'HIT SQUAD KILLINGS' STAIN THAI DRUG WAR

1,140 Dead In A Month As Fear Stalks Nation

Six weeks shy of his ninth birthday Chakkapan Srisa-ard achieved a
notoriety he could never have expected. He died, caught in gunfire during a
police sting operation in Bangkok, a victim of a bloody government war on
drugs that is coming under increasing scrutiny.

Chakkapan's death came after his father was arrested making a drug delivery
to undercover agents. When his mother tried to escape in the family car,
police opened fire. Chakkapan, hit in the back, died on the spot. Police
have arrested three officers but they say they fired in the air and the
fatal shots came from a gang member on a motorcycle.

Raeed Junuthai, a 53-year-old housewife murdered a week earlier in
Suphanburi province, shows another facet of the deadly force unleashed by
Thai leaders to smash the drug scourge in a country with one of the highest
rates of amphetamine abuse.

Her husband Somkiat relates how a district councillor warned Raeed two
weeks ago she was on a drugs blacklist and should report to local police.
The next morning a gunman shot her dead a few hundred yards from her home.

Neighbours said a stranger in a white pick-up asked for her while she was
out fishing in rice paddies. Soon after they saw him stop his car, walk up
to her and heard gunfire. Somkiat found her face down beside the road, shot
in the head, back and arms.

The dress, weapon and competence of the gunman leave Somkiat convinced she
was shot by undercover police. 'It's horrible, I'm so scared, I can't work,
I have nothing to give my children,' Somkiat said. 'If we were dealing
drugs we wouldn't be poor like this,' he said gesturing around the empty
brick and wood house.

Both deaths shed light on one of the world's bloodiestdrug war. By Friday,
government figures showed more than 1,140 deaths and 8,500 arrests since
February 1.

Police put the killings at 500, but acknowledge shooting only 22, claim
self-defence, and say drug gangs are behind the rest. But like most Thais,
lawyer Somchai Homlaor of the human rights group Asia Forum, believes
police death squads are to blame.

Killings of dealers are not new here. At the Justice Ministry's Central
Institute of Forensic Science, Porntip Rojanasunan is used to
execution-style shootings and 'has no doubt' some are the work of police
squads. Around Suphanburi, locals say such killings have been going on for
years and are accepted to be the work of undercover government agents.

But the scale has caused alarm. Thailand is becoming 'a kingdom of fear,'
said Judge Charan Pakdithanakul, of Thailand's National Human Rights
Commission.

The government admits some 700 police and military officials are implicated
in drug-dealing. 'We are afraid that dealers who are also government
officials can use their power to kill people to prevent them giving
information or becoming witnesses,' said Asia Forum's Somchai.

The driving force behind the crackdown is Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra, a billionaire business tycoon turned politician who prides
himself on decisive action. Five years ago he pledged to solve Bangkok's
traffic problems in 90 days, only to face media derision when little
changed. He has set a three-month deadline to crush the drugs industry.
Opinion polls have shown Thaksin has overwhelming public support.
Amphetamines or ' yaa baa ' (crazy pills) have seeped into every corner and
most classrooms, evidence of a level of drug abuse among the highest in the
world.

The Interior Ministry ordered provincial governors to cut down a blacklist
of over 46,000 names of drug dealers and consumers by 25 per cent in the
first month. Interior minister Wan Muhammad Noor Matha warned failure to do
this could cost governors their jobs.

In Suphanburi province, district administration chief Kriengkrai praises
the campaign. 'If the problem isn't tackled in this way my district will
have a problem with 6,000 people not 600 and all officials will be drug
dealers with the wealth to buy an election,' he said. He added the killing
of Mrs Raeed galvanised those on the blacklist to turn themselves in.

But police bosses question the reliability of the lists and criticism of
the campaign escalated at home and abroad with the mounting evidence of its
violent excess.

'Encouragement for extra-judicial killings has been given at the highest
level with law enforcement officers under heavy pressure to produce results
or lose their jobs,' Amnesty International warned.

The UN High Commission on Human Rights this week expressed 'deep concern',
urging strict compliance with international standards of human rights and
called for an investigation.

To make matters worse, the campaign has inflicted little damage on the
drugs kingpins. 'If you scrutinise the names of those killed, there's not a
single big-time dealer,' said Judge Charan.

'In this war drug dealers must die,' Thaksin said. 'But we don't kill them,
it's a matter of the bad guy killing the bad guys.'

He has been puzzled at the protest. 'I don't understand why some people are
so concerned about [pushers] while neglecting to care for the future of one
million children who are becoming lured into becoming drug users.'

But it was difficult to sidestep the protest on Thursday when a television
cameraman fell to his knees with a petition to investigate his parents'
murder, shot after reporting to police.

Thaksin this week will call a review of the campaign's conduct,
particularly on government blacklists. On Friday he announced the formation
of committees to monitor police performance and protection of informants
and witnesses.

Thaksin has now ordered a probe into Chakkapan's death. But attempts by
Porntip to join the investigation and autopsy quickly ran into a police
brick wall. A victim's next of kin can request a second, independent
autopsy, but the child's father is in custody. Unsurprisingly he has made
no such request.