Ending military impunity a key test for Abhisit, HRW says

Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, briefed reporters in Bangkok last week after meeting with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

In an address at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, Adams said it was too early to rate Abhisit's record on human rights but noted that there were strong positive - and negative - signs.

The positive aspect was the PM's willingness to meet and discuss the human rights situation, which he said was something previous governments headed by or linked to Thaksin Shinawatra never did.

"He [Abhisit] is the first PM who speaks proactively about human rights ... but Thailand has so many systemic, endemic human rights problems, nobody is going to be able to act on them in two months," Adams said.

The negative aspect was that there were serious doubts about the Democrat-led government's ability to rein in the military, which seemed to operate with complete impunity on a whole range of fronts, such as the far South and in brutal dealings with Rohingya boat people.

Adams said he is in no doubt that Abhisit would like to stop extrajudicial killings but he felt in the short term the PM may have "no real capacity to achieve that", in spite of the fact that he heads the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), one of the more notorious branches of the military. Indeed, he felt Isoc needed a new title because "Isoc is a dirty name", badly smeared by past controversies.

The London-based lawyer voiced dismay at the "quite outrageous" decision by the attorney general last week not to charge any military officers for a notorious massacre in April 2004, when 32 "rebels" were killed at the historic Krue Se mosque. That event occurred on a day when more than 100 Muslim militants were gunned down by troops tipped off that insurgents were set to attack government outposts across the region.

"The government says it is committed to a multi-pronged approach involving economics [assistance to the region] and justice but this [decision] undermines confidence building in the South. It's perfect proof the justice system doesn't work," he said. "They need to find a way to review this decision urgently."

The primary issue was impunity, Adams said. "Human rights investigations usually don't touch soldiers and police."

There has been "horrendous violence in the South, and that will continue as long as there is no justice".

People did not expect the government to solve all problems, he noted. And everybody "knows how powerful the military and the police are". But a more credible result was needed - "even if it means confronting some of the people who brought this government to power".

The HRW chief listed key cases his group believes the government must act on:

 # The death of Imam Yapa Koseng, who was allegedly tortured during interrogation at an Army camp in Narathiwat in March last year. "A great deal is known about the perpetrators, and that is a very simple case, if there's political will," Adams said.

 # The abduction and suspected murder of lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit five years ago. Adams said there was "some sign of progress" on this notorious case despite the fact that DNA evidence had mysteriously gone missing.

 # The death of 85 young men at Tak Bai, including 78 who suffocated in the back of military trucks in October 2004 after a riot outside the local police station. Adams said there had been no serious investigation into this case.

 # The Krue Se Mosque massacre (noted above).

 # The "War on Drugs" by the Thaksin government in early 2004, when about 2,800 people were slain during a highly controversial crackdown on alleged drug dealers. Adams said the former PM [Thaksin] "should be very careful were he travels" because his group was not going to forget this "atrocity".

"The people who carried this out still have their jobs. They are senior police ... that's a cancer in this society, when police are getting away with murder," he said.

"We're going to pursue this. The 'War on Drugs' shouldn't be forgotten."

While having no plan to pursue the matter in international legal forums, he said that on human rights "the Thaksin administration was an unqualified disaster".

Adams said it was extremely disappointing that the new government appeared to endorse a policy of pushing Rohingya boat people back to sea, as that was clearly against international law.

The Rohingya were "the worst-treated group of asylum seekers and refugees in Asia for ages". But he noted that the root cause of the problem was in Burma and that the boat people were also very badly treated in Malaysia.

Refugee policy in Thailand was "a mess", he said. But the international community was willing to virtually subsidise assistance to refugees if the Thai government was prepared to recognise international standards and sign the UN refugee convention.

In regard to lese majeste, the HRW boss suggested the government show some political leadership and amend the law.

"Private individuals shouldn't be allowed to file cases," he said, noting that police had filed just a handful of complaints in the court system.

Criminal defamation laws should also be repealed. Thaksin had used these laws to "silence his critics", he said, but defamation matters could be left to civil courts, as in other countries.

In regard to endemic corruption and vote-buying that has plagued elections in Thailand for decades, Adams said the only antidote was to "change the game" by boosting police standards and independence and having "zero tolerance" for vote-buying, so influential groups now seen as untouchable were marginalised.

Jim Pollard is a member of the FCCT board.