Christian
Science Monitor
When
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra swept to victory here in January,
he said his government would focus on three main areas: rooting
out corruption, saving the beleaguered economy, and combating
drugs with increased vigor.
The
public and pundits may dispute his intentions, let alone his
success with the 1st 2 goals. But there is no arguing that he is
fulfilling his promise to hit hard on drug criminals.
Thailand's
escalation in its war on drugs was most evident on April 18, when
it executed four convicted drug traffickers at the Bangkwang
Maximum Security Prison in Bangkok. 2 of those executed were
foreigners - a Hong Kong national and a Taiwan national. One week
before, the government went ahead with its 1st execution since it
came to power, and the 1st of a drug offender in years.
But
not only were the latest executions carried out by firing squad,
one after the other, the news media was invited to cover the
prisoners' last moments, after they were informed at 4 p.m. that
they were to be executed just one hour later. Reporters were not
present at the execution, but pictures of the convicts eating
their last meals and kissing the earth filled television reports
that evening and newspapers the next day."Right now, in China
and Malaysia, they do the same thing," Deputy Prime Minister
Gen. Thammarak Isurangura told the Monitor in a statement
explaining why the media was invited. "We need to have the
population be afraid of committing offenses such as these, and be
submissive to the law.
"Strong
public support
Indeed,
in contrast to weakening support in the United States for the
death penalty, the latest poll taken by the Rajjapatra Institute
in Bangkok showed that 88.4 % of Thais support capital punishment.
In a 2000 Harris poll, 64 % of Americans approved, versus 75 % in
1997.
Currently,
7 drug traffickers are on death row at Bangkwang and 180 other
convicted drug criminals have been sentenced to die, but have not
yet exhausted their appeals. A total of 318 inmates, 288 men and
30 women, are on death row for various crimes.According to
Chartchai Suthiklom, the deputy secretary general of the Office of
Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), capital punishment is a useful
tool in their war, and is a punishment that fits the crime.
"The punishment is quite high, but is meant for the
big-timers, and it's not only Thailand that has execution,"
Mr. Chartchai says. "The method of punishment must actually
punish the perpetrator, and if you look at drug criminals, they
are worse than murderers. Murderers kill one person, a drug dealer
kills 1,000, and kills the future of the country as well, so why
not give them the highest punishment?"Although cultivation of
drugs such as opium and marijuana, and the production of heroin
and methamphetamines, has decreased considerably here due to
highly successful crop eradication programs, Thailand still finds
itself a major transit hub of illicit narcotics.As part of the
"Golden Triangle," the flow of drugs into Thailand from
neighboring Burma, and to a lesser extent, Laos and Cambodia, is
still rampant, and is now the main target of Thailand's
counter-narcotics operations. While figures on the quantity of
narcotics being smuggled through Thailand are difficult to
estimate, several seizures - each consisting of dozens of
kilograms of heroin and millions of methamphetamine pills over the
last year - indicate the drug trade here is alive and kicking.
While
many of the drugs flowing through Thailand eventually find their
way out of the country, drug use among Thais continues to rise,
and is used by the government as further justification for the
hard line on drug traffickers.
According
to the ONCB, there are now 300,000 Thais addicted to drugs, and 2
million casual users, in a country of 66 million. Moreover, they
are not using "softer" drugs like marijuana - the most
frequently consumed drug is the highly addictive stimulant,
methamphetamine. This, Chartchai says, signifies the need to do
"whatever it takes" to fight those who are bringing
drugs into the country.
Rising
prison population
And
the results are clear. According to the ONCB, in 1992, Thailand
had a total prison population of 54,955, of which just under 1/4h
were incarcerated for drug crimes. In 1999, the last year for
which figures are available, the prison population had risen to
115,079, 50 % of whom were incarcerated for drug crimes.While the
executions met with approval from the general public, the
government - and the prime minister in particular - received
condemnation from international nongovernmental groups for both
extending the death penalty to drug criminals and foreigners, and
creating the spectacle to drive home the point."By using
execution, you just take one life, and that doesn't mean that it's
going to solve the problems of poverty and lack of education that
contribute to the drug problem in the first place. People still
won't understand how bad the problem is," says Saovanee
Limmanont, executive director of Amnesty International Thailand."I
agree with [Prime Minister] Thaksin when he said there must be
some fight against the drug problem," adds Ms. Saovanee.
"But not the death penalty - that's not the answer. The other
thing is that using those executions, making a spectacle of it to
the public, is not fair to the family of the inmates. They
shouldn't use execution as a PR tool."Whether it was
international pressure, or Thai uneasiness over the media hype,
something about the way in which the April 18 executions were
carried out has led to a reversal on the media-coverage policy.
When the next execution takes place, the media will not be there
as witnesses. Some speculate that perhaps the identity of the next
person on death row had something to do with it: What would public
reaction be to the coverage of a woman's last hours?According to
Thammarak, the reasoning behind the reversal is that the point the
government wished to make - that drug traffickers will be dealt
with harshly - has been sufficiently made.But while the point may
have been made to the public, prisoners should not expect any show
of mercy. "There are no exceptions to the law.... The judge
can make a decision [on sentencing] and we must accept his
decision once he does," Chartchai says. "Everyone is
equal when you commit a crime in this country.... Otherwise, [criminals]
will think Thailand is a haven for committing crime."(source:
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