POLICE ARREST INFORMANTS TO MEET TARGET

Flow of information ends as trust withers

Chiang Rai police put most of their informers in jail, losing their trust,
as they struggled to meet the demand they cut the number of drug dealers and
users by 25% in the first month of the war on drugs.

A police source said the mass arrests dealt a serious blow to the province's
drug suppression operations in March, _ the target has now been raised to
50% _ because the people who could lead them to major traders were now in
prison and refused to give them information.

Most informers were drug users who had cooperated with police in the
anti-drug campaign even before the three-month war on drugs began on Feb 1.

Chiang Rai police, under Pol Maj-Gen Wut Withitanond, declared war on drug
traders in October 2001. They did not arrest drug users but rehabilitated
them and made them their ``eyes and ears'', the source said. Since that
programme started, 13,000 drug users had surrendered and helped police seize
more than nine million methamphetamine pills and drug dealers' assets worth
more than 365 million baht.

The source said Chiang Rai police had increased the number of drug
information networks to 36, many of which contributed to major drug arrests.

By Feb 20, authorities had managed to cut the 2,326 peddlers and users on
their blacklist by only 20%, and were severely rebuked by their supervisers.

Police then arrested their informers and rushed their cases to court, where
most were convicted for selling and using drugs and sent to jail.

``Those are the people who give us tips about drug networks,'' the source
said. ``We have to swallow our promise that we will not touch them because
we have to give the government what it wants _ that 25% target.''

The source said everyone was safe _ at least for now _ since statistics
showed the province had cut the number of people on its list by 35.17% at
the end of February.

But the police were having problems meeting the 50% target this month.``We
have completely destroyed the trust we have built up with our informers over
the last several years,'' the source said.

Information was now scarce and there were not many drug dealers left to be
arrested, he said.

Major traders who had links to drug producers in neighbouring countries had
fled abroad or left Chiang Rai since the province launched its own drug
campaign in 2001, the source said.

``We will hardly arrest anyone this month. They are all gone,'' he said.

Authorities were trying to adjust the number of blacklisted drug traders yet
to be arrested, put at 1,644 by the Interior Ministry, to 919 as given by
the Narcotics Control Board, which police say is more accurate. Elsewhere in
the province, people still live in fear after the campaign claimed 47 lives
in the first month and only two were reportedly killed by police in
self-defence.

The 47 people killed included Kiattisak sae Toen, a headman of Ban Palang in
Muang district, and five villagers who were travelling with him in a pick-up
truck which was attacked on Feb 28.

The police said Kiattisak used to be involved with drugs but had quit and
even helped get villagers into rehabilitation. They suspected the six were
killed by a major drug agent.

Villagers said no one wanted to be the new headman of Ban Palang.