POLITICS-THAILAND: This Time, Underworld Dons Face the Heat

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 20 2003 (IPS) - The godfathers of Thailand’s underworld are the latest targets of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is appearing to be more and more of a conjurer of fantastic ‘success stories’ to prove that he runs an efficient government.

On Tuesday, the Thaksin administration began an assault on the country’s mafia dons with an objective expected to go down well with the public: The country will be rid of its godfathers by Dec. 2.

The police have already compiled a list of 850 suspects, described locally as ”dark influences” or ”influential figures” for the power they wield due to their links to organised crime.

The suspects on the ‘black lists’ compiled by the police are smugglers, casino operators, pimps, illegal arms dealers and gangland thugs, writes Kowit Sanandang in a commentary in Tuesday’s ‘Bangkok Post,’ an English-language daily.

Thaksin also expects leading figures involved in public land encroachment, illegal logging, underground lotteries and racketeering to be nabbed.

”The country will benefit economically and socially from the crackdown,” Chidchai Wannasathit, secretary-general of the Office of Narcotics Control Board, was quoted as having told ‘The Nation’, an English-language daily.

Yet that is not a complete list of the country’s mafia, say some critics, pointing fingers at the scale of organised corruption within the civil service, the police and among politicians.

Sangsidh Piriyarangsan of the National Social and Economic Advisory Council, a government body, told the local media last week that a 2001 survey revealed that the police took in close to 20 billion baht (476.2 million U.S. dollars) from illegal gambling, which is estimated to be between 1.5 to 1.8 trillion baht (35.7 to 42.85 billion dollars).

The billions of baht that those linked to organised crime rings earn was underscored following the late April arrest of one of the country’s legendary godfathers – Somchai Kunplome.

Somchai, who wielded substantial power in Chon Buri, a province south-east of Bangkok, had a business empire estimated to be close to one billion baht. ( 23.3 million dollars).

”His rise was spectacular. Fisherman. Smuggler. Land dealer. Local politician. Big national political wheel,” wrote Chang Noi, a columnist for ‘The Nation’, soon after Somchai was arrested to face a murder charge. ”Who else could say, ‘I used to have enemies in Chon Buri, but they have all died’?”

Yet in the run-up to the latest high-profile campaign, the local media have sounded the alarm over some mafia bosses being linked to an alleged plot to assassinate Thaksin.

”Drug lords and mafia bosses are trying to kill the prime minister because of his all-out war against drug dealers and the new campaign to crackdown on organised crime,” Defence Minister Thamarak Isarangura was quoted as saying.

This current effort against the leaders of organised crime comes in the wake of the Thai government’s ‘victory’ over the drug trade.

On Apr. 30, the Thaksin administration claimed that its harsh crackdown during a three-month war on drugs, launched on Feb. 1, had been a ”success”.

The juggernaut unleashed by the government resulted in over 75 percent of the drug trade in all of this South-east Asian nation’s 75 provinces being slashed, government officials said. During this period, some 1,765 major dealers in the drug trade and some 15,244 minor dealers were caught.

But human rights activists were troubled by the disturbing number of killings related to the war on drugs – an estimated 2,274 deaths, which averages out to over 25 people being killed a day during the anti-drug campaign.

On Monday, a U.N. human rights expert said that she is concerned about Thai rights activists who have raised questions about the anti-drug campaign. ”There have been concerns expressed about the security that human rights activists work with,” said Hina Jilani, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative on human rights defenders.

Thai rights activists are worried that the spate of ”extrajudicial killings” witnessed during the anti-drug campaign will be repeated during the just-launched assault on the godfathers of crime.

”We are troubled because the pattern that the government is currently following is similar to what happened during the war on drugs,” says Somchai Homlaor, secretary general of Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based regional rights lobby. ”First they made the blacklists, and then they are going after the people.”

There is no measure to check the government on this, he added. ”It is not transparent at all. Innocent people can end up victims.”

But such worries are not reflected in other quarters. From opinion polls to popular music, the government has been encouraged to push ahead with its strong anti-vice measures, rather than adhere to human rights principles.

Last week, three Thai national artists launched a song that praised the Thaksin administration for its tough measures against the drug trade. Among its lines are ‘one thousand deaths of bad men are like one dead ant,’ and ‘bad men must not have land to live’.

That should be music to Thaksin’s ears as he moves to cleanse the country of its ”dark influences”.