THAKSIN 'MUST BE TRIED FOR DEATHS'

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Lawyers Council of
Thailand are pressing the government to ratify the convention on the
International Criminal Court so deposed prime minister Thaksin
Shinawatra could be tried for crimes against humanity over his
controversial anti-drugs campaign. The council and former lawmakers
accused the Thaksin administration of having blood on its hands for
waging its so-called war on drugs which killed more than 2,000 people,
most of them drug traders and traffickers. The government must bring
Mr Thaksin to justice or the Sept 19 military coup which swept it to
power would amount to nothing but a public deception, they said.

Somchai Hom-laor, chairman of the council's human rights committee,
said evidence came to light supporting the belief that state officials
were responsible for the deaths of 2,500 people in the anti-drugs
campaign. The death toll was recorded from two phases of the campaign,
the first from February to April 2003 and the second in 2005.

Officials were obeying a Thaksin policy which included a
well-organised plan to issue a "licence to kill" with approval from
Mr Thaksin, the then interior minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha, and the
then interior permanent secretary Sermsak Pongpanich.

"They all signalled policy approval for the killing," Mr Somchai
said at a discussion yesterday organised by the Press Association of
Thailand.

The government and the coup engineers, the Council for National
Security (CNS), had no choice but get to the bottom of the
drug-related killings and punish officials who perpetrated them, both
for disciplinary and criminal violations, he said. The policy-makers,
including Mr Thaksin, could end up facing charges of crimes against
humanity.

"Saddam Hussein [the former president of Iraq] was charged with
committing crimes against humanity for the killing of 170 people. In
that case, the 2,500 deaths we witnessed here must constitute crimes
against humanity," he said.

The Attorney-General's Office should handle the issue should it become
a case, as that agency answers to obligations governed by an
international court agreement. But first, the government must ratify
the convention on the International Criminal Court. Thai courts of
justice must then formally acknowledge the legal interpretation of the
definition of crimes against humanity for the admissibility and
adjudication of such an offence to be established in Thailand. Without
acknowledgment by the court, there was no chance of prosecuting Mr
Thaksin.

Mr Somchai said the Thaksin administration did not bother to ratify
the convention. If the present government went ahead with the
ratification, it would effectively restrict Mr Thaksin's mobility.

The former prime minister, in self-imposed political exile overseas
since the coup, has travelled from China to Indonesia on a diplomatic
passport he has used since he was in power. "Signing the convention
would prevent Mr Thaksin from popping up here and there, especially in
European countries which are signatories to the convention," he said.

Mr Thaksin could be brought to trial if he landed in the wrong
country.

Mr Somchai said restoring the rule of law required reforming the
police force and subjecting police criminal investigations to scrutiny
by the court.

Wasant Panich of the NHRC said the drugs war policy was clearly a
mistake, for which Mr Thaksin must be held to account. He cited the
discovery of an official letter sent to people in Samut Sakhon's Ban
Phaeo district at the height of the campaign, warning them to report
to a local drugs war centre or their "safety could not be
guaranteed".

Mr Wasant added that a letter allegedly signed by an interior
permanent secretary at the time was distributed to provincial
governors outlining three ways to cut the number of drugs traders and
producers. The suspects could be "arrested, face extra-judicial
killings, or lose their lives for any reason".

He said the blacklist of drug suspects took only 15 days to compile.
The perceived haste raised concerns that some may have been wrongly
targeted.

The NHRC received 40 complaints related to the drugs war deaths. Not a
single culprit in those cases was ever caught.

Former senator Kraisak Choonhavan said the campaign was the most
blatant form of human rights violation. He was surprised the
government and the CNS did not feel compelled to highlight the issue
as one of the reasons for toppling the previous administration.

"We can't possibly create a new society if the coup-backed government
doesn't lift a finger to deal with the drugs war killings of the
Thaksin era," he said