U.S. weighs changes in aid to Thais

2,300 deaths in drug war prompt call for inquiry

By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
May 23, 2003

BANGKOK -- The United States is reconsidering its support for Thailand's counternarcotics operations after a three-month war on drugs here by the government left more than 2,300 people dead.

The breadth of the changes to American-Thai cooperation will depend on the results of an investigation by the Thai government into those deaths, a U.S. official here said. However, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency already is contemplating changes in its counternarcotics training assistance to Thailand.

"The Royal Thai Government needs to thoroughly investigate these cases and prosecute the killers in full accordance with the law--and in a fast and transparent manner," the official said.

Despite the concern U.S. officials expressed to Thailand at several diplomatic levels, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday announced the beginning of a new phase in the drug war.

Thailand and the United States have cooperated for more than 30 years in counternarcotics operations in the Golden Triangle, the dense jungle spanning parts of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos where much of the world's opium is grown.

The United States provides about $3 million in aid annually to Thailand for training counternarcotics agents and intelligence gathering. The DEA has a Thai bureau, and its agents occasionally accompany their Thai counterparts as observers during drug stings.

Of the 2,300 people slain in the campaign, Thai police insist a few dozen suspects were killed by its officers, and only in self-defense. According to the government, the rest were killed by drug dealers trying to cover their tracks.

International criticism rained on Thailand as the death toll mounted. Local human-rights organizations said Thai police were shooting drug suspects rather than trying to arrest them.

But local support for the drug war--opinion polls consistently put it at more than 90 percent--spurred the government to take its battle to a new phase.

Organized-crime figures, smugglers, corrupt politicians and rogue police constituted an "axis of evil," Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha said May 1. They would all be targeted in the coming "war on dark influences," as Shinawatra named it.

"The aim [of the new campaign] is to eradicate their roles in society, so that the law enforcement will cover everyone in the kingdom," a spokesman for the prime minister said. If the guilty come clean, no harm will come to them, he said.

Some critics of the methods used in the drug war are cautiously optimistic there will not be more of the daily multiple killings.

Thai Human Rights Commissioner Pradit Chareonthaitawee, who came under fire from the government for criticizing the methods employed during the drug war, said the government will be more cautious because of the international disapproval the killings brought.

Still, he is worried about whether the government will "follow the law, follow the constitution and follow the international [human-rights agreements] of the United Nations" in the months ahead.

Details of the new campaign were being concluded at the same time Shinawatra and Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai received the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Envoy Hina Jilani, who is on a fact-finding mission to assess the situation in Thailand. Jilani's visit was scheduled before the drug war began.


©2003 The Chicago Tribune