Thailand:
Public
Executions
of
Drug
Traffickers
Begin,
US
Troops
to
Train
Thais,
Regional
Tensions
Mount
4/20/01
Last month, DRCNet reported on the Thai government's effort to come to grips with a burgeoning methamphetamine problem fueled by imports from neighboring Burma (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/175.html#thailand and http://www.drcnet.org/wol/176.html#thaimeth). In the run up to last month's national drug summit, some ministers dared to suggest that Thailand might legalize the meth trade. Instead, the government has declared war on drug traffickers while paying lip service to treatment of addicts. In what could become a regularly scheduled spectacle, on Wednesday four condemned drug traffickers were paraded before the media in shackles before being taken inside Bangkok's maximum security Bangkwang Prison and executed. "From now on we will conduct weekly executions against drug offenders," Thai Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon told the assembled journalists. "We are executing convicted narcotics offenders quickly to send a clear signal to drug traffickers that this government is serious about taking tough action against them." Another government spokesman, announcing that the executions had taken place, added, "The Thai government wants to reassure the world that it takes the drug problem seriously." According to reports in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the South China Morning Post (both published in Hong Kong), the US military is set to get involved in the region's drug wars, a move the newspapers say is likely to increase tensions with Burma and China, both of which share borders with Thailand. After 5,000 US troops come to Thailand next month to participate in joint military exercises, a small group will stay behind to act as "instructors" for newly formed Task Force 399, a 500-man anti-drug unit manned by Thai Special Forces, two infantry companies and Thai Border Police. Twenty soldiers from the US 1st Special Forces Group will train the task force, the newspapers said. But the anti-drug mission risks provoking confrontations with the Burmese military or the 15,000-strong United Wa State Army, a Burmese ethnic army outside of Rangoon's control which supplies the bulk of the cross-border meth trade. And that could bring in the Chinese. China is the Burmese junta's closest ally and major arms supplier. The Wa rebels also carry Chinese weapons, now including surface-to-air missiles, and are helping Beijing construct a road network through their area of northeast Burma. Task Force 399 is also causing grumbling among nationalistic elements of the Thai military. "This is raising some concern among progressive ranking officers," Panitan Wattanayagorn, a Chulalongkorn University military affairs scholar, told the Review. Maj.-Gen. Anu Sumitra, the 3rd Army intelligence chief, told the Review the task force will not confront Burmese troops but will stay on the Thai side of the border. Even so, said Panitan, "There is an increasing risk of confrontation, but both sides stand to lose from confrontation. The government must not make the Burmese feel we are representing the West." China, for its part, agreed last month to a Thai proposal for regional cooperation against drug trafficking and has helped move tens of thousands of Wa from the northern border with China to Burma's southern border with Thailand. Thai intelligence officials told the Review they suspect China wants to keep a close eye on US military moves in northern Thailand. Meanwhile, a power struggle in the Burmese junta between army commander Gen. Maung Aye and the junta's first secretary, Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt adds another complicating factor. Maung Aye is said to have close ties to the Wa State Army, while Knin Nyunt is a bitter foe. What is shaping up is a fluid and dangerous situation along the Thai-Burmese border. The drug-smuggling Wa are supported by Maung Aye, opposed by Knin Nyunt, armed by China -- which now wants to be part of the anti-drug effort -- and are facing off against the Thai military backed by US Special Forces. "If not handled properly, this could be even messier than Colombia," one Western intelligence official told the Review.
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