DRUG WAR RAISES HUMAN-RIGHTS ISSUE

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's month-old war on
drugs, which Thai officials say has resulted in more than 1,100 deaths, is
raising international concern about human-rights abuses and could hurt the
country economically.

Aid organizations and human-rights groups say the crackdown has entailed
extrajudicial killings and the planting of drugs on suspects killed by
police. Government officials say most of the deaths are the result of
gangland shootouts between drug syndicates, or drug kingpins silencing
lower-level informants. Thai police say they were involved in just 25 of
the killings, all in self-defense.

United Nations officials and foreign diplomats are voicing concern over the
campaign. Last month, Asma Jahangir, the U.N. envoy for extrajudicial
executions, publicly voiced "deep concern" about the government's alleged
tactics. U.S. officials in Bangkok say Ambassador Darryl Johnson has
discussed the matter with Mr. Thaksin. The European Union is drafting a
letter of concern, say EU diplomats. "Thailand's image as a country with a
good human-rights record is starting to suffer," says a Bangkok-based
European diplomat. "The rule of law is under serious threat."

An American diplomat notes U.S. law prohibits Washington from dealing with
governments found to have sanctioned extrajudicial killings. The U.S.
trains Thai narcotics officers and looks to Thai police for help in
battling terrorism. The suggestion that Thai police are involved in
extrajudicial killings would reflect badly on Washington and could affect
U.S. aid. The allegations might also hurt tourism, one of Thailand's
biggest money-spinners. The French Embassy is advising its citizens to
"exercise greater vigilance and caution" in Thailand. "First the Bali
bombing, then Iraq, now the war on drugs," says Marcel Schneider,
Bangkok-based general manager of Diethelm Travel, a Swiss travel company.
"The idea that the campaign could be leading to human-rights abuses is
casting another cloud over Thai tourism."

Mr. Thaksin, a former police officer, is standing behind the campaign. "If
any country wants to cut aid because of what we are doing, frankly
speaking, I don't really care," he said in a radio address.

The government is moving to investigate the killings. On March 3, the
Foreign Ministry held a closed-door session with Bangkok's diplomatic
corps, asking them to understand the gravity of Thailand's drug problem and
the hard-line measures required to uproot it.

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai says: "Our government does not
encourage extrajudicial killing. . . . It's absolutely not the policy of
the country at all." He characterizes the recent killings as a "side
effect" of the crackdown on drugs. "We are a member of the Human Rights
Commission," he continues. "We are a very open society . . . we have NGOs
everywhere in Thailand."

It is several of those nongovernmental organizations that are asking
questions about some of the killings. In a Feb. 28 statement, Forum Asia, a
regional human-rights group, says it interviewed forensic experts who said
they found that suspects had drugs planted on them after death, that some
victims were handcuffed when killed or were shot in a group, and that in
three cases, bullets had been removed before coroners examined the bodies.
A deputy government spokesman says the investigative committees will
examine such claims.