Thailand's drug war gets messy
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK - On the face of it, Thailand's drug traffickers
appear to have gone on a killing spree - if you believe the police, that is.

The rapid rise in killings in the first 10 days of the Thai government's
latest war on drugs - 87 suspected drug traffickers killed - is the work of the traffickers themselves, police officials have told the media.

This week, Thai police told the Bangkok Post, an English-language
daily, that the drug dealers were "killing each other to avoid the risk of betrayal". The police, on the other hand, admitted to killing only eight drug suspects between February 1 and 9 - and even then, the officers told the Post, each of the deaths occured in cases of self-defense.

However, the story line of trigger-happy drug traffickers has failed to
convince the country's human-rights community, who have expressed concern at what they see as extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers.

The government has implied through its policy in the anti-drug campaign that the authorities can use extrajudicial means to go after drug traffickers, said Srirak Plipat, director of Amnesty International's Thailand office. "It is getting worse by the day."

"The number of extrajudicial deaths is unusually high, but this does
not mean there were no extrajudicial killings before, during anti-drug
crackdowns," he added.

What is clearly different, though, is the tone and tenor of the current
war on drugs, he explained. "The language is new. The government is taking the campaign very seriously, and [has conveyed that it] will use violence to pursue it."

That has been implied in the comments this week by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who mounted this anti-drug crusade with precise objectives - the police and local authorities have three months, from February to April, to rid the country of drugs. He appealed to the public to appreciate the police's efforts, and to
show some understanding when suspected drug dealers were killed by police officers in acts of self-defense.

"These officers do not deal in drugs. I think it's quite unusual the
drug dealers [killed by the police] are getting sympathy," Thaksin was quoted in Wednesday's Post.

What is more, the premier wanted the country to appreciate the initial success of the crackdown on drugs.

In the first 10 days of this campaign, the government has arrested 6,907 suspected drug dealers and seized 4.2 million methamphetamine pills. With that, the government also hails the nearly 50,000 drug users who have turned themselves in. This war on drugs soon aims to bring in the lords of the trade, including suspected state officials, during the third and fourth weeks of the campaign.

Thaksin has also warned provincial police chiefs that he would not
tolerate those who perform under par. Transfers to less important posts are among the threats the tough-talking Thaksin has in mind for those who fail to cleanse their area of drugs.

This drive has been praised by the United Nations' drug control agency. "Thailand has always been a leader in the fight against drugs during the past 30 years, and the current effort is another good example," said Sandro Calvani, who heads the East Asia and Pacific office of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNDCP).

"The Thai campaign makes sense," he argued, since it is pursuing the problem in a broad measure, "mobilizing many government resources and civil society's help." There is also "a sense of urgency", he said.

These efforts, Calvani said, will ensure that the communities in
Thailand will control the drug traffickers, rather than the traffickers
controlling the community, which is often the reality.

Asked about an anti-drug crusade that has resulted in so many killings, Calvani explained that the United Nations is committed to human rights and it is concerned about rights violations, but the UN is also committed to "the rights of the children and youth to live in a drug-free environment".

Achieving this environment for the Thai youth is no easy feat, given
that this Southeast Asian country currently has the highest percentage of the population in the world that abuses amphetamines. In Thailand, which has 62 million people, as many as one in 17, or 5.9 percent of Thais aged 15 and above, are reported to be abusers of amphetamines, states a UNDCP report.

Currently, there are more than 600,000 students across the country, from primary schools to universities, who are drug addicts, according to newspaper statistics. It is an addiction fed by neighboring Myanmar, which annually supplies 500 million to 700 million amphetamine pills from the drug laboratories located along the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Thailand's record of seizing drugs over the past years has done little
to dent the drug malaise. In 2001, for instance, Thai authorities succeeded in seizing 8,338 kilograms of methamphetamines, slightly more than the 7,422kg in 2000. In Myanmar, on the other hand, authorities seized 2,877kg in 2001 and 2,408kg in 2000.

Given this reality, human-rights activists say they do not object to the Thaksin administration's mission to take on the drug trade. But the mounting extrajudicial killings linked to the effort cannot be ignored, they say.

"This is true of the public too," said Amnesty's Srirak. "The people
support the drug-control campaign but they are not endorsing the
extrajudicial killings."

(Inter Press Service)