Security forces using ‘blacklists’ to identify suspected insurgents
by Daniel Pedersen on Mar.26, 2009, under Southern Thailand, Thailand reportage
The Courier Mail
April 29, 2005
Bangkok
THAI security forces are using "blacklists" to identify suspected insurgents in their campaign to crush a stubborn Muslim insurgency in the country’s south.
But villagers from the region say people named on the lists are being hunted down and summarily executed by government forces.
Some have fled to neighbouring Malaysia seeking asylum, claiming Thai Government soldiers have targeted their villages in seek-and-destroy raids.
Thousands of innocent civilians have died in the conflict, which the Government says began in January 2004. Many of those killed were gunned down on lonely back roads in the early hours of the morning by assailants never identified.
Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin this week admitted blacklists were being used and questioned the process by which people were named on those lists.
He suggested personal grudges might be involved in some cases.
People on the lists are divided into four categories: suspects with arrest warrants, militant leaders, cell members and militant sympathisers.
General Sonthi’s revelations confirmed allegations that blacklists existed, claims that first surfaced in mid-2004, about six months after the situation in the south spiralled out of control.
Drive-by shootings, bombings and even beheadings are now common throughout the territory.
Under a law passed in September last year known as the "emergency decree", security forces have been granted virtual immunity in the face of human rights abuses, much to the dismay of groups such as Amnesty International.
Former prime minister and National Reconciliation Council chairman Anand Panyarachun has criticised the decree as a "licence to kill".
The NRC was formed in a bid to halt the killing and ease tensions between the region’s Muslims and Buddhists.
The Government won widespread praise for selecting Mr Anand — a man held in high esteem. But he has since become a vocal critic of the Government and its tactics.
On Thursday, the army conceded a review of the blacklists was necessary, pledging to open the way for Muslim leaders to review the names. Many people on the lists are "ustatz", or religious teachers.
So commonplace has the murder of teachers become in the region that thousands have requested transfers.
Admitting the existence of blacklists will do nothing for the Government’s standing in the south, which could hardly be worse.
ENDS
CITY EXTRA LATE
Thailand’s top administrative court last night suspended a by-election scheduled this weekend in what could be a first step towards annulling this month’s general election.
The Supreme Administrative Court ordered the Election Commission to cancel its plans to hold a third by-election today in an effort to fill the 500 seats in the lower house of parliament, on the grounds that the court was investigating whether the April 2 snap election had been conducted in an inappropriate manner.
ENDS
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