According to media reports, police in Thailand have so far detained six suspects involved in the April 10 suffocation deaths of 54 persons who had been brought in a refrigerated container truck from Burma, and are hunting for one more. All are civilians who were directly involved in the transport of this particular group of over a hundred people on route to Phuket, where they were going to work at very low wages in bad conditions like millions more of their compatriots. Meanwhile, the survivors are still facing deportation despite calls for them to be treated with dignity and in accordance with international and domestic standards that protect their rights irrespective of other factors.
The Department of Special Investigation under the justice ministry has been involved in the case but its senior officers also have been quoted as saying that they won’t open a full “special” inquiry because the incident is not technically a case of human trafficking, given that in their opinion the persons were not forced to come to Thailand but arrived voluntarily.
Leaving aside the fact that the department is not in the best position to draw technical legal distinctions under international law, its argument is completely disingenuous. There are many criteria by which a case may be taken up as “special” under the law that defines its operations. In fact, this is precisely the sort of case for which the department was established: complicated, involving a higher level of expertise than is available among local officers, relating to the affairs of more than one country, and of national interest.
It is also a case in which the work of local police and authorities cannot be trusted. The reason is that these people are also involved in the trade of people from across the border. It is quite simply impossible for a truckload of illegal migrants to be driven through Thailand’s border provinces without the knowledge and complicity of, at very least, the police, immigration department, border patrol and paramilitary units operating under governors. These agencies man checkpoints, patrol roads, and make it their business to know what is going on and what is in it for them. It should be a relatively simple matter for investigators to identify those units and commanders who may also bear responsibility for these deaths, and begin inquiries into their role also.
So how soon will this happen? The answer can only be, when agencies from Bangkok, not the province, take charge of the case. But the longer that they delay, the more time the provincial officers in Ranong have to damage or destroy evidence and botch the work of finding those perpetrators who are behind the scenes, as has been done in other similar sorts of cases in the past.
The Asian Human Rights Commission reiterates its call that top-level investigators from Bangkok, be they from the Department of Special Investigation or other agencies, be put in charge of this case and be obliged to report to the highest levels of government and to the public on what is being done to bring all the perpetrators of these deaths, not just a few of the small people who were directly involved, to justice.
And upon what does justice depend? Fair trial: this in turn depends upon the gathering of all available evidence for presentation before the court. Thus, the AHRC also reiterates its call that the survivors of the tragedy are kept in Thailand to appear as witnesses in the criminal hearings that follow, and that they and the families of the deceased receive the compensation to which they are legally entitled before they are repatriated.
