Thailand. Remember the Disappeared.

[DrB0b]

WGJP urges Thai government comprehensive action taken against enforced disappearances on International Day on Enforced Disappearance
by prachatai
WGJP
August 30, 2009 was observed as the International Day on Enforced Disappearances. It is the day on which people around the world gather to acknowledge persons who have disappeared. The causes of these disappearances are human rights violations, wars and suppression of so called ‘terrorism’ taking place in many countries. All these have caused the deaths of many people.

Enforced disappearance is one of the worst crimes against humanity. This violation has been going on for a long time. It has brought great devastation to the victims, their families, the community and society, not to mention the entire rule of law and the judicial system. Enforced disappearance has been an issue for Thai society for some time. And the judicial system has not made much of an attempt to end impunity. In addition, Thai law is not able to give an answer to the cases of disappearances (no law to address this special crime). The question is how responsible is Thai law to compensate the families of disappeared persons? These families have to face enormous obstacles along the way in order to find justice. We are talking about such things as: not having access to needed information, the destruction of evidence, the threatening of witnesses. These obstacles cause families to mistrust the complaint process and to continue their fight with the judicial system to find justice for their cause.

In Thailand the case that has gone the furthest in the judicial system is the case of the disappearance of Mr Somchai Neelapaichit. The following cases also need to be mentioned: October 14, 1973, October 19, 1976, The Bloody May 1992, the unrest in the southern border provinces, the war on drugs in the North and Northeast and the marginalized people. The First Court of Thailand made the judgment that a police officer was behind the disappearance of Mr Somchai Neelapaichit. However, this case was delayed and interfered with all along the process. This included the stage of the investigation of the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NCC) to the stage of the involvement of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI).

To honor the International Day of Enforced Disappearance, the Working Group on Justice for Peace (WGJP) would like to make a request of the Thai government. We would like to see comprehensive action taken against enforced disappearances. The government must show its sincerity by finding persons who have disappeared. Special attention must be paid to the investigation of unidentified bodies found all over the country. It goes without saying that the perpetrators must be punished and the culture of impunity ended. The WGJP recommends that the first action of the government should be to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This action would protect people from disappearing, would build trust in the judicial system and would establish an actual rule of law. We believe that the disappearance of a person is as serious as the disappearance of the justice system.
WGJP urges Thai government comprehensive action taken against enforced disappearances on International Day on Enforced Disappearance | Prachatai English

[Mid]

short odds that cold silence will be the local officials response ,

thanxs for the thread Doc

[sabang]

All went very quiet about those containers found off Sattahip too.

It's a nice call, but utterly futile. The govt, security forces and various vigilante groups will never cough up the details of the 'disappeared'.

[panama hat]

What does surprise me, to a certain extent only however, is that there are no groups of - say - women, who march throught the street banging on cooking pots and pans like in other banana republics. A 'desparecido' movement.

Is it apathy?

[DrB0b]

What does surprise me, to a certain extent only however, is that there are no groups of - say - women, who march throught the street banging on cooking pots and pans like in other banana republics. A 'desparecido' movement.

Is it apathy?

No, fear. I was recently reading through a record of human-rights violations in Thailand. It documented a surprising number of incidents of murder, torture, and disappearances. The well-known ones are only the tip of the iceberg. It mentioned one village in which it's believed that the police have murdered or disappeared over 70 people in the course of the last few years. This village is a fairly ordinary place, not one of the southern Muslim villages. It seems that those people were killed for stepping on the wrong toes, saying the wrong things, or simply because the police didn't like them. There are supposed to be ongoing investigations into those cases but so far nothing has been done. There are some groups campaigning to find out what happened to their loved ones but while the number of disappearances in Thailand is relatively high it doesn't even begin to approach the numbers disappeared in places like Chile, Peru or Argentina.

[Happyman]

We had at least 8 of our staff - and their families !!-'disappeared' from our mine site in Peru over a period of a month or so,in the mid 80's at the height of the offensive against the 'Shining Path' group .
We had a heavy Police/Army presence at the mine but nobody saw anything !
All workers and families lived in a "secure " compound ( it was a gold/silver mine) and when we went to see why they had not turned up for work - their houses were trashed and deserted !

[sabang]

Heard of the Red Gaur and Village Scout movement?

[DrB0b]

Heard of the Red Gaur and Village Scout movement?

Their veterans had a march past Thammasat last year. They shouted "Chai Yo", jeered, and laughed as they marched past the places where they'd massacred, raped, and mutilated students. No regrets for past wrongs there. They're still hailed as heroes by certain people, some of whom have quite recently called on them to once again stand up to protect all that's best in Thailand.

[Dan]

I was recently reading through a record of human-rights violations in Thailand. It documented a surprising number of incidents of murder, torture, and disappearances. The well-known ones are only the tip of the iceberg. It mentioned one village in which it's believed that the police have murdered or disappeared over 70 people in the course of the last few years. This village is a fairly ordinary place, not one of the southern Muslim villages. It seems that those people were killed for stepping on the wrong toes, saying the wrong things, or simply because the police didn't like them. There are supposed to be ongoing investigations into those cases but so far nothing has been done.

Is this online?

[DrB0b]

I was recently reading through a record of human-rights violations in Thailand. It documented a surprising number of incidents of murder, torture, and disappearances. The well-known ones are only the tip of the iceberg. It mentioned one village in which it's believed that the police have murdered or disappeared over 70 people in the course of the last few years. This village is a fairly ordinary place, not one of the southern Muslim villages. It seems that those people were killed for stepping on the wrong toes, saying the wrong things, or simply because the police didn't like them. There are supposed to be ongoing investigations into those cases but so far nothing has been done.

Is this online?

I believe it's the Kalasin case (Kalasin is a town and a province, not a village as I wrongly said above - I was writing from memory), the killings started during Thaksin's war on drugs but have carried on since. The killings weren't just confined to the town but were spread throughout the province. Police at Kalasin police station are being investigated, very, very slowly.

Here's an AHRC report on Kalasin, there are reports on other Kalasin cases also on that site ( look for UA-136-2007: THAILAND: No progress in investigation of police serial killers; UP-065-2007: THAILAND: Details of more alleged killings by police in Kalasin; UP-073-2007: THAILAND: More abductions & killings allegedly by Kalasin police; UP-099-2007: THAILAND: Another five killings in which Kalasin police suspected of involvement)

UPDATE (Thailand): Years after the Kalasin killings just two are under special investigation; another disappearance has been reported

[Dan]

^ Thanks. Interesting. And depressing.