On September 18, a day before the military coup that overthrew the caretaker government in Thailand, one of the country’s human rights commissioners called for the authorities to pay serious attention to the findings of his investigations into killings during the first phase of the “war on drugs”. Vasant Panich said that the victims in cases that he had investigated for the National Human Rights Commission were mostly innocent persons whose deaths in 2003 had never been properly investigated. Some of the murders had patently been set up by the police. For his outspokenness, Vasant has himself been made the target of threats, and of at least one attempted abduction in June; despite his official position, he received no protection from the government.
The attempt to get the cases reopened was thwarted by the timing of the coup; however, the human rights commission has now resumed its efforts. Together with the Lawyers Council of Thailand it is lodging a petition with the justice ministry concerning some 40 cases that have been thoroughly examined by the two groups and found to have been killings of innocent persons by police or their agents, out of at least 2500 in total.
The Asian Human Rights Commission applauds the lodging of this petition to reopen and investigate these cases, and urges full support and attention from all concerned parties in the country and abroad, including the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. However, the investigation of individual cases and alleged killers can lead to something more: to serious questions about state institutions in Thailand that are organised and used to kill.
Undoubtedly the former prime minister and his cabinet took the decisions that led to the murder of thousands of people on the streets, in their houses and in restaurants over a few months in 2003. Pol. Lt. Col. Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra explicitly ordered the hunting down of alleged drug dealers at all costs, imposing extensive rewards and sanctions in response to performance. The public language used by the government repeatedly made clear that alleged drug dealers should be killed. Local authorities obliged with their own added encouragement, incentives and initiatives.
But how could the prime minister give orders that contravened all standards of both domestic and international law and expect that they be carried out? Who organised and did the killing? Not the prime minister himself; rather, local police and administrative officials, and hired guns acting on their behalf. These people drew up lists, called victims to bogus meetings, coerced them to confess, arranged for the killers, and failed to investigate afterwards. All this required the extensive involvement of tens of thousands of people, using the material, skills and money of the state, not to protect fellow citizens but to murder them.
In societies established in accordance with the rule of law, state institutions will not readily respond to the demands of legislative or executive authorities that they exceed or violate their authority. This is not for reasons of morality or intellect, but because state officials are aware that later they may be implicated in wrongdoing and the excuse that they were simply following orders will not save them from punishment. By contrast, in societies where institutions are part of a modernised version of the feudal order, as in Thailand, executive or legislative officials can give illegal and illegitimate orders and expect them to be followed. This is because their subordinates are reassured that they will not be investigated or suffer any consequences for their actions. On the contrary, the only punishment they are likely to face is if they fail to do what they have been told.
This is as much a characteristic of the present government of Thailand as it was of the former. It is also as much a characteristic of the army as it is of the police. The current regime took power illegally, but can rely upon its orders being carried out, just as the former government gave illegal orders with the same assurance. The army has used blacklists, hired guns and mafia figures in the south and at other times and in other places of conflict with the same impunity as the police during their “war on drugs”, as well as before and since. These are deep institutional problems in Thailand that go far beyond a single case, a single prime minister or a single administration.
In 2005, the high-level UN Human Rights Committee noted of Thailand that
“The Committee is concerned at the persistent allegations of serious human rights violations, including widespread instances of extrajudicial killings and ill-treatment by the police and members of armed forces, illustrated by incidents such as the Tak Bai incident in October 2004, the Krue Se mosque incident on 28 April 2004 and the extraordinarily large number of killings during the ‘war on drugs’ which began in February 2003. Human rights defenders, community leaders, demonstrators and other members of civil society continue to be targets of such actions, and any investigations have generally failed to lead to prosecutions and sentences commensurate with the gravity of the crimes committed, creating a culture of impunity. The Committee further notes with concern that this situation reflects a lack of effective remedies available to victims of human rights violations, which is incompatible with article 2, paragraph 3, of the Covenant (arts. 2, 6, 7).
“The State party [Thailand] should conduct full and impartial investigations into these and such other events and should, depending on the findings of the investigations, institute proceedings against the perpetrators. The State party should also ensure that victims and their families, including the relatives of missing and disappeared persons, receive adequate redress. Furthermore, it should continue its efforts to train police officers, members of the military and prison officers to scrupulously respect applicable international standards. The State party should actively pursue the idea of establishing an independent civilian body to investigate complaints filed against law enforcement officials.”
It is more than three years since the first phase of the “war on drugs”, and more than 16 months since the committee gave its findings. In that time, an unknown number of other persons have lost their lives at the hands of state officials in Thailand due to the failure of the authorities there to take seriously their commitments to international law, as well as the law of their own state. Half-hearted investigations and apologies do not satisfy their obligations. Nor does the paying of compensation and dropping of charges against wrongly-accused persons. The committee has made clear what is required: full and impartial investigations, instituting of proceedings against perpetrators, adequate redress to victims and families, and institutions to receive and follow complaints. If this much is done, high-sounding statements aspiring to uphold the rule of law will be unnecessary: the institutions themselves will do what is required, and at last serve to protect, rather than undermine, the human rights of the people of Thailand.
