Pubdate: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand) Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2003 Contact: http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39 INSTANT JUSTICE CAN CARRY A HIGH COST Three weeks into a massive drugs crackdown, there are disturbing reports of wholesale violations of human rights and the law. These reports require careful attention if the government hopes to receive long-term support for its policy against illicit drugs. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced his tough crackdown on drug dealers will continue, as it should. But the premier should also be willing to investigate the growing, widespread and universal reports of murders and massive legal violations by some of those involved in the campaign. Credible reports and complaints claim police and officers of pthe state at high levels are targeting or setting up suspected petty drug dealers for extra-judicial killings. Authorities must look into such reports seriously, end legal abuses or risk the reputations of both the Thaksin government and the country. This newspaper and others have reported at length on the disturbing abuse of national intelligence agencies. Police and civil authorities have told reporters of ``blacklists'' of drug suspects. The reports claim such information has been used to compile death lists. An investigative report in this newspaper yesterday detailed how police and local authorities compare lists of drug suspects. If a name appears on both lists, the man or woman is marked for murder. The government has been too cavalier in handling such charges in the early days of its 90-day drug campaign. Police officers admit to killing 15 drug sellers who resisted arrest. The death toll, meanwhile, stands at more than 600. The police position is that all other deaths have involved influential drug dealers killing petty street dealers in order to protect themselves. Surely such cases have occurred. The drug trade is highly profitable and deadly vicious. But it strains the national credulity that every drug murder is a matter of dealer-killing-dealer. It does not square with the promise of Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha that drug dealers might ``vanish without a trace''. Nor does it square with the words of one policeman who spoke to a reporter last week, wondering: ``Why should we spare the scum?'' Human rights groups in Thailand and elsewhere are already highly sceptical of the government's programme, critical of the huge number of killings, or both. The United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights will investigate. Mr Thaksin seems to feel he can withstand pressure from overly sensitive and misguided Thais and foreigners alike on the issue. This seems a short-sighted approach to such an important matter. Indeed, the prime minister's gamble could backfire. His highly-popular and well-intentioned plan to fight the street-side drug peddlers could get sidetracked in an international investigation. The claims of the premier and ministers that the lives of drug sellers don't matter are highly questionable at best, and offensive to many. But the lives of their families definitely matter. And when _ not if _ the death squads inevitably kill innocent bystanders or mistake their targets, that will matter, no matter if the killers are drug gangs or police. Mr Thaksin has indicated he considers the reports of human and civil rights violations as criticism, and he famously rejects criticism. But this time he is wrong. The reports of criminal activity by police and local officials are piling up in the Thai and foreign press. Not just ``do-gooder'' groups like Amnesty International are asking for justice, but so is the United Nations. Reports of violations and widespread murder are not just local, but are coming from across the country. The cost of ignoring accusations of massive human rights violations is they will come back to bite the government and society. The benefits of a violent drug programme will fade, but the widows, orphans and grieving parents will stay with us. Authorities can count on wide public support for a determined crackdown on drug peddlers and traffickers. There is no need to go outside the law and resort to tactics which currently stain the reputations of police and local government alike. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D