Korn-uma Pongnoi, left, wife of murdered environmentalist Charoen Wat-aksorn, and Angkhana Neelapaijit, wife of human-rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, who was abducted and is presumed dead, hold a press conference yesterday. The pair said no real progr

The three high-profile killings have been handled by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) but no real progress has been made and the group says it might be time for the DSI to review its role and raison d'etre.

"They look as if they're sincere but they're more concerned about image making," said Korn-uma Pongnoi, wife of murdered environmentalist Charoen Wat-aksorn.

Charoen, who opposed local figures trying to encroach on public land in Prachuap Khiri Khan, was gunned down two years ago.

Korn-uma said she had lost all hope of the DSI and the government bringing the mastermind of the slaying to justice.

"There has been no progress on the case and before my husband was killed many other environmentalists were killed under this administration. This shows the failure of the government's policy in cracking down on local influential people."

Phra Kittisak Kittisobhano, a well-known activist monk, said the same silence and lack of progress befell the case of the killing of his colleague Phra Supot Suvajo a year ago. Phra Supot, an environmentalist monk, was known to be critical of certain politicians in the Thai Rak Thai Party, especially in his Chiang Mai province.

 "The DSI seems to be more adept at handling political cases or psychological warfare than bringing the culprit to justice. When you call the department, they give you sweet and calming words but there's no progress whatsoever. I think it would be appropriate to remove the director-general [of the DSI] and if there's still no progress then the whole department might as well be abolished," said Phra Kittisak, a leader of the Sekiyadhamma Buddhist network of socially engaged monks.

Phra Kittisak said Thaksin had vowed to bring the culprit to justice but to no avail.

A similar and even more

high-profile case is the abduction and presumed death of human-rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, which occurred 27 months ago.

"The progress is that there's no progress," Angkhana Neelapaijit said yesterday. The wife of Somchai has become a vocal speaker against rights abuses in the South and beyond.

Angkhana earlier requested that DSI chief Pol General Sombat Amornwiwat be removed as head of the investigation into her husband's death as there has been no progress and because it is believed that some of the police officers charged in abducting her husband were Sombat's former subordinates.

Somchai Horm-laor, a human-rights lawyer and president of the Coalition for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, decried the government's double standards, which sees some murder cases solved speedily but shows no progress when it comes to cases where human-rights defenders are victims.

What's more, he said, victims' relatives like Angkhana face unrelenting threats to their lives as they continue to pursue justice for their loved ones.

"If the DSI has to be abolished, so be it," added Boonthan Tansuthepverawongse, executive director of Amnesty International Thailand. He said the masterminds behind these heinous crimes appeared to be enjoying impunity.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation