THAILAND DEFIES CRITICS BY ESCALATING DEADLY DRUGS WAR

THAILAND is to extend its controversial war against drugs despite
international condemnation and claims of state-sponsored killings.

More than 2,000 people have been shot dead since the three-month campaign
was announced by the government in February.

Prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who poured scorn on his many critics
including the United Nations, said the crackdown on dealers would continue
until he declares "victory" in the war on drugs on December 2.

The wave of killings - suspected to be the handiwork of security forces
trying to clean up their turf - has created a climate of fear in poor
communities where small-time dealers have been gunned down, often in broad
daylight.

The campaign was launched because of increasing public alarm over drug abuse,

but now human rights activists claim local police are pushing people to
"confess" to being addicts, so they can meet national targets, and that
some of those who refuse to co-operate have later been murdered.

Lawyer Somchai Homlaor said: "Local officials want to show the ministry of
the interior that they're active in eliminating drug dealers, or they may
be transferred to inactive posts, and that's a bad signal to send."

Last month in a crowded slum in Bangkok, a nine-year-old boy was shot dead
in a car being driven by his mother, a suspected dealer who was trying to
escape arrest. Three policemen were later arrested for the killing, but
have yet to be tried.

Officially, police say they have killed 51 of the 2,275 people who have
died so far. The rest are said to have died at the hands of fellow dealers
who are trying to cover their tracks and avoid detection.

"It's definitely not government policy [to kill dealers]," said Chartchai
Suthiklom, deputy secretary-general of the Narcotics Control Board.

However, a prominent commissioner, Pradit Charoenthaithawee, has appealed
to the UN to intervene, provoking an angry response from the prime
minister, who called Pradit a "whistle-blower" and added that "the United
Nations is not my father".

So far, police have arrested 51,531 drug suspects, including 15,000 alleged
traffickers, and confiscated large amounts of drugs and illicit assets.

Most of the drug killings are unsolved. Police have so far questioned 249
people including witnesses in connection with the shootings, which often
involved multiple gunmen.

The government said the next phase of its campaign would focus on the "big
fish" who control the drugs trade, especially suppliers of amphetamine or
speed pills, which are mostly manufactured in jungle labs across the border
in Burma. Street prices for speed have more than quadrupled, although
actual seizures still represent less than 10% of the estimated 700 million
pills sold each year.

Thailand has around three million regular drug users, including 40,000
heroin addicts, and the current campaign includes a plan to send hardcore
users to rehabilitation centres.

But health workers say these are little more than military "boot camps" and
fail to address the wider implications of drug abuse. They are worried that
the anti-drugs war is driving addicts and small-time dealers underground.