WAGE WAR ON DRUGS BY THE RULES

The government announced it is waging a war against amphetamines, setting a
target to eliminate them from the kingdom within three months after Feb 1
of this year. Governors and district police chiefs that fail to accomplish
this shall be heavily punished.

Simultaneously, rewards for the seizure of amphetamines leading to
convictions were increased to three baht a pill as an incentive for
arresting officers, which include civil servants, policemen and armed
forces officials.

Not surprisingly, we have since seen such headlines as "Drug murders
escalate to 18 a day," "17 shot dead daily in drug-related cases" or "24
more shot dead, sacrificed to amphetamine gangs."

No one protests or even disagrees with the war. But after reports of so
many murders, there are pressing concerns that state officials, especially
policemen, might be abusing their power and taking justice in their own
hands through extrajudicial murders, risking the lives of innocent people.
This not only violates human rights, it also affects national interests and
provides an excuse for Thailand's trading partners to impose trade barriers
on us.

In addition, some unknown parties may easily take advantage of the
situation by killing their opponents and leaving some pills on the bodies.
No one would know for sure, but what is certain is that when someone is
murdered and it is assumed the victim was involved in the illicit drug
trade, the police will drop the investigation and close the case. This is
one of the consequences of the war against drugs and it is an injustice.

A few days after the war started, 23-24 killings had been reported in the
news.. The police admitted being responsible for only four of the deaths,
the rest were presumably committed by drug traffickers taking action among
themselves. But Thai Rath daily reported that a "Dark organisation orders
18 dead to scrap blacklist nationwide." It is not clear what the "dark
organisation" is but the circumstances of the murders are all too familiar.

In recent years, several murders of a similar nature were reported. Some
3-4 men would drive a pickup truck to the victim's house and call him out
or ask him what his name was.

Upon hearing the name, the gunner would immediately shoot him 2-3 times,
usually in the head. After that, they would walk slowly back to the truck
and drive away unhurriedly.

When the police arrived at the scene, amphetamines would always be found in
the house and the victim was found to have a drug record. Murders during
the ongoing drug war have appeared to take the same pattern.

The police admitted to four killings in self defense. It's an open question
as to who did the rest. Who is taking justice into their own hands and what
should the police do in such cases? Upon finding that the victims have drug
records, why do the police stop short of making a full investigation to
find more evidence and bring the criminals to justice.

Such negligence promotes more crimes and the fallout will be on the country
because ordinary people have no way of knowing which acts were done by the
police and which were committed by criminals.

Interior Minister Wan Nor Mohammad Normata insisted the government would
not accept criticism for using measures which are too severe.

The Premier pledged to take serious action against amphetamine traffickers,
especially when state officials were involved.

He said the nation's youth would not become a tool of those with bad
intentions for the country.

When Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat seized the ruling power in 1958, he too
waged a war against opium and several people were executed under Section
17. Are we going to repeat this?

It was even proposed that the government set up a special court to deal
specifically with drug trafficking in which cases will be deliberated no
longer than one year to speed up things. The establishment of such a court
may have benefits but we need to consider it more carefully.