Aug 29, 2007
By Peter Janssen
DPA
Bangkok - In 2003 Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched his War on Drugs, a police-led campaign to staunch a flood of methamphetamine pills made in illicit labs along the Thai-Myanmar border into the kingdom.
The three-month-long war claimed 2,500 victims of extra-judicial slayings, supposedly drug traffickers, and immediately placed Thailand in the international dog house for gross human rights violations.
Thaksin, deposed by a coup on September 19 may still go to court for masterminding the slayings. A special commission has been set up to determine his culpability, with results expected within 10 months.
'There are at least 80 cases that have been thoroughly reviewed in which it's been proven that the victims had nothing to do with drugs,' said Kraisak Choonhavan, a member of the commission. 'There was a huge injustice done to Thailand in the name of the war on drugs.'
Worse still, it didn't even solve Thailand's methamphetamine problem.
Methamphetamines, also called yaa baa, or crazy drugs, were made illegal in Thailand in 1996, about the same time that crime syndicates operating the heroin trade out of northern Myanmar started switching to synthetic stimulants.
Thailand, Myanmar's neighbour to the south, became the chief market and transit route for the new drugs.
In 2000, Thai authorities estimated the methamphetamine production in the Shan State of Myanmar, at 1 billion pills, based on the 100 million seized in Thailand.
Thaksin, a populist politician elected prime minister in 2001, decided heavy-handedness was the best solution to the problem.
The mass slayings of suspected methamphetamine pushers did reduce abuse, for a while, but it hardly eliminated demand for drugs among Thai youths, the main market for the stimulants.
The crackdown also gave rise to a surge in abuse among Thailand's neighbours, Laos and Cambodia.
'The traffic route essentially shifted away from Thailand into Laos and down the Mekong River in Cambodia,' said Jeremy Douglas, the Bangkok-based regional project coordinator for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 'So you see this huge surge in abuse in those two countries, simultaneous with the war on drugs.'
Methamphetamines are now readily available again in Thailand, with many of the pills being imported across the border from Laos and Cambodia, according to drug authorities.
But the damage done by the war on drugs to Thailand's reputation abroad and to Thai society remains.
Since Thailand made methamphetamine use illegal in 1996, the number of young people imprisoned has doubled. Last year, for example, some 51,457 Thais were arrested on amphetamine-related charges, or 75 per cent of total drug arrests made.
Prior to 1996, methamphetamines were available legally as a stimulant popular among truck drivers and students cramming for exams.
'If you look at it from a societal public health point of view it's a complete disaster,' said one foreign expert who has been studying the impact of the crackdown on methamphetamines in northern Thailand. 'It's a catastrophe because you have all these young people going into prison where they will be exposed to high-risk behaviour like tattooing, rape and whatever,' said the foreign health worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
A good place to check out the societal impact of Thaksin's war is Klong Toey slum in Bangkok, once the reputed hub for the capital's booming methamphetamine trade.
At least 10 alleged methamphetamine dealers in Klong Toey were killed during the war, but Father Joe Maier, a Catholic priest who has been running the Mercy Centre in the slum for 37 years, opined that only four of the victims were genuine drug dealers.
'The sin here was heavy-handedness,' said Maier. 'And secondly, no one really wanted to stop the drugs because everyone knows that if you want to stop drugs you have to have pride in the community.'
'There was no money put in to better schools, better drug rehabilitation programmes and that sort of stuff. That's my anger,' said Maier.
The three-month-long war claimed 2,500 victims of extra-judicial slayings, supposedly drug traffickers, and immediately placed Thailand in the international dog house for gross human rights violations.
Thaksin, deposed by a coup on September 19 may still go to court for masterminding the slayings. A special commission has been set up to determine his culpability, with results expected within 10 months.
'There are at least 80 cases that have been thoroughly reviewed in which it's been proven that the victims had nothing to do with drugs,' said Kraisak Choonhavan, a member of the commission. 'There was a huge injustice done to Thailand in the name of the war on drugs.'
Worse still, it didn't even solve Thailand's methamphetamine problem.
Methamphetamines, also called yaa baa, or crazy drugs, were made illegal in Thailand in 1996, about the same time that crime syndicates operating the heroin trade out of northern Myanmar started switching to synthetic stimulants.
Thailand, Myanmar's neighbour to the south, became the chief market and transit route for the new drugs.
In 2000, Thai authorities estimated the methamphetamine production in the Shan State of Myanmar, at 1 billion pills, based on the 100 million seized in Thailand.
Thaksin, a populist politician elected prime minister in 2001, decided heavy-handedness was the best solution to the problem.
The mass slayings of suspected methamphetamine pushers did reduce abuse, for a while, but it hardly eliminated demand for drugs among Thai youths, the main market for the stimulants.
The crackdown also gave rise to a surge in abuse among Thailand's neighbours, Laos and Cambodia.
'The traffic route essentially shifted away from Thailand into Laos and down the Mekong River in Cambodia,' said Jeremy Douglas, the Bangkok-based regional project coordinator for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 'So you see this huge surge in abuse in those two countries, simultaneous with the war on drugs.'
Methamphetamines are now readily available again in Thailand, with many of the pills being imported across the border from Laos and Cambodia, according to drug authorities.
But the damage done by the war on drugs to Thailand's reputation abroad and to Thai society remains.
Since Thailand made methamphetamine use illegal in 1996, the number of young people imprisoned has doubled. Last year, for example, some 51,457 Thais were arrested on amphetamine-related charges, or 75 per cent of total drug arrests made.
Prior to 1996, methamphetamines were available legally as a stimulant popular among truck drivers and students cramming for exams.
'If you look at it from a societal public health point of view it's a complete disaster,' said one foreign expert who has been studying the impact of the crackdown on methamphetamines in northern Thailand. 'It's a catastrophe because you have all these young people going into prison where they will be exposed to high-risk behaviour like tattooing, rape and whatever,' said the foreign health worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
A good place to check out the societal impact of Thaksin's war is Klong Toey slum in Bangkok, once the reputed hub for the capital's booming methamphetamine trade.
At least 10 alleged methamphetamine dealers in Klong Toey were killed during the war, but Father Joe Maier, a Catholic priest who has been running the Mercy Centre in the slum for 37 years, opined that only four of the victims were genuine drug dealers.
'The sin here was heavy-handedness,' said Maier. 'And secondly, no one really wanted to stop the drugs because everyone knows that if you want to stop drugs you have to have pride in the community.'
'There was no money put in to better schools, better drug rehabilitation programmes and that sort of stuff. That's my anger,' said Maier.
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