Akha Crusader:

US ACTIVIST DETAINED AT SUAN PHLU

American had filed human rights complaint with UN

An American activist who has campaigned vigorously against government
mistreatment of hilltribe people in the far north of Thailand has been
detained, and looks set to be deported, by the Immigration Police.

Matthew McDaniel, 46, was arrested when he went to extend his visa at
the Mae Sai immigration office on Thursday, according to a friend who
preferred not to be named.

The American was transferred to the Immigration Detention Centre in
Bangkok. He told his family and associates on Friday that he had been
declared persona non grata and deemed a threat to the country.

McDaniel believes the authorities want to expel him from Thailand
because he arranged for a US lawyer to file a case about human-rights
abuses with the United Nations, his colleague said yesterday.

A spokesman from the Immigration Department did not return a phone
call late yesterday to confirm that McDaniel was being deported.

The American is from Salem, Oregon. He is married to an Akha woman,
who is pregnant, his friend said yesterday. He also has four other
children, who live in a remote village in Chiang Rai province.

The move to deport McDaniel was not unexpected, his colleague noted,
adding that the US Embassy in Bangkok was aware of the case.

McDaniel produced "Akha Voices", a 270-page book which details
disturbing allegations of abductions and extrajudicial killings by
Thai army and police officers that it claims amount to "ethnic cleansing".

He has also attacked "the deceptive practices of US-based missionaries
and their assumption of control over Akha children and their bold
ongoing effort to completely eradicate Akha traditional culture with
carefully placed lies".

The introduction to the book says McDaniel "is radically opposed to
oppressive Thai government policies that destroy the Akha people at
their most basic level of existence, their right to grow food, while
at the same time trying to portray to the public and tourists that the
government is the benevolent saviour of these 'unfortunate' people".

He is also described as a staunch critic of the US 'war on drugs',
which he says has resulted in thousands of Akha being imprisoned "at
the hands of the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency]".

The book lists Akha people imprisoned in jails in Thailand and
controversial circumstances surrounding some of these arrests. It says
McDaniel has worked with the Akha in Thailand and Burma since 1991.

McDaniel is assumed to have been connected with leaflets distributed
in Chiang Mai late last year seeking volunteers to "help SAVE an Akha
village from loosing all its land".

Villagers in Hoo Yoh "had been told by government officials they could
no longer farm land they had been farming for nearly 40 years. The
villagers had been given no say in the process," the leaflets said.

The dispute affected more than 1,000 people, or 250 families, it said.
The campaign encouraged people to come to Chiang Rai to join a protest
camp and to read the website www.akha.org