ELL: Hill Tribe Killings, Drug War, Thailand

[Matthew McDaniel]

American Citizen's Services
US Embassy Bangkok
Thailand

Dear Sir/Ma'm:

The news has commented that the USG has given $3.7 million to the Thai
Government for drug related law enforcement.

This is rather puzzling since there appears to be very little logic in
the Thai mountains if there is in sincerety a desire to stem the flow of

drugs into Thailand.  That might be refered to as the lack of consistent

police and army checkpoints. This is very irregular for the quantities
of speed pills the Wa are flooding Thailand with.  For the last two
years there have not been regular strategic checkpoints, not even during

the border confrontation of this spring.  This is not logical if in fact

the US is sponsoring a drug war here. Taxpayers would want to know that
the Thais were doing the obvious before funding them to do more than the

obvious.

People in Thailand want to buy the drugs, individuals will traffic the
drugs from sources of production in Burma along the border to these
markets if they need a lot of money, but also if they happen to be poor
in the extreme.

In more than 200 Akha villages along the Thai Burmese border it would be

very difficult to identify any project that would come close to poverty
alleviation.

So it very much appears that the drug problem in Thailand is going to
continue to be a heavy handed militarization and law enforcement sided
response to the issue.

You may not be aware that the Akha hill tribe for one thing has very few

human rights in Thailand.

In years past the US Embassy was quite aware of the forced relocations
of Akha villages supposedly related to drugs and allowed it to occur.

Waiving human rights concerns was favored for the "greater necessity" of

stopping the sale of drugs.

Even the most casual observer could readily note that for some odd
reason the drug problem is ten fold what it was then, and certainly
there is not and will not be a spirit of cooperation coming out of the
Akha community anytime now or in the future.  They have seen what bites
the hand, not what feeds the mouth.

There appears to be no one advising the Thais what is considered the
rule of law in the mountains attached to this US money.  The Thai
unofficial if not official policy, is to kill hill tribe people when
expedient in the "enforcement" of their duties.

Naturally there is no avenue of appeal for people who have no money.  Or

if they happen, like Loh Guuh, to be dead.

Two months ago an Akha man was beaten to death in Sam Yak Akha Village.
He was 56.
His name was Ah Pah.

http://www.akha.org/murder.htm

Now we are informed that that an Akha man Loh Guuh, who lived in an Akha

village in which I have a fish raising project, was entrapped into
procurring speed pills for a sting operation and was shot and killed
when the police came to buy the pills that he got for them.

Loh Guuh's village was forcibly relocated from Hua Mae Kom five years
ago.  No one protested then, no one is protesting now.  Not at least any

of the people who claim to believe in the rule of law.

Loh Guuh is dead, but that is not enough for this drug war, now the
police of Mae Chan, who shot Loh Guuh in this set up sting operation
insist that his mother and father must leave the village, they are being

evicted.

They are both over 70 years old, and his father is blind.

Is this law written down in Thailand anywhere that specifies this?
Is the US Congressional act that permits this money to be given to the
Thai government free of specifications regarding human rights?

Extra judicial killing is the game of the day here in Thailand, the
embassy knows this, from Kaeman Daeng to others, yet there is no
restriction of such activity attatched to this taxpayer money for the
Thais?

Since the Akha villages are about the only villages on the border and
since the drugs cross through their communities one way, the chemicals
the other way, if enforcement is selectively done in their communities
the arrest will be unusually high, something that is considered
PROFILING in the US.

This email is to alert you that the financing of the Thai Drug War is
the wrong move, it is a move that is killing people when poverty
alleviation could much better address the issue, when any community
outreach project would more than pay its way in drug prevention results.

Drug war sells hardware, military hardware.  Those people already have
big bucks. The cost of one humvee would liberate a lot of villages with
crops like tea and coffee.

However, there is very little indicator that any attempt has been made
at an alternative to a drug war as a war against poor people, hill
tribes.

The Thais, who have never made any secret that they want all the
hilltribe out of the mountains, are more than willing to oblige,
naturally.

This email is being mailed to over 3,000 people.

We hope they write their congress people and send them a copy of this
email.

There are easier ways to fight this drug war, there are cheaper ways to
fight it, and there are ways to fight it without killing people so poor
and desperate for money.

A blind man, like Loh Guuh's father could testify to that.

Besides that, these people can remember when they built runways for Air
America and off loaded crates of opium seeds.

Oh, forgot about that part?

Here is just one more victim in Admiral Fargo and Admiral Blair's Drug
War. And here is his family.

http://www.akha.org/murder2.htm


Sincerely,

Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand.


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