Pubdate: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 Source: Nation, The (Thailand) Copyright: 2003 Nation Multimedia Group Contact: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1963 Author: Sopon Onkgara COLD-BLOODED MURDER AS GOVERNMENT POLICY Overkill takes it toll. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has obviously begun to feel the heat of a public uproar over excessive extrajudicial executions of drug dealers all over the nation. The latest body count shows the figure rising to more than 1,400, and a lot more are still expected to die from bullets. What has gone wrong in this fair land? Many people with troubled consciences have been asking themselves this, for they have not received an appropriate response from the powers that be, who show satisfaction in the rising number of dead drug dealers. Of course, Prime Minister Thaksin will go down in the country's history for the shoot-to-kill policy. Human-rights groups have been raising a hue and cry over the extrajudicial killings. When the death toll was still in the hundreds, the chief and Interior Minister Wan Mohamad Noor Matha professed to be unperturbed. They even scoffed and sarcastically hit out at critics. Thai Rak Thai Party members regard human-rights groups as sympathisers with drug dealers. Obviously, things got out of control. Drug dealers died by extrajudicial killing or just plain murder in droves, thus attracting the attention of Amnesty International and the UN High Commission for Human Rights, which is expected to debate Thailand's case in Geneva later this month. By that time, nobody knows how many dead will lie at the doors of the perpetrators of the shoot-to-kill policy. Of course, Thailand has never experienced a situation when wholesale slaughter was permitted or ignored by law-enforcement authorities. The police have taken things in their stride as dead bodies fall like tenpins in a hail of bullets. The one-time highest score was six villagers slain in a pickup in Chiang Rai province on Friday. Those murders took place after the prime minister set up two committees to monitor the war against drug dealers. The funny thing is that there have not been any big fish caught, let alone murdered, despite repeated claims of drug-dealer blacklists by the police and the Interior Ministry. If they indeed have such lists, they should contain all the big-timers and not just the small fry who have died every day with the blessing of the authorities. Drug addicts deserve punishment, of course, but not by getting killed. Children of prominent political and social figures are known to have been addicted or still to be addicted to drugs, and their names should be on the blacklists. Those names are generally known among people who keep themselves up to date. But those delinquents will never be killed, owing to the protection of their parents. The government, particularly the prime minister, is in a dilemma. If the rate of extrajudicial executions or murders drops sharply, it means that someone in the government signalled to the executioners that they should slow down their killings. If the high rate continues, it means that drug dealers have been responsible for the executions, and the government must be pressured to go after the killers with reasonable enthusiasm. The reluctance on the part of government leaders to monitor the killings may not be because there is too much blood on their hands. They are a bit worried about the public backlash following "collateral damage" in which children were also among the victims of murder in cold blood. What will be the ultimate result of the war against drug traders? The big fish will get away. They have plenty of money. The "mad drug" is getting expensive, the price per tablet having risen a bit over Bt100 to somewhere between Bt300 and Bt500. This is ridiculous indeed. What the public should fear most is speculation that the drug traders will pool their vast financial resources and strike back to protect the profitable but illegal trade. Who knows? They may take bold steps, offer an attractive price on the heads of whoever have had the nerve to mess with them. That is something nobody wants to see happen. It would be a defeat for the country and its future generations. In the meantime, let's hope that Thailand is not to be condemned by the international community for the blatant violation of human rights. That would cause incalculable damage to the country's export trade and investment. Such is the fruit of the arrogance of power and the quest for a quick victory in an unwinnable war. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom