Missing Thai lawyer's wife asks Asean for help
The wife of a missing Thai lawyer has appealed to the Southeast Asian regional body to pressure Bangkok to investigate human rights violations.
Somchai Neelaphaichit went missing in March 2004 shortly after mobilizing a protest against the implementation of martial law in southern Thailand. According to the Bangkokbased Cross Cultural Foundation where his wife Angkhana works, 21 activists in Thailand have been killed since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took office in February 2001. "My husband got appreciation for his work, but the government saw it as something disturbing," Angkhana said Wednesday during a visit to The Jakarta Post office. "This is a common problem of human rights defenders. Such cases should become the focus of attention of ASEAN leaders." Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are currently attending their annual gathering in Kuala Lumpur, with the ASEAN Regional Forum on security to begin Friday. Angkhana is in Jakarta with fellow members of the group Borderless Struggle, which includes the Bangkokbased Thai Action Comittee for Democracy in Burma and Jakartabased Committee for Solidarity Action for Munir (Kasum). Usman Hamid of Kasum said the joint action was the beginning of a broader campaign for human rights protection at the regional and international levels. It currently highlights the cases of Munir, Neelaphaichit and Aung San Suu Kyi. Earlier ASEAN meetings have failed to bring the release of opposition leader Suu Kyi, whose latest period of house arrest by the Yangon junta began in 2000. Suciwati, the widow of Indonesian activist Munir, who was fatally poisoned aboard a Garuda aircraft in 2004, said people like herself must remain optimistic despite similar "repressive characteristics" of states. ASEAN, she added, "should not only deal with economic and security cooperation, but also deal with human right issues". The group met Wednesday with Speaker of the House of Representatives Agung Laksono, representatives of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama and the National Commission on Human Rights. Angkhana said that resorting to murder or the abduction of dissenting voices showed an unwillingness to deal with the actual problems. She realized that an investigation may not lead to all the answers about her husband's disappearance, but believed such moves would highlight unresolved cases and eventually contribute to greater protection of human rights activists. "I fight even though I may lose," the mother of five said. by Kurniawan Hari The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network Jakarta
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