Respect for human rights and the rule of law in Thailand were set back many years with the return to power of the military on September 19. The military regime insisted that it had taken power to avert a national crisis; but in the following months, it has failed to produce any evidence to show that widespread violence was imminent as it claimed to justify its actions, which began with the scrapping of the people’s Constitution of 1997 and its replacement with an interim charter modelled upon those of earlier military regimes. The army is now working hard to build a fictional constitutional order and resecuring power for the military elite while trying to give the opposite impression. Although it has expressed commitment to the rule of law, its actions all demonstrate the opposite.
The military government has persistently directed public attention towards the excesses of the previous administration while playing down or entirely ignoring its shared responsibility for human rights abuses of recent years. The interim prime minister has apologised for the killing of some 84 people in Narathiwat Province in 2004 but has not acknowledged the liability of the army for these deaths, least of all the 78 who died in its custody. He has ordered the security forces to cease using “blacklists” to hunt for suspects but has not yet explained anything about how they were made, who used them, which abuses occurred as a result of them and what investigations of wrongdoing will follow due to the use of the lists. Nor has his government yet lifted the emergency decree over the southern provinces, which a U.N. expert in July said “makes it possible for soldiers and police officers to get away with murder.” Martial law remains in effect across half of the rest of the country nearly three months since the military took power.
Furthermore, there has been no improvement in overall conditions of human rights throughout the country. Human rights defenders and social activists continue to be abducted and killed with impunity. Most recently, Thanes Sodsri, an environmentalist in Ratchaburi Province, was apparently shot and removed from his house on December 1. Not one case in recent years has been solved, including the disappearance of lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit more than two years ago.
Meanwhile, a senior bureaucrat acknowledged the scale of problems in the Thai justice system by saying that the police have no evidence with which to lay charges in some 30 percent of cases that are deliberated by the courts, and, most importantly, there remains no way to complain of such abuse. There are also no laws to prohibit torture and forced disappearance or an effective witness protection scheme. Even a National Human Rights commissioner who was seriously threatened obtained no protection from the state nor did his case arouse any official concern.
