Licence to kill - the battle against drugs in Thailand
On Dateline on Wednesday, April 2 at 8.30pm David O’Shea
reports on the Thai government’s crackdown on drugs in which over 1500
people have died since January. The victims include a one-year-old child
and a pregnant woman.
The frontline in Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawat’s war on drugs is
the Thai police who are under threat of dismissal if they do not meet
government targets.
The success of the campaign is being measured in statistics – which means
numbers of addicts arrested or killed. O’Shea attends a crisis meeting of
a provincial police force in Chiang Rai, held in response to government
criticism of its poor performance. Twenty-four hours later the force’s
performance has “improved” – six people associated with drugs have been
shot dead.
Opposition senator Kraisak Choohawan and forensic scientist Dr Pornthip
claim police are fabricating evidence to hide their involvement with the
killings – including planting pills on corpses. Even the deputy commander
of the Chiang Rai police admits that some of his force are involved in
the killings, but says that it is justified as self defence.
To effectively stop the drug trade the government will have to tackle two
main roots of the problem – the involvement of large sections of the Thai
establishment in the trade and the manufacture and supply of drugs from
Burma. Prime Minister Thaksin has spoken of a black list of powerful Thai
figures – including military, police and government – which has 700 names
on it. He insists he will act on the list but so far no serious action
has been taken.
That’s Dateline , this Wednesday April 2 at 8.30 pm.
