THAILAND: Reputation as Regional Centre for Rights Tarnished

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Apr 23 2004 (IPS) - Activists feel vindicated by the just-finished session of the United Nations’ premier human rights body in Geneva, because an issue troubling them – the decline of Thailand’s reputation as a centre for human rights in South-east Asia – gained international attention.

The criticism levelled at the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra at the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights was justified, some human rights activists said, pointing to the rise in the number of extrajudicial killings in the country, the intimidation of human rights and grassroots activists and the hostility towards the media.

”The performance-based type of government advocated by some of our leaders results in all types of transgressions,” says Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai academic who is pushing for the creation of a human rights mechanism for South-east Asia.

”This is the first time that a democratically elected Thai government has been taken to task for failing to meet its commitments toward human rights,” adds Sunai Phasuk, Thai representative for the New York-based rights lobby Human Rights Watch (HRW).

”The previous Thai governments criticised at the U.N. human rights commission were the military dictatorships from the past,” he told IPS. ”The last to be faulted this way was the military regime that ruled in the early ’90s.”

Bangkok was taken to task at the 60th annual sessions of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights on Mar.15 to Apr. 23, where a critical report of Thailand by Hina Jilani, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general who investigates the conditions faced by human rights defenders globally, was discussed.

”Human rights defenders exercising their right to peaceful protest, as well as defenders engaged in other human rights activities, have been targeted for judicial prosecution in a great number of instances,” Jilani states in her report to the international commission.

The report points to the filing of 580 cases against members of grassroots network who champion the cause of the country’s poor and the issuance of 118 arrest warrants against members belonging to a group advocating peasants’ rights.

Local communities protesting against the construction of a controversial gas pipeline in southern Thailand have faced ”acts of intimidation by the authorities, including surveillance of their homes by armed men,” the report adds.

Jilani also singled out the tough measures pursued by the Thai government to rid the country of narcotics in 2003, where more than 2,000 alleged drug suspects were killed, many of whom were victims of alleged extrajudicial murders.

Just as disturbing, she pointed out, was Bangkok’s treatment of human rights activists from neighbouring Burma, who have fled to Thailand to escape the clutches of the military regime in Rangoon. Those who felt the pressure included a women’s group belonging to the Shan ethnic community that has exposed the widespread cases of rape and sexual violence against Shan women by the Burmese military.

Thai soldiers have ”reportedly visited the offices of the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) in Sangklaburi, ordering the staff to reveal their names, biographies and funding sources for their health, education and democratisation activities,” the report states.

Over the years, Thailand has been seen as a safe haven for a range of people from neighbouring countries forced to flee their homes due to persecution. This country has also earned plaudits for opening its doors to tens of thousands of refugees fleeing wars and conflicts since the 1970s.

For their part, Thai human right activists used the U.N. sessions to list the other abuses they have been monitoring, including the pressures under which the Thai media are functioning.

”The scope and scale of complaints by the Thai NGOs (non-governmental organisations) were very serious than before,” says Sunai, of HRW. ”Last year, the NGOs told the U.N. committee about the extrajudicial killings that had occurred during the early stages of the ‘war on drugs.”

Bangkok, however, is putting on a brave face in the wake of the comments – including from Jilani – that the actions by the three-year-old government of Thaksin is eroding the healthy reputation Thailand has enjoyed as a regional centre for human rights.

”We were not surprised by the comments, but we don’t believe that the information presented by Hina Jilani reflected the views of the government sources she met during her visit here,” Sihasak Phuangketkeow, spokesman for the foreign affairs ministry, told IPS.

According to Sihasak, the overall human rights situation in the country still remains better than Thailand’s neighbours. ”We don’t think the human rights situation has worsened. I think our reputation as a regional centre for human rights is intact.”

But a Thai senator disagrees. ”It was inevitable that the growing abuse in the country comes up,” Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, explained in an interview. ”The abusive practices from the police during the ‘war on drugs’ was sanctioned by the government.”

He added that despite a government admission that there had been 40 cases of extrajudicial killings, ”there has not been a single trial to prosecute the perpetrators till now.”

The charges levelled at the U.N. commission cannot be taken lightly or easily dismissed, Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand’s former foreign minister, told IPS. ”The country’s credibility has diminished from being seen as a shining example in the region for all these years.”

”The country has been dealt a double blow in Geneva,” he added. ”We are no longer being seen as upholding universal standards of human rights and democracy -and we have become just the same as the rest.”