INSTANT JUSTICE CAN CARRY A HIGH COST

Three weeks into a massive drugs crackdown, there are disturbing reports of
wholesale violations of human rights and the law. These reports require
careful attention if the government hopes to receive long-term support for
its policy against illicit drugs.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced his tough crackdown on drug
dealers will continue, as it should. But the premier should also be willing
to investigate the growing, widespread and universal reports of murders and
massive legal violations by some of those involved in the campaign.
Credible reports and complaints claim police and officers of pthe state at
high levels are targeting or setting up suspected petty drug dealers for
extra-judicial killings. Authorities must look into such reports seriously,
end legal abuses or risk the reputations of both the Thaksin government and
the country.

This newspaper and others have reported at length on the disturbing abuse
of national intelligence agencies. Police and civil authorities have told
reporters of ``blacklists'' of drug suspects. The reports claim such
information has been used to compile death lists. An investigative report
in this newspaper yesterday detailed how police and local authorities
compare lists of drug suspects. If a name appears on both lists, the man or
woman is marked for murder.

The government has been too cavalier in handling such charges in the early
days of its 90-day drug campaign. Police officers admit to killing 15 drug
sellers who resisted arrest. The death toll, meanwhile, stands at more than
600. The police position is that all other deaths have involved influential
drug dealers killing petty street dealers in order to protect themselves.

Surely such cases have occurred. The drug trade is highly profitable and
deadly vicious. But it strains the national credulity that every drug
murder is a matter of dealer-killing-dealer. It does not square with the
promise of Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha that drug dealers might
``vanish without a trace''. Nor does it square with the words of one
policeman who spoke to a reporter last week, wondering: ``Why should we
spare the scum?''

Human rights groups in Thailand and elsewhere are already highly sceptical
of the government's programme, critical of the huge number of killings, or
both. The United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights will investigate. Mr
Thaksin seems to feel he can withstand pressure from overly sensitive and
misguided Thais and foreigners alike on the issue.

This seems a short-sighted approach to such an important matter. Indeed,
the prime minister's gamble could backfire. His highly-popular and
well-intentioned plan to fight the street-side drug peddlers could get
sidetracked in an international investigation. The claims of the premier
and ministers that the lives of drug sellers don't matter are highly
questionable at best, and offensive to many. But the lives of their
families definitely matter. And when _ not if _ the death squads inevitably
kill innocent bystanders or mistake their targets, that will matter, no
matter if the killers are drug gangs or police.

Mr Thaksin has indicated he considers the reports of human and civil rights
violations as criticism, and he famously rejects criticism. But this time
he is wrong. The reports of criminal activity by police and local officials
are piling up in the Thai and foreign press. Not just ``do-gooder'' groups
like Amnesty International are asking for justice, but so is the United
Nations. Reports of violations and widespread murder are not just local,
but are coming from across the country.

The cost of ignoring accusations of massive human rights violations is they
will come back to bite the government and society. The benefits of a
violent drug programme will fade, but the widows, orphans and grieving
parents will stay with us. Authorities can count on wide public support for
a determined crackdown on drug peddlers and traffickers. There is no need
to go outside the law and resort to tactics which currently stain the
reputations of police and local government alike.