sophisticated enough to determine who did
what in such murky cases.
"I don't know if it is by nature or deliberate,
but Thai criminal justice is problematic," said
Charnchao Chaiyanukij, deputy-general of the
Rights and Liberty Protection Department.
"Regarding recent press allegations that Thai
security services carried out extrajudicial
killings during a counternarcotics campaign
in Thailand, Prime Minister Thaksin stated
unequivocally that the Thai government does
not tolerate extrajudicial killings and assured
President Bush that all allegations regarding
killings are being investigated thoroughly,"
said a joint statement issued by the White
House when the two leaders met in
Washington in June.
"President Bush appreciated Thailand's
leadership in hosting one of the largest and
most successful U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration operations in the world as
well as the U.S.-Thai International Law
Enforcement Academy," the White House said
at the time.
email: animists *at* yahoo *dot* com
Richard S. Ehrlich, a freelance journalist who has reported news from Asia for the past 28 years, is co-author of the non-fiction book, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.
His web page is
http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent