Chapter 7 - The APEC Security Ritual: Laying the Groundwork for Martial Law . ...... In a USA Today-style infographic entitled âMission Accomplishedâ ...... he was reportedly told by a high ranking police officer, âThe wind, cloud and rain are.
CONSTRUCTING ORDER THROUGH CHAOS: A STATE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE THAI POLICE
by
Eric J. Haanstad
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Anthropology)
at the
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
2008
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TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I: THAILAND‘S STATE OF EXCEPTION: A HISTORICAL AUTOPSY .. 4 Chapter 1 – An Introduction: Constructing State Order Through Chaos ........................... 7 The Problem of Police in the Social Sciences ............................................................. 8 The Role of the Police in the Imagined State ............................................................ 11 Constructing Order through Chaos .......................................................................... 17 Spectacular Ritual Displays ...................................................................................... 19 Performances of Violent Coercion............................................................................ 23 Assertions of Economic Dominance ......................................................................... 26 Covert/Overt Informational Control ......................................................................... 29 The State of Chaos .................................................................................................... 32 State Ethnography: Methods and Approaches ......................................................... 33 Humanistic Approaches to the Police: Protecting the Protectors ............................. 40 Structure of the Dissertation ..................................................................................... 41 Chapter 2 - A Brief History of the Thai Police ................................................................. 47 Early Western Policing in Europe ............................................................................ 49 Indic Policing in the early Tai Empires .................................................................... 52 Tai Kings and Royal Protection ................................................................................ 54 History of the “Modern” Thai Police ....................................................................... 59 The British Constabulary Model ............................................................................... 60 Police in Thailand after World War II ...................................................................... 69 The US-Thai ―Special Relationship‖ ........................................................................ 71 Police Gen. Phao and the Knights of the Diamond Ring ......................................... 72 US Counterinsurgency in Thailand after Phao ......................................................... 78 Thai Police in the Post-Cold War Global Police Network ....................................... 84 Thaksin‘s Police/State ............................................................................................... 86 SECTION CONCLUSION: Displays of Order in Thai Police History ........................ 89 SECTION II: THAI DRUG SUPPRESSION AND THE 2003 WAR ON DRUGS ........ 92 Chapter 3 - An Introduction to Thai Drug Suppression .................................................... 96 The State of Drugs in Thailand ............................................................................... 104 The Origin of the Golden Triangle ......................................................................... 105 The Cold War, KMT, CIA and Police General Phao ............................................. 108 Burma, SLORC and the Rise of Yaa baa ................................................................ 113 Crafting Yaa Maa: The Global Marketing of ATS................................................. 120 Red Bull, Krating Daeng (Red Gaurs) Legal Stimulant Economies ...................... 128 Yaa Baa Nation: The Rise of Thai ATS Culture ..................................................... 134 Performing the Thai Drug Suppression Strategy.................................................... 143 Confession, Shame and Merit in Thai Drug Suppression ....................................... 157 Chapter 4 - The State Demands Sacrifices: The 2003 Drug Suppression Campaign ..... 162 The Leadup to the Drug Campaign ........................................................................ 162 Declaration of the War on Drugs ........................................................................... 168 Blacklists and Growing Deathtolls ......................................................................... 170 Night Club Raids and the Political Economy of Drug Testing ............................... 174 The Reward System ................................................................................................ 180 Citizen Spies and Anti-Drug Pop Culture ............................................................... 185
3 The Death of Chakkrapan Srisa-ard (a.k.a. Fluke) ................................................ 199 The Killings Go Underground ................................................................................ 203 Suwit Baison ........................................................................................................... 205 ―Rehabilitation‖ Programs and Citizen Surveillance .............................................. 208 The Militarization and Centralization of Drug Suppression ................................... 215 Statistics, small-time dealers, and government officials ......................................... 216 The Interim False ―Victory‖ Declaration ................................................................ 224 Final Countdown: “Sixty Days for His Majesty the King” .................................... 243 An interview with ―Dr. Death‖ (Khunying Phorntip) ............................................. 248 Chaiyo: “Victory” .................................................................................................. 251 ―Warre of every man against every man‖: The Endless Drug War ........................ 277 SECTION CONCLUSION: The Inexhaustible Chaos of Drugs ............................... 280 Chapter 5 - Dark Influence and Massage Parlor Magnates ............................................ 284 Thailand‟s Covert Netherworld .............................................................................. 285 Leadup to the Dark Influence Campaign ................................................................ 291 Declaration of the War on Dark Influences ............................................................ 298 Chuwit Kamolvisit................................................................................................... 306 The Political Utilities of the Dark Influence Campaign ......................................... 316 Prelude to Martial Law: Weapons Confiscations ................................................... 316 SECTION CONCLUSION: Beyond Chuwit ............................................................. 320 SECTION IV: THAILAND‘S TERROR NARRATIVE ............................................... 325 Chapter 6 – Counter-terror and Coercion: Police Paramilitary Units, Elite Protection Spectacles and Riot Squads ............................................................................................ 329 Chaos and Order in the Anti-Cambodia Counter-Riot ........................................... 337 Paramilitary Police Training and the Performance of Ordered Coercion ............... 344 Elite Protection, Royal Spectacle and Special Patrol ............................................ 349 Chapter 7 - The APEC Security Ritual: Laying the Groundwork for Martial Law ........ 364 The Executive Decrees of 2003 ............................................................................... 364 The Executive Decrees and the Economic Dominance of AMLO ......................... 372 Operation Black Magic: The Arrest of Hambali .................................................... 375 Security Preparations for APEC: The Leviathan‟s Lair......................................... 400 Pre-APEC Social Control and Public Order Operations......................................... 412 The missile smuggling plot, citizen surveillance, and activist bans ....................... 414 The APEC Summit and its Aftermath ...................................................................... 435 Spectacles of the Globalist Elite after APEC .......................................................... 443 The Shadow State: Terrorists and Insurgents ......................................................... 447 Fanning the Southern Flames ................................................................................. 454 SECTION CONCLUSION: Enacting Thailand‘s Terror Narrative .......................... 459 Chapter 8 - Conclusion ................................................................................................... 462 Redeeming Asia‘s Keystone Kops.............................................................................. 464 Good Cop, Bad Cop: The Royalist Junta ―vs.‖ Thaksin ............................................. 466 The Façade: Revisiting the Theatre State ................................................................... 468 Order and Chaos in Human Consciousness ................................................................ 472 NOTES ............................................................................................................................ 477 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 481
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SECTION I: THAILAND’S STATE OF EXCEPTION: A HISTORICAL AUTOPSY In January of 2004, former Thai Prime Minister and Royal Thai Police Lt. Col., Thaksin Shiniwatra, declared martial law in three provinces in Southern Thailand, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, a supposedly necessary response to growing acts of violence perpetrated by unknown agents. As the bombings, disappearances and assassinations became an emergent ―insurgency,‖ this initial declaration was codified by the 2005 Executive Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations, which the Thaksin government assured, ―is not against the rule of law, human rights, or democratic administration, as long as it is imposed only as necessary‖ (Government Public Relations Department 2005). Despite these ―limitations,‖ this decree could be invoked in other emergencies, including violent disturbances, public disasters, and terrorist incidents (Ibid.). When Thaksin was deposed in a military coup on 19 Sept 2006, the royallybacked junta cancelled upcoming elections, suspended the Constitution, dissolved Parliament, banned protests and all political activities, censored the media, arrested Cabinet members, and declared nation-wide martial law. This declaration remains in effect in many provinces even after 28 Jan 2008, when ―People Party Program‖ (PPP) head and former Bangkok Governor, Samak Sundaravej, widely seen as ―Thaksin‘s proxy‖ (Fuller 29 Jan 2008; Kazmin 29 Jan 2008) was elected Prime Minister.1
1
Under the Thai junta, the Internal Security Bill passed in Nov 2007, prompting one commentator to write, ―martial law will become a part of daily life even without the government having to resort to declaring it because the Internal Security Act grants them similar powers without the negative tag of ‗martial law‘‖ (Pravit 13 Nov 2007).
5 Thus, Thailand remains in a state of exception, Georgio Agamben‘s characterization of a space of coercive expression that blurs the distinction between law and lawlessness (2005): The state of exception is an anomic space in which what is at stake is a force of law without law (which should therefore be written: force-of-law). Such a ―force-of-law,‖ in which potentiality and act are radically separated, is certainly something like a mystical element, or rather a fictio by means of which law seeks to annex anomie itself. But how is it possible to conceive of such a ―mystical‖ element and the way it acts in the state of exception? This is precisely the problem that we must try to clarify (2005:39). As Begoña Aretxaga notes, building on Agamben and his intellectual influences (Hardt & Negri 2000; Schmitt 1985: [1922]), ―in this particular order, lawfulness and unlawfulness, execution and transgression of the law become indistinguishable ‗such that what violates a rule and what conforms to it coincide‘‖ (2003:405 citing Agamben 2005:57). The voluntary creation of permanent states of emergency is not unique or exceptional. For Agamben, the state of exception ―has become one of the essential practices of contemporary states, including so-called democratic ones‖ (Ibid. 2). Walter Benjamin agrees that ―the state of emergency in which we live is not the exception but the rule‖ (1968:257). One task for those who study societies ruled by permanent states of exception is to offer an answer to Foucault‘s question, ―What is the place of this law that is beyond the law?‖ (1982:198). This dissertation is an anthropological autopsy of the Thai state, now exhibiting a permanent state of exception, with a royally-backed elite military government on one ―side‖ of the political landscape and a ―police-friendly‖ elected leadership of draconian bureaucrats on the other. It is a forensic examination of an exceptionally formative year in Thai state history: 2003. The three campaigns of Thai state order in 2003 – nationally-
6 declared wars on drugs, corruption, and terror – led directly to ceaseless violence in Thailand‘s South (which radically intensified in January of 2004) and a permanent state of martial law, which still exists in many provinces even after recent elections restored ―democratic normalcy‖ to some parts of the country. Like Bruno Latour‘s example of the Italian firemen smashing the Turin shroud‘s protective glass to save it from impending destruction (2002:14), the Thai junta staged the coup purportedly to save the state‘s fragile democracy from ex-Police Lt. Col. Thaksin‘s corrupt abuses. Now that this threatened democracy has restored Thaksin loyalists to power, Thailand‘s routinized state of exception remains, and the supposed rivalry of these two factions reveals itself as political theater. The bloodless chaos of the coup, like the rampant abuses that supposedly justified it, are intrinsic to the construction of state order. This counter-intuitive symbiosis is inherent to the contemporary theater state and its numerous enemies. As many Southeast Asian literature specialists explain, the region‘s art and religious literature are notably not about battles between good and evil, but about the interplay between chaos and order (Bickner 10 Oct 2001; Geertz 1994). As this interplay is performed by state-makers and their attendant state-unmakers, this apparent conflict is nothing less than the interplay of form and non-form, as paradoxical as it is profound.
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Chapter 1 – An Introduction: Constructing State Order Through Chaos A confused and shapeless mass, such as is supposed to have existed before God reduced creation into order...Hence, Ordo ab chao, or, Order out of chaos, is one of the mottoes of the Institution. Albert G. Mackey (1900:16) Get the thing straight once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder. Richard J. Daley, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, 1968 As Agamben (2005) and the growing number of anthropologists examining states of exception assert, the state is not a stable entity, but rather an inherently problematic process of continual construction (Das & Poole 2004; Hansen & Stepputat 2001:5). Despite the appearance of states as regimes of overwhelming order and control, chaos and disorder (expressed in violence, illegal economies, oppositional forces, etc.) are the necessary basis of the state construction process. State-makers create the façade of order through techniques that attempt to manipulate the fundamental cultural and metaphysical source from which order derives: chaos and disorder. Using the Thai police as central performative agents, this dissertation examines how states construct the appearance of order through four interrelated methods: spectacular ritual displays, performances of violent coercion, assertions of economic dominance, and covert/overt informational control. It argues that these four interwoven methods all rely on the state‘s attempt to manage chaos and manipulate disorder. In 2003, when I conducted my primary fieldwork in Thailand, three major policeled campaigns of state order were used to create and maintain the Thai state: the Drug Suppression Campaign (or War on Drugs), the War on Dark Influences, and the War on Terror which began with a series of anti-terror executive decrees and the arrest of Riduan
8 Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali. Thailand‘s terror narrative was reproduced and expanded in the service of preparations for the unprecedented security control grid for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in October. The rising state obsession with the threatening chaos of terror and counter-terror throughout 2003 contributed directly to the dramatic rise of violence in Southern Thailand. In turn, the violent excesses, unchecked governmental corruption, and security obsessions of Thaksin‘s police-friendly government were employed as justification for the military regime that seized power in 2006, ushering in Thailand‘s state of exception. Thus, this state ethnography dissects an unprecedented period of Thai state history in which the police, the ubiquitously influential but theoretically overlooked agents of the state, were central actors in the state construction of order through chaos.
The Problem of Police in the Social Sciences Just as one lamp can disperse the darkness of a thousand years, one thought of wisdom can destroy ten thousand years of delusion. Three Bodies of a Buddha (Epstein 2003:190) Like the ―ten thousand things‖ describing Buddhist fundamental reality, the Library of Congress contains more than ten thousand references to the police, an enormous amount of scholarly attention. Nevertheless, until recently, outside of the occupationally-oriented ―police sciences,‖ police are highly undertheorized within the academy. For his part, Brunel University‘s Mark Neocleous heroically seeks ―to recover the concept of police from the backwater of ‗police studies‘ and to resituate it into the mainstream of social and political theory‖ (2000:x). Despite the largely peripheral position of the police to studies of the politics of the state, some scholars do examine the political role of the police and its relationship to state power (Blaufarb 1977; Enloe 1980;
9 Reiner 2000). Likewise, other researchers have proposed that modern police systems developed through the organization of political power, prolonged resistance to the government, and the failure of relations between community and authority (Bayley 1975). Outside of these evaluations from the political science community, the massive amount of material in criminal justice and criminology generally does not focus on the relationships of local police forces to state power or global interaction (with some recent exceptions such as Mawby 1999; Sheptycki 2000). Moreover, despite the continued growth and radical expansion of militarized police operations since the early 1970s, little academic attention is devoted to this trend (Jefferson 1990; Kraska & Kappeler 1999). When the police are directly investigated in the social sciences, topics usually focus on police management issues such as the use of non-lethal force, posttraumatic stress disorder, practical training issues, and the occupational minutiæ of police studies. Sociological examinations of the police are more broadly construed and do include direct examinations of police culture. There are several sociological ethnographies of local police departments in the United Kingdom (Brewer & Magee 1991; Holdaway 1983; Young 1991) and numerous studies of police practices in Western Europe and the United States (Buckner 1967; Drummond 1976; Harris 1971; Manning 1977; Morris & Heal 1981; Perlmutter 2000; Punch 1979; Smith & Henry 2007). However, within sociology there are effectively no ethnographic studies of police practices outside these countries (for a recent exception see: Marks 2005) or of the increasingly transnational nature of policing and its militarized components. Similarly, political science, which appears to be the discipline most concerned with national security matters, generally confines itself to policy-level analysis of police.
10 Thus, excellent studies of international police politics (Andreas 2000; Huggins 1998; Hughes 1994; Lobe 1977; Reiner 2000; Stenson & Sullivan 2001) lack the ethnographic context of everyday experience. Anthropologists could provide this context, but despite decades-old calls to ―study up‖ and focus the ethnographic lens on the agents of social power (Nader 1972), the discipline virtually ignores the police as an avenue of direct ethnographic research, with one recent exception (Barker 1999). In anthropology as well as many other disciplines, the police are important, but nevertheless peripheral actors to discussions about crime and state/anti-state violence (Abrahams 1998; Adler 1993; Baxter 2001; Caldeira 2000) limiting the holistic scope of the discipline. Despite some of the deficiencies in the treatment of the police in the social sciences, a growing body of ―police and society‖ (Vollmer 1969) literature is beginning to give this topic the academic attention it deserves (Bratton et al 1997; Chambliss 1999; Glaeser 2000; Scheingold 1997). These theorists examine the dialectic between police groups and society, exploring how police influence cultural formations, and vice versa. They also illuminate connections between the dialectic of police/society and symbolic power (Loader 1997) and the geography of policing (1997) However, one of the major deficiencies in this body of work is its lack of a fully international scope: like much of criminal justice and criminological work, its subjects remain almost thoroughly based in Western nations. There is a growing body of excellent global police histories (Nadelmann 1993; Rawlings 2002; Wadman & Allison 2004) which could be linked more directly to the debate regarding globalization vs. the influence of the state (Evans 1997; Strange 1997). Unfortunately this debate generally confines itself to a relatively narrow economic focus (Appadurai 1996). Trends in international policing, with yearly
11 (and, in recent months, weekly) increases in the number of bilateral and unilateral agreements, extradition treaties, international training efforts, intelligence and surveillance networks makes expanding the scope of this debate a vital necessity. International policing is a case where globalization is actually expanding state power by providing support for enhanced police capacities (Andreas & Nadelmann 2006; Nadelmann 1993). Thus, this dissertation works toward placing the Thai police in a global perspective, to contribute not only to literature regarding globalization and the state (Bull 1977; Holton 1998; Suter 2003) but also to broader discussions in the social sciences regarding the mechanisms of state power and social control (Foucault 1977; Fried 1967; Janowitz 1977; Moore 1966; Tilly 1990; Weber 1976). As I examine in Chapter 2, the integration of the Thai police into networks of global policing is a continuation of long-standing historical processes which link the Indic police traditions of the Angkor kings to comparatively recent phenomena of international police cooperation in the post-colonial ―global village‖ (Deflem 2002; McDonald 1997).
The Role of the Police in the Imagined State In contrast to the relative lack of attention anthropologists pay to policing, anthropological and sociological theories of the state abound. Many theoretical conceptions of the state build on Weber‘s classic definition, ―The state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory‖ (1972:2 italics and parenthesis in original). In many anthropological theories of the state, the state is synonymous with coercive force: in short, the state is its own violent legacy. Furthermore, within the state‘s claimed domestic territory, police groups are the central actors in coercive expression. Bourdieu‘s
12 ―capital of physical force‖ concept extends this Weberian definition (in Steinmetz 1999). In one of Bourdieu‘s last published essays prior to his death, ―Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field,‖ he adds this concept to his theory of symbolic capital, making practice theory compatible with theories of the state (1977). He draws a distinction between an emerging state‘s need to protect itself externally through the military and internally through police forces. Bourdieu‘s capital of physical force can be multiplied by police coercion (both physical violence and demonstrations of the capacity for physical force) and exchanged for other kinds of capital useful to the state. For Bourdieu, this process translates into the use of force to maintain other forms of capital. This theory of state power uses the metaphor of capitalism throughout and depicts a monopoly on symbolic, coercive, economic, and ideological capital as the ultimate goal of the state. Accordingly, my theoretical framework of four interrelated methods states employ to construct the appearance of order is based on Bourdieu‘s theory of state power: spectacular ritual displays (symbolic capital), performances of violent coercion (coercive capital), assertions of economic dominance (economic capital), and covert/overt informational control (ideological capital). In the late 20th century, anthropologists and globalization theorists observed a worldwide weakening of modern states and, in some cases, predicted their eventual replacement and disappearance (Appadurai 1993; Evans 1997; Kearney 1995; Ong 1999; Scott 1998; Tsing 2000). Nevertheless, the undeniable resiliency of the state, Geertz‘s towering ―master noun of political discourse‖ (Geertz 1980:121), led once again to the
13 state‘s theoretical resurgence.2 Recently, anthropologists are witnessing a secondary reassertion of the continued importance of states within the context of globalization. As Begoña Aretxaga‘s posthumous essay notes, ―Globalization is not only compatible with statehood; it has actually fueled the desire for it‖ (2003:395). More than a decade ago, Carole Nagengast counted twenty-two new states created since the fall of the Berlin wall (1994). Many more new nation-states have formed since her influential essay on the illusion of state conformity and unity. At the heart of Nagengast‘s ―crisis of the state‖ is the diverse range of actors vying for control of the varieties of capital that states command (Bourdieu 1999), including an imagery of power which masks political fear and desire (Aretxaga 2003:294). The state‘s ongoing crisis supposedly resulted from failed assertions of legitimacy necessitating state repression (Nagengast 1994:110). However, Nagengast‘s ―crisis of the state‖ fails to explain the necessity of disorder to the state project itself. While there may be an apparent crisis which state-makers employ to justify ethnocide and other forms of repression, the emergent conflict and chaotic opposition are absolutely necessary to the state construction of order. Louis Althusser‘s influential concept of repressive and ideological state apparatuses can be similarly contextualized and expanded from the perspective of intrinsic state chaos. In Althusser‘s terms, the police are part of the highly-public ―(Repressive) State Apparatuses,‖ (RSAs) functioning primarily by violence within the larger framework of private Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), such as educational and religious institutions, which function by ideology (Althusser 1971:145). Althusser is
2
This renewed academic undertaking, once again ―bringing the state back in‖ (Evans et al 1985), was a project with roots in Theda Skocpol‘s groundbreaking States and Social Revolutions (1979).
14 quick to assert that (Repressive) State Apparatus (RSAs), such as the police and military also function ideologically, and that Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) ―function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately…attenuated and concealed, even symbolic‖ (Ibid.). Both RSAs and ISAs must be contextualized within the framework of the chaotic and disordered ―threats‖ which make them possible. Beginning partially with Althusser‘s inclusion of the symbolic and concealed aspects of state institutions, social theorists began to move beyond conceptualizing the state as a purely repressive, reified entity. Michel Foucault challenged the idea of the state as a monolithic center of power, by creating a concept a multiplicity of forces and fields (1977; 1978; 1991). While not disputing Foucault‘s theoretical legacy, and while retaining his non-monolithic vision of the state, I would like to move somewhat beyond the Foucaldian gaze on the impenetrable forces of state social control by focusing on literal state agents. Regardless of how effectively the police control social order in states, they constantly need to maintain their perceived monopoly of legitimacy. Police must constantly create and combat insurgency by non-state actors as well as manage and suppress internal dissent and delinquency. These operation of managed chaos and manipulated dissent are not adequately accounted for under Foucault‘s model of totalizing social control. State agents, the absent performers of the Foucauldian vision, require the creation of criminal enemies to justify their existence. This symbiosis is especially true Thailand where, as Ben Anderson documents, there are long periods of history in which the Thai state lacked credible external threats (Anderson 1978). As the geo-body of Thailand‘s amorphous pre-modern frontier transformed into a definitive territorial interface,
15 amorphous areas of chaotic threat transformed into demarcated zones of bureaucratic order (Thongchai 1994:101). As Talal Asad suggests, following Vena Das, ―the sovereign force of the law is expressed in the state‘s continual attempts to overcome the margin‖ (2004:287). The horde of criminalized threats at Thailand‘s margins - bandits, insurgents, separatists, narco-traffickers, and terrorists - are intrinsic to its state-building process. From this pantheon of threats, police maintain cycles of criminality in order to justify higher budgets and expanded police powers. The role of police in state power, then, is as much a symbolic and threat-generating instrument as a repressive apparatus. Philip Abrams asserts that the repressive instrument of police helps to conceal the state‘s illusory qualities (1988:58). Following Abrams‘s discussion of the illusory reification of the state, other theorists began conceiving of states as processes rather than things (Borneman 1992; Corrigan & Sayer 1985; Joseph & Nugent 1994). Crawford Young also characterizes the state as diffuse and processual (1994). He writes, The state that has been ushered back in is thus in part a set of attributes abstracted from a delimited empirical universe. But there is also a transcendental dimension, something inextinguishably Hegelian, to the state. This elusive element, ―the unity of the universal and subjective will…present within the state, in its laws and in its universal and rational properties,‖ points to state as idea, as something beyond what may be deduced by its visible empirical forms. ―The divine principle in the state is the Idea made manifest on earth,‖ adds Hegel, in identifying the state as the manifestation of a world historical spirit (citing ―On the Nature of Spirit‖ in Hegel & Sibree 1881; Young 1994: 18). It is the subjectivities contained within the state, its ability to serve as a Hegelian weltgeist that create its elusive transcendence (Taussig 1992). The high tech equipment and identity-obscuring uniforms, the pageantry of police funeral cremation volumes (Banthoeng 1992), and the almost mythical status ascribed to some police groups such as
16 the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Thailand‘s Naresuan SWAT team all can be described as part of the ―magic of the state‖ (Taussig 1997). According to Aretxaga, ―The state cannot exist without this subjective component (of bodily excitations and sensualities, unconscious desires of state officials, performances of statehood, and fantasies generated around the idea of the state), which links its form to the dynamics of people and movements‖ (2003). To rectify the apparent disjuncture between models of the state as both a repressive apparatus and subjective process, Das attempts to theoretically elucidate the state‘s signature. She proposes to ―see the state as neither a purely rational-bureaucratic organization nor simply a fetish, but as a form of regulation that oscillates between a rational mode and a magical mode of being‖ (Das 2004:225). This oscillation is based on the influential States of Imagination, which conceptualizes states as constantly in the making. In Thomas Hansen and Finn Stepputat‘s model of the state as an imaginative paradoxical construct, the state is both illusory and concrete; distant and impersonal; ―violent and destructive as well as benevolent and productive‖ (Hansen & Stepputat 2001:5). This dissertation, and its central theoretical model (described below), are an attempt to embody Hansen and Stepputat‘s ethnographic paradigm which: requires that one study how the state tries to make itself real and tangible through symbols, texts, and iconography, but also that one move beyond the state‘s own prose, categories, and perspective and study how the state appears in everyday and localized forms: in brief, to study the state, or discourses of the state, from ―the field‖ in the sense of localized ethnographic sites, whether ―inside‖ or ―outside‖ of the evanescent boundary between society and the state that usually crumbles when subjected to empirical scrutiny (Ibid.). An analytical emphasis on order and chaos can bridge ideas about the state as rational and concrete vs. fetishized and magical. By examining the state construction of order
17 by police, the dialectical interplay between the state‘s material forceful action and its magical subjective performances is revealed.
Constructing Order through Chaos Unlike the verdant literature on the state, theories of order in the context of the state are a relatively limited phenomenon (Borneman 1998). Likewise, the role of the police within theories of state order remain comparatively underexplored. Nevertheless, the construction of order by the state is an emergent subject of interest. Neocleous‘s concept of the police as central actors in the process of fabricating state order is of particular relevance here. For Neocleous the police concept is necessary to elucidate the construction of order (Ibid. 118). However, he notes a spectral quality within the police concept itself. He cites Walter Benjamin, who comments that ―a consideration of the police institution encounters nothing essential at all. Its power is formless, like its nowhere tangible, all-pervasive, ghostly presence in the life of civilized state‖ (Ibid.).3 This ghostly police presence is noted by Aretxaga as well: The ghostly, persecutory power of law is incarnated in the police, a haunting figure invested with formless power (Benjamin & Demetz 1978), whose effects are seen as disappearances, corpses, arrests, and internments but whose identity remains mysterious as objects of constant speculation, rumour, and fear. ―The police becomes hallucinatory and spectral because they haunt everything…Their presence is not present, but the presence of its spectral double knows know boundaries (Derrida 1991)‖ (2003:406 citations in original). Aretxaga argues that this overwhelmingly spectral presence of the police performs the role of the permanent body of the state, that is both repressively violent and paternalistically intimate (Ibid.). It is these seemingly contradictory aspects which effect an uncanny feeling in relation to the police (Ibid. citing Brown 1995; Freud 1958: [1919]; 3
This quotation originally appeared in Benjamin‘s ―Critique of Violence‖ essay (1997:141-2).
18 Freud & Jones 1939; Weber et al 1946). I argue that these authors are describing the state‘s attempt construct the appearance of order through the management and manipulation of chaos that produces this spectrality, ghostly doubling, and uncanny confluence of violence and intimacy (Herzfeld 1997). This process is expressed through the physical bodies and presence of state agents: the police. Niklas Luhmann hints at this process, describing order/disorder in the context of social systems, The difference between meaning and world is formed for this process of the continual self-determination of meaning as the difference between order and perturbation, between information and noise. Both are, and remain, necessary…A preference for meaning over world, for order over perturbation, for information over noise is only a preference. It does not enable one to dispense with the contrary. To this extent the meaning process lives off disturbances, is nourished by disorder, (and) lets itself be carried by noise… (1995:83). What Luhmann is describing here, ―order and perturbation,‖ ―information and noise‖ is the confluence of chaos and order in the construction of the state. This dissertation is precisely situated at this meaningful edge between the appearance of state control/order and the state‘s attempt to manage and manipulate the overwhelming void of chaos/disorder. While gazing at this theoretical abyss, I am reminded of an encounter between a graduate student and Professor Anatoly M. Khazanov University of Wisconsin anthropology department. Upon hearing the graduate student‘s assertion of the imaginative properties of the state (Hansen & Stepputat 2001), Prof. Khazanov, who is intimately acquainted with the repressive proclivities of the Soviet state, pinched the student on the back of the arm and said, in his characteristic Russian accent, ―Don‘t worry…you are just imagining it.‖ While the state is a processual process that is publicly imagined, the state construction of order and its manipulation of chaos is expressed corporeally through, I argue, four interrelated techniques. Like Martha Huggins et. al‘s
19 groundbreaking study of Brazilian police torturers, this dissertation ―weaves together four interrelated patterns‖ with a fifth ―woven throughout,‖ although academic specialty dictates that our patterns are not identical (2002:2).4 In this dissertation, the four patterns are intertwined and contextualized within the chaos that surrounds them and makes them possible: spectacular ritual displays, symbolic performances of violent coercion, assertions of economic dominance, and covert/overt informational control.
Spectacular Ritual Displays The first technique of constructing state order is based on spectacular ―public events‖ (Handelman 1990) and state ―displays of order‖ (Herzfeld 2001). Accordingly I analyze police performances in these ritualized public spectacles in the context of Thailand‘s 2003 national campaigns, which operate both as state theatre and, partially, through the symbolism of the nation-state. Anthropologists are engaged in long-standing explorations of the employment and manipulation of emotionally-charged symbolism within the modern nation-state (Cohen 1974; Handler 1985; Kligman 1999; Linke 1999). Other anthropologists focus instead on how nation-states deploy highly charged, but nevertheless, ―unobtrusive‖ symbols into everyday experience or ―sacralized intrusions into profane social space‖ (Douglas 1986:97; Herzfeld 1992:11). Herzfeld posits that in both nation-state bureaucracy and the parallel ritual system of religion, individual sins and failings of the community of believers cannot undermine the fundamental unity of the ideal they share (1992:10). Attendant with these quasi-religious aspects of nation-state bureaucracy are the rituals of order I describe. These displays of state security and submission to state 4
To theorize police torturers, the four themes Huggins, et al., explore are 1) secrecy 2) occupational insularity 3) organizational fragmentation, and 4) personal isolation. A fifth theme, the intersection of Brazilian state transformation with ―violence workers‖ bibliographies is ―woven throughout these themes‖ (Huggins et al 2002:2).
20 legitimacy are extremely elaborate, especially in the mass mediated (hyper-modern) era: they are performances of order on spectacular scale. For example, anti-drug crusades in modern China are enacted by the state through mass mobilization and mass campaigns (Bennett 1976; Zhou 1999). Zhou describes one of these spectacles, On June 26, 1992, more than 40,000 people held an anti-drug gathering in the municipal stadium in Kunming…During the proceedings, a number of drug traffickers were publicly tried, and twenty-one of them were sentenced to death. They were immediately sent to the execution ground and killed by a firing squad. After the governor gave a speech proclaiming the government‘s resolve to fight drug problems, 4,000 kilograms of heroin and opium were set on fire in sixty immense electrical pots at a corner of the stadium. The flames rose as high as thirty feet in front of the excited spectators who were applauding and cheering enthusiastically (1999:1). Perhaps this anti-drug ritual is the modern descendent of Geertz‘s ―theatre state‖ where the ―stupendous cremations, tooth filings, temple dedications, pilgrimages and blood sacrifices, mobilizing hundreds and even thousands of people and great quantities of wealth, were not means to political ends: they were the ends themselves, they were what the state was for‖ (Geertz 1980:13). On one hand Zhou‘s argument is undeniable, that the state-sponsored anti-drug crusades were never designed to rid the country of the drug epidemic, but rather are integral to the consolidation of state power (1999:5). On the other hand, what is perhaps more disturbing about the fevered public reception of the on-site executions and ritualized mass opiate burning is the possibility that Geertz‘s theatre state has been reincarnated. For Geertz, ―mass ritual was not a device to shore up the state, but rather the state, even in its final gasp, was a device for the enactment of mass ritual‖ (Geertz 1980). The unpalatable paradox of state order is that perhaps the spectacular ritual
21 displays are not mere smoke and mirrors, but serve an unexplored symbolic and societal purpose. As key enactors of this paradox, police groups are the most visible arm of domestic state power, interacting with people on a daily basis. In this intimate performance they also play a critical role in performing the ―magic of the state‖ (Taussig 1997).5 Taussig explores how the state is fetishized through spectacles, displays, and ritual performances as well as through official documents and monuments. In earlier work, Taussig describes a relationship between colonizer and colonized (for this dissertation‘s purpose, the Thai crypto-colony and its citizenry, and/or the forces of homogenizing global policing and the Royal Thai Police) where state terror creates: A society shrouded in an order so orderly that its chaos was far more intense than anything that had preceded it…that great steaming morass of chaos that lies on the underside of order and without which order could not exist‖ (1986:4). Using this concept combined with the magic of the state, the police are performative state agents who provoke fearful awe among citizens. If these agents were absent, the state‘s narrative asserts, these citizen subjects would presumably teeter on the brink of Hobbesian anarchy. The state‘s narrative conceals, however, that this magical aura is created by state-makers‘ desire for rational order (Scott 1998) and is based on an intrinsic fear of chaos. This mimetic interplay between the seeming binary of chaos and order is evident within spectacular ritual display of order, such as Thailand‘s War on Drugs, where thousands of mysterious violent deaths paradoxically constructed a campaign of state
5
In the Latin American context, Taussig employs a spirit possession cult as a model to explain a fictional modern state‘s magic and mystery evident in legal systems, economic zones, official histories and transportation networks (Taussig 1986).
22 ―order.‖
Likewise, Katherine Bowie describes the ordered chaos of state ritual
enactment in her discussion of the Thai Village Scouts (1997). She examines the elaborate rituals of the right-wing Village Scout movement in 1970‘s Thailand, filled with hysteria, cross-dressing, clowning, tearful sobbing and symbolic enactments of ethnic violence alongside highly-ordered ceremonies and ritualized uniformity. The creation of spectacular displays of order is amplified by mass media, a process which extends the state‘s magical gravitas. Tsaagarousianou shows how mass communication transforms public events, including demonstrations, rallies, and court hearings, into rituals of exclusion and criminalization (1999:176). Just as anthropologists are examining the role of media in the enactment of public rituals, they are also beginning to study this enactment in the context of modern state coercive institutions, particularly the military (Aijmer 2000; Ben-Ari et al 2003). Eyal Ben-Ari, Sabine Frühstück and Mariko Asano, in their ethnographic examination of an annual ―live-fire demonstration‖ by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, show that ―the spectacularization, aestheticization, and domestication of violence in many technologically advanced societies is carried out precisely because it is so problematic – chaotic and threatening‖ (2003). To examine the specific workings of spectacular ritual displays of coercive state institutions, we return to Bourdieu‘s concept of symbolic power, an ―almost magical power‖ enabling the state to obtain the equivalent of what it obtains through physical or economic force (Bourdieu & Thompson 1991:170). This concept is employed by Loader and Mulcahy in delineating the idea of policing (2003). Through symbolic power, these authors explore why the institutions and practices of state policing ―appear to retain at least the traces of a sacred, fetishized aura-the capacity to fascinate, enthrall, and
23 erotically attract, as well as to unsettle, repulse and disgust its subjects‖ (Loader & Mulcahy 2003:44). They enlist Victor Turner‘s condensation symbols to assert that policing is entangled with desire concerning the apparent binaries of protection vs. vulnerability; order vs. entropy; and life vs. death (Ibid. 45). It is from this symbolic territory, this binary interface, that the gap is bridged between ritual displays and violent coercion.
Performances of Violent Coercion The second interrelated technique, following the Weberian definition, is an examination of how state order is constructed through performances of coercive force. These symbolic performances, through both physical violence and demonstrations of a state‘s capacity for coercion are public displays of Bourdieu‘s capital of physical force (Bourdieu 1999). Violence is typically viewed as an irrational, exceptional and pathological process, occuring only when societal systems of order have broken down. In this view, ―senseless violence‖ is a reversal of social order, a situation that demands to be brought under control (Blok 2000:23). However, in order to understand violence, whether perpetrated by state (Bushnell 1991; Nordstrom 2004; Ross 2000; Sluka 2000) or non-state actors (Manwaring 2002), it is helpful examine its symbolic meanings. Accordingly, my research is situated in a growing body of literature that views violence as symbolically meaningful and culturally-specific (Ferguson et al 2000; George 1996; Whitehead 2004). Thus, this dissertation is partially and examination of violent ritual discourse (George 1996:13) which surrounds the deployment of coercive force by Thai state agents. It analyses this deployment in terms of what Whitehead and others call the poetics of violence, how ―cultural conceptions of violence are used discursively to amplify and
24 extend the cultural force of violent acts or how these act themselves generate a shared idiom of meaning for violent death‖ (2004:6). As Ken George writes in the same volume, ―everyone understands armed police‖ (2004:36). My state ethnography of the Thai police is an examination of why this phenomena of understanding occurs, and how it varies culturally. Furthermore, this understanding involves ―recognition that violence is as much a part of meaningful and constructive human living as it is an imagination of the absence and destruction of all cultural and social order‖ (Whitehead 2007). In this way I follow similar methodological avenues of analysis found in Foucault and Barret-Kriegel (1975), Ginsberg (1983), and Siegel (1998; 2006), which focus on the construction of criminal deviance through the lens of interaction with the state. Eugen Weber applied Foucault‘s concepts to the police when he identified policing as one of many state processes which integrated the peasantry into the French state and simultaneously subjected them to civilizing or disciplinary pressures in their behaviors, customs and beliefs (1976). Similarly, Pemberton applies Foucault‘s theories of state violence to his analysis of the 1983 Petrus crimes in Indonesia, which involve covert police and military executions to maintain the New Order regime (1994). Pemberton describes a series of hundreds of ritualized executions of suspected criminals and gang lords in and around Solo and other areas which were carried out by groups linked to the military and police. These extra-judicial killings, called by the Indonesian acronym Petrus, were condoned by the government as the Suharto regime became increasingly bold in its methods of maintaining ―internal security‖ to protect personal and Western economic interests. Furthermore, according to Joshua Barker, Petrus, and the Siskamling
25 (environment security system) were used to deterritorialize local security practices in the service of central state control (Barker 2001). These state coercive performances are also amplified by mass media, which creates a vector for public imagination and vicarious participation in state violence. However, in characterizing ―the media,‖ caution is necessary, as Tim Allen and Jean Seaton describe in The Media of Conflict, The media are not homogeneous, as is sometimes suggested by use of the term. ―Media‖ is a plural form of the noun ―medium,‖ and refers to the mechanisms by which information is transmitted. Thus, the media themselves cannot make decisions, and while they are persistently manipulated (1999:4). As these authors assert, the media exists within the political and social world its describes (Ibid.). In the case of states with traditions of state-owned media, the nationally-owned media apparatus more obviously expresses the intended message of state coercive displays (see Zhou 1999). In Thailand, a variety of military-owned media outlets, including television Channel 9, which is owned by state-controlled MCOT plc; Channel 11, which is owned by the government Public Relations Department (the agency which censors Thai broadcasts); and the multi-armed Shin Corporation, a formerly Thaksinowned media empire, actively create state messages. This state-owned and influenced media cacophony creates an often-violent ―simulation of the real,‖ a coercive imaginary on radio, television, internet sites, and front pages. Jean Baudrillard reminds us that ―all hold ups, hijacks and the like are now…simulation hold ups, in the sense that they are inscribed in advance in the decoding and orchestration rituals of the media‖ (1994). Baudrillard describes how a hypothetical ―fake‖ holdup using artificial weapons, hostages, and demands would quickly encounter ―real‖ elements including the inevitable violent response of police. This merger occurs
26 because the state works quickly to destroy any suggestion that law and order is a simulation (1988:169). As the grisly full-color photographs of countless murders in daily Thai newspapers indicate, violent simulations are an intricate part of the ―reality of the mass media‖ (Luhmann 2000). These simulations of state and media create a Möbius strip of twisted meaning where chaotic state violence is order and ordered dissent is presented as chaos. Mass media is thus a crucial link not only in disseminating the state‘s paradoxical coercive expressions, but also in the other methods of constructing the simulation of state order: economic dominance and informational control.
Assertions of Economic Dominance In the third interrelated technique, state order is constructed through economic domination, both through legal economies and through illegal economies, also know as shadow economies (Illich 1981). In Neocleous‘s Marxist analysis, the police are central to the maintenance, reproduction and fabrication of state order based on the economics of work and poverty. For Neocleous, ―the police project is intimately connected to the fabrication of an increasingly bourgeois order, achieved through the exercise of state power‖ (2000:5 italics removed from original). Thailand‘s security practices, including its police, are dominated by the Thai economic elite, a tradition which extends well beyond the founding of the Bangkok capital by the first king of the Chakri dynasty, Rama I (Panitan 1998). Since then, the politically diverse, but numerically few, Thai economic elite continually quested for moral authority and evolving legitimacy (Saitip 1995). Furthermore, the state economic manipulation of both legal and illegal economies gains legitimacy through continual integration with globalist economies. In other words, international economic order shores up the appearance of state economic order. Neocleous links the police concept with the emergence of hegemonic liberal ideology
27 (2000:22). Continuing this historical link, neoliberal capitalist globalization, or Comaroff and Comaroff‘s ―millennial capitalism‖ (2000), is integrated into state economic assertions and reflected in local struggles for legitimacy. The globalist trope of economic ―transparency‖ is employed in these struggles for local legitimacy and incorporated into state assertions of economic dominance. The varieties of a state‘s symbolic capital are buttressed by monetary capital, especially in ―developing economies‖ which receive international aid and development funds. This monetary capital flow can transform into a ―discourse of corruption‖ among state agents and bureaucrats of the imagined state (Gupta 1995). As Yael Navaro-Yashin documents, states become internationally perceived as corrupt through high-profile media events, in revealing spectacles of state fantasy (2002). In addition to studying globalized discourses of corruption, anthropologists interrogate the relationship between transnational economies and forms of violence (Lutz & Nonini 1999; Nash 1989). Assisting this theoretical interrogation, I focus on the violence endemic in global drug suppression, the coercive power of state countercorruption discourse, and the localized repression of security preparations for the 2003 APEC ritual. I also examine the burgeoning criminal justice industrial complex in Thailand, which further links state assertions of economic dominance to globalist security regimes. The coercive biometric and surveillance technologies touted by the ―international law enforcement community‖ are adopted by the Thai state both as repressive mechanisms, as well as assertions of economic legitimacy. Employing Tilly‘s characterization of state-making as a form of organized crime, York University criminologist, James Sheptycki, identifies global law enforcement a
28 ―protection racket‖ which created the threat of transnational organized crime (TOC) to further the global governance agenda. Sheptycki notes that the newly-invented TOC concept emerged after the Cold War was replaced ―by a seemingly more fragile and tentative ‗new world order‘‖ (2003). The Thai police are continuously recruited to this new paradigm when they are called to conform to the security agenda of global policing. As Andreas and Nadelman catalogue: The growth of international crime control is evident in the proliferation of new criminal laws and an aggressive push for cross-national homogenization of such laws; expansion of agency budgets, responsibilities, and enforcement powers; efforts by more proactive states to extend their claims to extraterritorial jurisdiction; deployment of more sophisticated global surveillance and tracking technologies; heightened police cooperation and communication through an increasingly dense set of transgovernmental networks and international institutions at the regional and global levels; and more extensive use of military and intelligence hardware and personnel for law enforcement tasks (2006:3-4). This homogenization agenda is evident in mass media as well, which assists state and globalist economic assertions. Journalists are noting the increasing industrialization of the news, the consolidation of centralized media empires using less specialized reporters, and continuous flows of faster, increasingly metropolitan news sources (Allen & Seaton 1999:30). Allan and Seaton describe how ―the emergence of a New World Order has been linked to the UN‘s facility to act as an instrument, enabling a group of powerful industrial countries to cooperate with each other and with less powerful countries‖ (Ibid. 30). ―However,‖ they write, ―contemporary journalists, reporting on the making of the New World Order and its savage wars, seem to be identifying changes in the habits of the news organization for which they work‖ (Ibid. 57). Thus, the emergent globalist agendas of transnational police groups, and the media who disseminate their messages, are linked inextricably to state assertions of economic dominance.
29
Covert/Overt Informational Control This process of economic domination is largely possible through the fourth aspect of the state construction of order: creating the appearance of order through informational control. Informational control is created through technologies of social control as well as through state secrecy, deception, and what Alfred McCoy calls, the ―covert netherworld‖ (2008). McCoy describes this concept as ―an invisible interstice, within both individual nations and the international system, inhabited by criminal and clandestine actors with both the means and need to operate outside conventional channels‖ (Ibid. 3). This interstice became evident in the Philippines when ―a succession of spectacular crises breached an invisible barrier between the formal and informal, or civil and criminal facets of the Philippine polity‖ (Ibid. 1). This covert netherworld , occupied solely by intelligence agencies and crime syndicates, is a key generator of covert informational control. Within overt channels, as delineated by Herzefeld‘s anthropological examination of bureaucracy, the ―disquieting autonomy‖ of bureaucratic language, is achieved partially through formal classification, but also through other default methods of informational control (Herzfeld 1992:182). Historically, the police were created as a mechanism of state informational control, an association Luhmann traces to the introduction of printing in the early 16th century (2004:139 n.156). Furthermore, citing evidence from police studies sources (Aaronson et al 1984; Brown 1981; McCleary 1978; Prottas 1979; Rubinstein 1974) Luhmann‘s conception of bureaucracy involves ―street level bureaucracy‖ which operates through the media and persons of influence who develop protective strategies in the form of written reports or paperwork (2004:374).
30 In addition to these overt and covert vectors, the bureaucratic aspect of the state construction of apparent order interacts with the secrecy and publicity of state violence. This violence is also a symbolically-charged aspect of state informational control. Outside of Thailand‘s ―War on Drugs,‖ (and its precedents discussed in Chapter 3 and 4), patterns of mass extrajudicial-killings were evident in the early 1980s in Indonesia when government-backed death squads executed thousands of people as part of a war on crime (Siegel 1998), and in India‘s Punjab state, when hundreds of ―militant separatists‖ were killed by state agents (Spencer 2007). All of these killings, from Thailand‘s drug war murders, to the Indonesian Petrus murders, to the global ―death squad‖ phenomenon (Huggins et al 2002; Sluka 2000; Stanley 1996), operate in spaces that are simultaneously secret and public (Feldman 2000). George writes, ―Secrecy, of course, is a way to shape meaning and understanding as well as a way to create misunderstanding and misrecognition‖ (1993). Within this construction of meaning and the intentional confusion of meaning, lies the heart of the creation of state order through informational control. The pattern of simultaneous secret deception and public revelation that surrounds these performances of violence exemplifies this state technique. The pattern is paradoxical, calling attention once again to the role of chaos in the construction of apparent state order. Covert and overt informational control is largely a symbolic and semiotic process, as Umberto Eco details, Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else...thus semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used ―to tell‖ at all‖ (Eco 1976:7).
31
Closely related to this concept of paradoxical state deception is Foucault‘s influential account of the technology of the state as a means of exercising punishment and control over the minds and bodies of state populations (1977). In Foucault‘s history of 17th century France, prior to the public spectacle of the torture and/or execution of convicts, the entire criminal procedure remained secret from the public. This system established the legitimacy of state coercion and attached primary importance to the confession, which demonstrated the accused‘s complicity in state punishment. More importantly, in terms of my examination of the police and the state, Foucault discusses the development of surveillance systems, such as the prison Panopticon, through which state powers have access to constant observation into the lives of citizens. Through increased technologies of surveillance, and the possibility of constant surveillance of the state, subjects of state power in all places, not only in the confines of prison, begin to police themselves. The establishment seemingly all-powerful systems of knowledge and technologies of observation make the continued necessity of these systems unnecessary. Foucault‘s Panopticism can be thought of as a system of informational control where every person involved in the state polices their own actions and the actions of those around them. Panopticism as informational control finds empirical support in the growing body of literature on order, risk and surveillance (Ericson & Haggerty 1997; O'Malley 1998; 2004). The Foucauldian technologies of surveillance are partially designed to create a ―culture of fear‖ while simultaneously serving as methods of informational control (Füredi 2002; Glassner 1999). Social theorists are increasingly concerned with normalization of fear within individual states as well as its global dissemination
32 (Massumi 1993). Concurrent with the global politics of fear, is a rising international obsession with transparency that conceals the operations of international order. In the afterward of Transparency and Conspiracy : Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order, Jean and John Comaroff write, It is precisely the relation between the manifest and the inscrutable – or the front and backstage, to invoke Goffman‘s (1959) more mundane, dramaturgical image – that undergirds the enduring fascination evinced by human beings almost everywhere with the properties of power…Efficacy and influence, alike in rhetoric and realpolitick, lie largely in controlling the capacity to reveal and conceal, to make ―reality‖ appear or disappear (2003:288). These authors are describing the dialectical production of order and chaos within the evolving global state, a sublime manifestation of politically manipulated reality.
The State of Chaos Entwined around the simultaneous practice of these four methods of constructing state order (spectacular ritual displays, performances of coercive force, assertions of economic dominance, and covert/overt informational control) is order‘s paradoxical precursor: chaos. There is a growing anthropological interest in chaos (Mosko & Damon 2005), order and disorder (Benda-Beckmann & Pirie 2007). Though some of this current work is preoccupied with applying scientifically-based chaos theory to anthropology, much of it promises to create a new ―metaphysical theory of the state‖ (Hobhouse 1918) based on an examination of the interplay between order and chaos. Seen in this way, chaos and disorder are ritually wielded in the state construction process. Constructing state order through chaos involves not only the amplification of state ―enemies,‖ but the manipulation of disorder; the deliberate creation of oppositional forces and threats. The political utility of separatists, insurgents, terrorists, drug dealers, and the myriad of other
33 enemies of the state is such that the intentional creation of these chaotic actors is a routine covert technique of contemporary states. In States of Imagination, Steffen Jensen describes the confluence of the state‘s deliberate creation of ―enemies,‖ antagonism of opposition/resistance, and covert provocateurship in the context of violence in South Africa: First, allegations of Third Force seem to emerge when unusual levels of spectacular violence happen (in this case, vigilante and gang violence in Cape Town). Second, and more interesting, the violence is explained by pointing to covert operations orchestrated by someone with apparent interest in creating mayhem…In other words, an unspecified finger is pointed at an unspecified perpetrator with, it is assumed, an interest in discrediting the government an causing chaos on the Cape Flats (or in South Africa in general) (2001). Chaos is the sine que non condition of order, as state-makers are well aware, hence these techniques of state manipulation and management of chaos are covertly ubiquitous in the modern surveillance state.
State Ethnography: Methods and Approaches This dissertation is a ―state ethnography,‖ designed to illuminate the performances of a national state system both domestically as well as a global web of symbolic communication. Similar methodological terrain is explored in recent ethnographies of nationhood (Abu-Lughod 2005) and national media systems, breaching a longstanding anthropological taboo against employing mass media as a site of analysis (Ginsburg et al 2002:3). Because I am attempting to describe a state and one of its key bureaucratic structures using ethnographic methods, it is necessary to draw from sources that are somewhat removed from ―traditional‖ anthropological approaches. Importantly, my focus on the paradox of order - the apparent contradiction between the creation of an ―ordered‖ state through spectacular, violent, covert and chaotic performances – demands
34 an innovative methodology. To analyze the paradox of chaotic state order, my methodology examines both acts of routinized policing in regular patrols and bureaucratic life, as well as a focus on spectacular police performances of violence, provocation and covert control. Accordingly, my research ―sites‖ are not so much placebased, as ―incident-based.‖ The Royal Thai Police, as a nationalized bureaucracy within an increasingly inter-related network of global policing, is approached as holistically as possible, while the focus remains on the historical context of the police in Thailand and the three major displays of state order in 2003. This state ethnography is based on an incident-based methodology that was developed in Jan-Aug 2001 when I conducted eight months of pre-dissertation research. The pre-dissertation research focused on generating contacts, initial interviews and organizational knowledge of numerous departments in the Thai National Police Department, as well as various ―international law enforcement‖ agents based in Thailand. This experience was critical in forming the contact networks and securing research permission, which began with the assistance of Thai police and US State Dept. officials at Bangkok‘s ―International Law Enforcement Academy‖ (ILEA). Contacts with ILEA created the opportunity to meet with numerous officers in many other departments within the Thai police. These Royal Thai Police contacts included interviews with three commissioned officers and commanders with the Foreign Affairs Division of the Central Investigation Bureau; one interview with a Crime Suppression Division Inspector; three commissioned officers and the commander of the Metropolitan Police Bureau; two interviews with commissioned officers and the commander of Metropolitan Police Special Operations Division; two interviews with the deputy commander and of the
35 Narcotics Suppression Bureau and the commander of Narcotics Control Board; one interview with the assistant to the commander of the Tourist Police Division; an interview with a Police Cadet Academy professor; an interview with a professor at the Institute of Police Personal Development; an interview with the commander of the AntiMoney Laundering Office, and an interview with the commander of Interpol in Bangkok. I also conducted informal interviews with many Thai academics in the faculty of Criminology, Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology and the Business Crime Data Bank at Thammasat University, Chulalongkorn University, Khon Kaen University and the National Research Council of Thailand. In addition to these Thai academics and Royal Thai Police contacts, I conducted interviews in 2001 with numerous representatives of the ―international law enforcement community.‖ Beginning with the ILEA officials mentioned previously, I interviewed a US Customs Service Attaché, a US Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, a US DEA agent, a US ATF agent, a US Marine Corps Captain in the Marine Security Guard Battalion at the Bangkok Embassy, and the Chairman of the Industrial Finance Co. of Thailand (the former Director of Thai Dept. of Customs). These contacts allowed me to survey the structure, operations, and resources of nearly all of the departments in the Thai police involved in international law enforcement cooperation. While in Thailand for predissertation research, I also compiled studies in Thai criminology and criminal justice, which include discussions of Thai police history, future directions, and some reference to political interactions (Banchuan 1990 [2533]; Phachtunton 1999 [2542]; Phongcharoen 1997 [2540]; Piamsombun 1990 [2533]). These
36 studies provided the basis for later archival research at the Royal Thai Police, Department of the Interior, and numerous other Thai state institutions. Returning to Thailand in January of 2003, I continued to develop an incidentbased approach to state ethnography, approaching research as a chronological narrative and making acts of state order visible by focusing on police operations within specific cases and incidents. The counter-riot incident at the Cambodian Embassy on January 30th (described in Chapter 6), was the first of a four major public demonstrations and riot squad deployments I observed throughout the year (also described in Chapter 6). After the three month drug suppression campaign was declared on Feb. 1st (described in Chapter 4), I began interviews and observations at a typically-sized metropolitan police station in Bangkok over the next five months (Feb. through Jun.). This research included twenty-five interviews with staff of all ranks from each departmental unit and sub-unit (investigations, interrogations, support, administration, traffic, etc.). The interviews focused on the bureaucratic life and occupational history of each officer, activities during the drug suppression campaign and campaign against dark influence. This research allowed me to develop a picture of the bureaucratic routine of an average police station in Bangkok as well as learn more about how national campaigns are enacted at the local level. In early June, during the last of these Bangkok Metropolitan station observations, I conducted nine formal and informal interviews at several urban universities and schools. These discussions centered on the initial three months of the drug suppression campaign, and on drug culture within schools in general (these interviews form the basis of some of the material in Chapter 3). From June through August, I conducted eight
37 interviews in the Metropolitan Police Bureau and the Crime Suppression Division, attempting to detail the ongoing three month War on Dark Influence. During this time, I observed three night club ―raids‖ by Metropolitan Police Bureau Special Patrol Division, (these raids are detailed in Chapter 4). After long negotiations, and several discussions with the Metropolitan Special Patrol Division commanders, my research assistant, Pitcha, and I conducted numerous interviews, training observations, a police checkpoint observation, and six ride-alongs with that group from August through September. During this time, I also conducted interviews with four riot control and suppression officers, and four officers in the Arintaraj 26 SWAT unit. In late September, my research assistant and I interviewed eight doctors, nurses and administrators at Ratchaburi Hospital, site of a Jan. 2000 hostage incident which involved Arintaraj and other military and police special operations units. During October, I observed security preparations for APEC at sites throughout the city, including the hotels were delegates were staying and the major demonstration on 18 Oct (described in Chapter 7). In early November, I was hosted by a local provincial station in Northeast Thailand for three days, and conducted several informal interviews with officers from that station. During this time, I also traveled to Chiang Mai to conduct three interviews with Chiang Mai Provincial Police. Returning to Bangkok, I observed several royal security deployments in the city (described in Chapter 7) and conducted an interview with Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand of the Forensic Science Institute in November (described in Chapter 4). In December, I met with officials at the Royal Thai Police media relations office and attended several police/press events at police headquarters.
38 Beyond these interviews and observations, my research methodology also attempted to reveal the layers of local and global Thai police history. To this end, I gathered substantial historical information on the history of the Royal Thai Police from the police library, Thamassat library and the Ministry of the Interior archives. I supplemented these histories with interviews with several retired police personnel. In addition, I gathered and analyzed many local media sources in Thai and English, from print, magazine and TV news coverage. Thus, my interview data includes historical and biographical information of individual officers, information about routine patrols, and structural information about various divisions and salaries. The interviews contain comparatively few revealing details, despite my repeated questioning (with various notable exceptions included throughout the dissertation), regarding the officers specific involvement in the drug suppression, dark influence and anti-terror campaigns that formed the bulk of police and state policy during 2003. As a result, in an attempt to describe and analyze these major displays of state order which led directly to a state of routinized martial law in Thailand, I rely heavily on police press events described in mainstream Thai and English-language media sources. Police operations are amplified through media outlets, which often serve as the mouthpiece of state reality in the public imagination. Accordingly I am interested in this production of the state imaginary in addition to my interest in the operations of individual officers. Nevertheless, this dissertation could be criticized, despite its engagement with ethnographic interviews and personal observations, for its heavy emphasis (or overreliance) on the accounts of journalists. As the numerous bibliographic references
39 attributed to Wassana Nanuam, Wassayos Ngamkham, and Yuwadee Tunyasiri of The Nation, the Bangkok Post, the Khao Chud Daily, and the Thai Raat press corps attest, journalists are my informants as much as Thai police officers, both of whom are constrained by structural realities of their occupations. Anthropology‘s strength in its approach to the media is its attention to both how media is produced as well as how it is consumed (Abu-Lughod 2005; Debray & Rauth 1996; Ginsburg et al 2002). I chose these Thai national media sources for their ―social life‖ (Larkin 2002): they are widely read throughout the country, both in English (The Nation and the Bangkok Post) and in Thai (Khao Chud Daily, Thai Raat etc.). Importantly, English-language newspapers are routinely read in the offices of Thailand‘s foreign businesses, embassies, universities, and foreign police field stations, while Thai-language newspapers are ubiquitously present in the country‘s airports, bureaucracies, food vendors, and police stations. Thus, in addition to interviews and other traditional ethnographic sources, this state ethnography employs police generals, police spokesmen, and journalists as primary informants working in the public sphere and public record. This dissertation‘s narrative accounts of the displays of state order are in many ways built on the information gathering capacities and state storytelling of mainstream Thai journalists writing in the English and Thai languages in addition to my direct encounters with state agents. This state-based approach illuminates some of the curious ethical quandaries attendant with ethnographic research among the police. Below, I describe my strategies and motivations to assure anonymity for the lower-ranked and structurally-vulnerable officers who agreed to share part of their occupational world with an ethnographic observer.
40
Humanistic Approaches to the Police: Protecting the Protectors “Is police a hard life?” Pol. Sgt. ―Supisaan‖ (interview Nov. 2003) There are 240,000 officers currently working with the Royal Thai Police and each one is an individual in addition to being a literal ―agent of the state.‖ In my interviews with police officers in offices, squad cars, canteens, and city streets, discussions of salary often predominated, especially among non-commissioned officers. Many Thai police make 6,000 baht per month (roughly $190 USD in 2003). The lowest rank of commissioned police officer, Police Sub Lieutenant (roy tamruat trii) make only 1,600 baht more per month (around $240 USD). These figures are indicative of the structural position in which Thai police rank-and-file work. In Bangkok, lower-ranking officers live in poorly-maintained station barracks, or often in cramped single-room apartments in the city‘s poorest neighborhoods. The talent and innovation of many officers are insufficiently rewarded in a class-based bureaucratic system still rooted in the sakdina caste system. Thus, hundreds of veteran non-commissioned ―sword police‖ (naay daap) police work tirelessly without the necessary class connections for promotion. The daily reality, for many Thai police officers, is that they are required by their superiors to collect ―tea money,‖ gift checks, and kin muang (literally, ―feeding on the state,‖) for the benefit of their superiors. In short, the occupational life of the average Thai police officer is one of poverty, subordination, and structural vulnerability. Thus, police officers in this dissertation are identified by actual name only if it appeared in mainstream media sources, and thus is part of public record. In interviews with both police and public, I use pseudonyms, and occasionally resort to ―composite personalities‖ if rank or activities would otherwise be too identifiable to superiors. In
41 addition, since my interview schedule and locations were known to the overarching police bureaucracy, the specific locations of the local metropolitan stations where I did most of my work are not identified, and, in most cases, specific interview dates are not listed. These factual details are the meat and gristle of the investigative journalist or human rights observer, but are unnecessary for my purposes. I am not interested in creating an expose on a corrupt foreign state in need of bureaucratic intervention and ―democratic‖ guidance.
Structure of the Dissertation This dissertation follows the narrative of the three displays of order I encountered in Thailand in 2003. It is composed of four major sections and eight chapters which, whenever possible, follow the events of that year chronologically. The first section is comprised of this introduction and a second chapter, a brief history of the Thai police. The remaining sections each concern one of 2003‘s campaigns of order: 1) drugs, 2) dark influence, 3) terror. The campaigns against drugs and terror were especially elaborate and ethnographically rich, and so correspondingly, they are larger than the other sections. Both these sections are composed of two chapters: the first introduces the particular political and historical context of drug suppression and counter-terrorism in Thailand. The second chapters in these sections are chronological accounts of the drug suppression campaign, Thailand‘s terror narrative and their aftermath. The middle section, on the Campaign Against Dark Influences, conforms to this structure within a single chapter. Chapter 8, the conclusion, reflects on 2003‘s three campaigns of state order in a wider symbolic context. Throughout my research, the police are central agents in a state production process that is amplified and reproduced by the state media apparatus.
42 Chapter 2: A Brief History of the Thai Police. The first recorded use of the Thai word for the police, tamruat, refers to the ―servants of the state,‖ separate units within the military who performed protection for royalty and religious specialists. Chapter 2 outlines how policing and internal security in Thailand stands at the crossroads of the long-standing influences of Indic/Khmer state protection strategies and projects of European-influenced police ―modernization‖ and ―professionalization‖ (Rawlings 2002). The United States expanded these projects, beginning in the 1950s when Thailand was the beneficiary of massive amounts of international security support (Lobe 1977). Current US security aid to Thailand focuses on drug eradication efforts, protection of US economic interests, and the ongoing ―War on Terror.‖ In addition, many other countries as well as Interpol and the United Nations use Thailand, particularly Bangkok, as a ―central hub‖ to base their international law enforcement efforts in Asia. Accordingly, I situate the Thai police in a global context where the interrelated methods of state order construction historically present. This nexus of historically-situated international police politics exerts profound influence on the campaigns of state order discussed in subsequent chapters. Section II – Thai Drug Suppression and the 2003 War on Drugs. In February 2003, the Thai Prime Minister unveiled a three-month operation to ―rid drugs from every square inch of Thailand.‖ As one of the world‘s major transit points for heroin and opium and with a domestic methamphetamine production problem reaching epidemic proportions, this quixotic campaign seemed immediately destined for failure or tragedy. At the end of the three-month campaign, more than 2,500 were dead, with no investigations into the murders. This section of my research examines the drug campaign
43 narrative from its planning, execution and ‗conclusion‘ during a country-wide state ceremony declaring ―victory over drugs.‖ Data is drawn from diverse sources including interviews with Thai police officers from the Narcotics Suppression Bureau and Metropolitan police stations, DEA agents, Thai academics, street vendors, and several of the victims‘ families. Finally, I provide observational accounts of staged nightclub ―drug raids,‖ police ―black magic curse‖ ceremonies against drug traffickers, and massive public rituals where students and citizens take religious vows to remain drug-free. Chapter 3, ―An Introduction to Thai Drug Suppression‖ describes the historical, political, and economic context of opium, heroin and amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the region. This chapter highlights the importance of these drugs in the legal and illegal economic construction of the Thai state and its assertions of the ordered legitimacy of global drug prohibition regimes. In particular, I analyze yaa baa, the Thai term for ATS or ―crazy drugs,‖ as a productive site of symbolic and cultural disorder. The suppression of yaa baa was taken to epic proportions in the 2003 drug suppression campaign, the subject of Chapter 4. This campaign was a totalizing performance of state order, a violent ritual display predicated on assertions of both legal and illegal economic dominance and covert/overt informational control. The spectacular state death ritual of the 2003 war on drugs served to entrench the illegal economies it purportedly attempted to eradicate, ensuring an endless reoccurrence of drug-induced chaos. Section III - The War on Dark Influences: Chao Po and Massage Parlor Magnates. At the conclusion of the drug campaign, the Prime Minister immediately launched another campaign to eliminate ―dark influence‖ from Thailand. This sinistersounding and loosely-defined term contains a convenient flexibility, allowing
44 government officials to target mafia-like figures, certain sectors of the illegal economy and, disturbingly, ―opinion leaders‖ – anyone from chao pho (―godfathers‖) (Ockey 1993), to NGO workers and academics. State officials‘ approach to ―corruption‖ in this case was decidedly low-level, and largely focused on the bosses of groups of motorcycle taxis that operate on each major street in Bangkok. However, after ―sex tycoon‖ Chuwit Kamolvisit was indicted for demolishing a competitor‘s entertainment block, media attention was diverted to more telling discussion of corruption. Chapter 5 uses Chuwit‘s media performances and the ―War on Dark Influences‖ to illuminate the political economy of bribery, corruption and favoritism in the Thai state (Pasuk & Sangsit 1994; Sangsit 2005). This section, comprised of a single chapter, examines the second major display of Thai state order in 2003. This three-month campaign was both an attempt to manipulate an aspect of illegal economy (low-level corruption networks surrounding motorcycle taxis and tourist vans) in the service of both economic dominance and informational control. By attempting to bring this facet of the illegal economy under the aegis of legal profit and regulation, the campaign was an assertion of state economic dominance. Simultaneously, by attempting to frame this relatively minute economic assertion in terms of a high-profile ―war on corruption,‖ while concealing the vast scope of state profiteering in the illegal economy, the campaign was also an example of covert/overt informational control. Massage parlor magnate Chuwit Kamolvisit‘s unpredictable media-backed revelations seemingly derailed this display of order, allowing other state projects of national gun confiscation, continual bribery and citizen surveillance to escape public scrutiny.
45 Section III - Thailand’s Terror Narrative. In 2003, Prime Minister Thaksin issued two anti-terrorism decrees which give Thai authorities increased power when acting on perceived national security threats. Importantly, they were issued several days before the announcement of the arrest of Riduan Isamuddin (a.k.a. ―Hambali‖), reportedly the operational head of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Hambali was arrested by a joint team of Thai police and US intelligence operatives in Ayuthaya Thailand in midAugust. The political convenience of the arrest is most apparent in the context of the October 2003 Asian Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) in Bangkok, attended by a host of international leaders. During APEC, the city became a control grid of checkpoints, police snipers, video surveillance and biometrics technology. I use APEC‘s spectacle of order as a point of departure for broader discussions of the militarized cycles of ―terror‖ and counter-terrorism. In Chapter 6, I briefly discuss the history of Thai counter-terrorism in the context of past enemies of the Thai state that served similar functions for social control. I then use examples from my fieldwork in 2003 including the arrest of Hambali, the preparation for and security practices during APEC, and the wider complex of consumption of counter-terrorist symbolism including newspaper images, police-related magazines, toys and computer simulations of counter-terrorist raids enacted in the video game cafes throughout Bangkok and the provinces. The imagined terrorist enemy, simulated or otherwise, is a trope of informational control that justifies broader performances of state coercion. Chapter 7 describes one of these performances; the APEC security ritual constructed the appearance of Thai state order in a coercive metropolitan lockdown. The APEC display employed covert and informational control techniques of surveillance and
46 deception in the service of state integration with globalist economies. From this spectacular basis, Thailand‘s terror narrative manipulated the chaotic threat of terrorist violence, culminating in a permanent state of emergency and exception.
47
Chapter 2 - A Brief History of the Thai Police The history of police is the history of state power. Mark Neocleous, The Fabrication of Social Order (2000:xi). This chapter describes the historical context which led to the creation and development of the Thai police, culminating in an unprecedented period of 2003, when state agents, including the police, enacted three spectacular displays of order, a War on Drugs, a War on Corruption, and a War on Terror. It describes a history of contemporary Thai policing and its pre-modern precedents in broad strokes to create a picture of the factors and influences behind the multi-faceted Royal Thai Police (samnaknan tamruat heengchaat), the organization now so intricately connected to Thai political and cultural life. Although the Kevlar-clad Royal Court Security team differs significantly from their Khmer equivalents in the Angkor empire a millennium ago, both would ―die for their King,‖ most likely for similar reasons. From the conscripted slaves of the first ―police‖ in the Greek polis, to the many tendrils of the ―international law enforcement community‖ vying to influence Thailand‘s police, the mirror of the past is the specular reflection of the present. Much of the information in this chapter is from the two volume History and Development of the Thai Police (―Prawat lae wiwatanakaan khong tamruat thai‖). Written in Thai by Suwan Suwanwecho, a Thai Constitutional Court judge and Police Major General, these volumes are the sole comprehensive Thai police history.6 Pol. Maj. Gen. Suwan writes that ―the management of Thai police doesn‘t follow the management of western countries, we mostly improve the management on our own according to 6
Thai scholars may be interested to know that Chai-Anan Samudavanija, a University of WisconsinMadison alumnus, Thai political scientist, and founder of the Matchima political party, served as the book‘s editor. Prof. Chai-Anan was, in addition to being another Constitutional Court judge, a key drafter of the 1997 constitution and a vocal supporter of the 2006 military coup.
48 present circumstances‖ (1996:2).7 Both Suwan‘s history and typical Thai police histories, which appear in police documents, public relations publications and police websites, assert that the Thai police ―followed an eastern policy‖ until 2475 (1932).8 This commonly-accepted narrative holds that it was at this time, in 1932, that the Thai police became nationalized and ―modernized.‖ This date certainly marks a key moment in the bureaucratization and modernization of the organization, however, closer examination reveals a much more complicated and fluid process beyond the ―Eastern model‖ of policing merging with Western police modernity. The royalist ethic is the key element which defines the so-called ―Eastern model of policing.‖ Indeed, by most accounts, the theoretical existence of this model seems predicated on the veneration of the monarchy. Pol. Maj. Gen. Suwan writes that, ―In the past, the security system and citizen safety depended on The King. Policemen were the attendants of The King, so The King assigned their duty directly‖ (Royal Thai Police 2001a). The constant repetition of the monarchy as the key element shaping Thai police history and differentiating it from Western models is shared by brief institutional police histories, and offers an important window into how the Thai police view their origins. This history thus serves as another example of the merger of historical studies in Thailand with the ―elitist craft‖ of royalist-nationalist discourse (Thongchai 1995). In the first recorded use of the term in historical documents of the 16th century, the ―tamruat Thai‖
7
This quotation, like all of the quotations from Suwan‘s book included in this chapter, are my own attempts to create a reliable, but readable, translation. 8 It is important to note that Thai government documents and many other Thai publications are rendered using the Buddhist calendrical system. In this system, 543 years are added to the Christian date system to reflect the life of Gautma Buddha, who is said to be born in 543 B.C.E. Thus, the date the absolute monarchy ended in Thailand is 2475 (1932). This temporal record is an important window into the worldview of Thai police officers, reflecting how time itself is a cultural construct.
49 (Thai police), served royalty exclusively, and had no public protection role. Thai police history is typically divided into four eras: 1. Before 2433 B.E. (before 1890) 2. 2433-2475 B.E. (1890-1932) 3. 2475-2502 B.E. (1932-1959) 4. 2502 B.E.-present.(1959-present) The lack of historical depth prior to these eras reflects not only a general lack of sources and documents describing police activities before 1890, but also echoes Philip Rawling‘s complaint of a lack of historical depth in European police histories (2002). This point of contention is the first in a series of similarities between the supposedly distinct Eastern and Western policing models. Thai police history indeed represents a unique convergence of Indic/Khmer royal protection strategies with European police traditions, but this merger represents a much more continual and fluid process than is held in emic, largely royalist, conceptions. Given the importance of Western police traditions in the ―modernization‖ of the Thai police system, it is useful to briefly examine broad trends in the development of Western policing.
Early Western Policing in Europe The Police begets good order. Peter the Great (in Neocleous 2000:5)9 The word ―police‖ is derived from the Latin word politia which first originated in the Ancient Greek word polis or ―city.‖ These linguistic clues indicate the Greek origins of Western policing, more than a millennium prior to its modern incarnation. Hunter notes that Greek magistrates used publicly-owned slaves as police, a meaningful point of origin for the structural-vulnerability of the modern police rank-and-file. Three hundred 9
According to Sidney Monas, Peter the Great wrote this sentence to the chief magistrate of St. Petersburg (1961:122).
50 slaves from Scythia, purchased after the Persian Wars, formed the coercive basis of Greek order in Athens. These police slaves were used in crowd control, guarding prisoners, and conducting arrests while Athenian citizen elites were responsible for investigating crimes (Hunter 1994:3). In Rome, when a privately-owned system of slave police became inefficient, Augustus filled state barracks with seven thousand Vigiles Urbani, the ―watchmen of the city,‖ to serve as both firefighters and police. The Vigales patrolled mostly at night watching for fires, burglars, and runaway slaves, with occasional reinforcement from the Emperor‘s Praetorian Guard (Reynolds 1926). After the partitioning of Rome, in the Byzantine Empire the ―Comes Stabuli‖ (―Count of the Stable‖) kept horses for the imperial court, and later administered martial law as the first ―constables.‖ Under Charlemagne, who adopted many Byzantine governmental practices, the position of Marshal (from the Old Germanic marh ‗horse‘ and scalc ‗servant‘) replaced that of constable, a position which spread throughout Western Europe‘s early states, often as a hereditary office. The Constable of France, for example was second in command only to the king, empowered by the badge of office, ―de Charlemagne,‖ the ―Royal Sword.‖ The sword‘s association with the state, including its depiction in the Thai police insignia, is a Weberian reminder of Hobbes‘s dictum of the Leviathan state, ―and Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all‖(Hobbes Figure 1: Royal Thai Police insignia
1651). After the Norman conquest of 1066,
constables in England oversaw an Anglo-Saxon system of order based on private tithing.
51 In this feudal system, constables (who were often unpaid, a practice which continued into the 19th century), kept order and enforced laws for elite nobility. Thirteenth century jurist, Bracton, provides one of the first written descriptions of the informational control capacity of the constable, It is the duty of the constable to enroll everything in order, for he has record as to the things he sees; but he cannot judge, because there is no judgment at the Tower...He has record as to matters of fact, not matters of judgment and law (1968). Thus, for centuries these watchers at the tower, the ―royal‖ police in Europe, were conscripted servants under the king, yet another indication that the supposed separation between Eastern and Western police models is largely a myth. In middle-age Europe, according to Hocart and Needham, policing was performed as part of the King‘s generous security provisions for his subjects. In this model, the king was sacrificing like the sky and sun for common good in exchange for public veneration (Hocart & Needham 1970:212). The criminal was an outlaw to the king and, therefore, to God. The king‘s attendants, charged with punishing external and internal enemies of the king, were the servants of God (Ibid. 176). In this way, the police were part of a cyclical system of state power worship which, excluding Hocart‘s functional analysis, resonates today in the pageantry of police funerals and the heroic status ascribed to some police groups. Contrary to the misconception that the title belongs to the British ―Bobbies,‖ the first recognizably ―modern‖ police emerged in France to protect the city of Paris under King Louis XIV in 1667. The ―modernity‖ of the French police was evident in bureaucratic divisions, geographically-delineated policing districts, and a ranked system for officers ranging from inspectors to commissaires de police to the police lieutenantgeneral. Foucault notes that in early 18th century Europe the concept of
52 Polizeiwissenschaft (Police Science) led to a comprehensive examination of internal state order. This new academic discipline created police assigned with the economic and social role of ―procuring abundance.‖ In this role, activities of the police moved beyond law enforcement into the arenas of public health, urban planning, and economic surveillance (Foucault et al 2007). In 19th century Italy, Napolean‘s police apparatus was largely adopted and maintained by the papal government, but when the papal police were overwhelmed by near-anarchy in 1828 and 1846, posse-style Citizen Patrols of Bologna elites were allowed to arm themselves, leading eventually to revolution and Italian centralization (Hughes 1994). Thus, modern police forces developed simultaneously with the modern state, dramatically expanding in Italy, Germany France, and England in the 19th and 20th centuries due to perceived political threats and prolonged violent popular government resistance (Bayley 1990). It is at this historical moment where modern police forces were created in Southeast Asia colonies and the Thai cryptocolony (Herzfeld 2002) which voluntarily employed bureaucratic officials from throughout Europe. This merger of police models will be described following a discussion of the development of ―Eastern‖ models of policing in Southeast Asia.
Indic Policing in the early Tai Empires It is my duty to serve His Majesty the King. This is a duty that goes back to the time when there was more than one kingdom in Thailand. Now we all serve the same King, just as it was many years ago. Sgt. ―Krathong,‖ Provincial Police officer (interview Nov 2003)
53 At the fictional crossroads of Eastern and Western police ―traditions‖10 stands the lowest-ranking police officer. In Asia as in Europe, the conscripted officer, the foreign gendarmerie, and the rank-and-file constable was required to serve unquestioningly under a self-appointed god-king‘s chain of authority. In Vedic India, Hocart and Needham describes police duties carried out by servants of the king who fought both external and internal enemies who challenged the king‘s authority (1970). Indic and Khmer state protection strategies form the bulwark of police traditions in mainland Southeast Asia prior to modern bureaucratic interventions. A brief examination of policing in mainland Southeast Asia reveals a police tradition that originated in the Angkor era, continued through the early Tai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayuthaya, and is still evident in the era of modern police bureaucracy.
Policing Vedic India and the Khmer Empire Punishment is meted out by the ruler according to offence equally (without discrimination) to sons and enemies alike, protects alone this world and the other. Arthashastra 118 Chanakya (Shah 1992:9) In Vedic India, boundary guards and other early police protected the kingdom‘s frontiers, collected intelligence on the movement of foreigners, and defended the monarchy against internal and external challenges to the king‘s legitimacy (Ibid. 12). Hocart and Needham write of these police, ―India makes it clear that his policing duties are not derived from his upholding of the law, but from his defence of the realm against the assaults of the powers of evil‖ (1970:158). By contrast in later Hindu India, internal police duties and crime suppression were distinguished from external defense, which was
10
―Tradition,‖ whether identified throughout the remainder of this dissertation with quotation marks or not, is similarly fictional; a concept as invented as this metaphorical and imaginary crossroads (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983).
54 carried out by the king‘s army, although police remained an instrument of the Hindu kings (Shah 1992). As Brahmanic traditions and Indic law spread to Southeast Asia, numerous Indianized states were created, including the early Cambodian states (Cœdès 1968). The Vedic model of monarchy protection formed the basis of the royal guard of Khmer Kingship and the ―Devaraja cult‖ at Angkor (Aeusrivongse 1976) which relied on displays of influence rather than military excursions to construct the state power mandala (Higham 1989:353). Before the Angkorian Mandala state system ended in the mid 15th century, much of the government structure, court ritual and religious apparatus was already incorporated into the early Tai Mandala states of Sukhotahi and then Ayuthaya. According to Higham, this process is still evident in the court rituals of the Thai monarchy today (1989:341). This connection to the Indianized state system included the early Tai kingships‘ inheritance of the security system as well. Suwan characterizes the ―Eastern policing,‖ model of pre-1890s Thailand which was created in the Indianinfluenced Khmer Empire. He characterizes this model as marked by military influence, local conscription, and protection of the monarchy exclusively rather than of the public at large (Suwan 1996). Tai Kings and Royal Protection The Khmer temples, and their attendant Lopburi tribute state royal-protection strategies, were eventually wrested from the control of Khmer rulership, coming under the auspices of Sukhothai. According to Suwan, an entity called the ―Thai police organization‖ was not established until the 16th century, under the Sukhothai kingship. Nevertheless, the first recorded reference to police units in what is now Thailand occurs on a Sukhothai-era stone inscription, which outlines the duties and ranks of ―inspectors‖
55 (puu traud). The puu truad positions were based on the Indic political model and were ranked as highly as military positions due to their association with royally-mandated ―special missions‖ (Benda & Larkin 1967). From the central hub of the Sukhothai urban capital, the spokes of the kingdom‘s absolute rule spread out to bordering towns, provincial outskirts and tribute states. The Hindu model of the Angkor kings gave way to a ―father-son‖ (patron-client) system nominally governed by a form of Buddhism, which protected the royal order. In describing this transition, Suwan‘s history lauds the peaceful Buddhism of King Litai‘s era,11 characterized by mercy and acceptance for criminals and war prisoners, contrasting it with Khmer god kings who were aloof and pompous. While Khmer kings demanded prostration upon visitation and only revealed themselves to the public through golden-framed windows, ―Thai Kings allowed general citizens to see them by staying in personal areas in public and always treated citizens in a generous way‖ (Suwan 1996:31). Nevertheless, by Suwan‘s own admission, subjects of the Sukhothai kings were automatically considered guilty if accused of a crime, and were brutally tortured upon arrest (Ibid. 33). Suwan contends that these punishments seemed less severe because people thought of the monarch as their father. Importantly, the Sukhothai era seems to be the origin of the suspect line-up and identification procedures that remain a key ritualized practice of Thai police today (see ―Shame and Confession at Thai Police Headquarters‖ in Section III, Chapter 3). Sukhothai elites and royalty who ―owned‖ a serf or slave accused of a crime assisted inspectors (puu truat) in identifying suspects from a line-up of detained individuals before making an arrest (Suwan 1996:14).
11
In this era, the reign of ―Dharmaraja I,‖ officers who represented law were called ‗supawadee.‟
56 Trailok, or King Borommatrailokanat (1448-88) instituted a complex hierarchical system within Tai society, assigning units of sakdi na (literally ―field power‖) to every individual.12 Wyatt writes, ―The paramount concern of royal authority, as expressed in the law, was to regulate natural human inequality for the sake of the proper functioning of the social order‖ (Wyatt 1984:73). Bureaucracy was also divided into two main divisions, military and civilian, with each of these broken down into departments, sections and subsections (Ibid. 73-4). Girling describes how elaborate civil law and a complex bureaucracy supplemented personal rule in the kingdom of Ayuthaya. He writes, ―Throughout Thai history there has been this continuing dialectic between bureaucratized, formal hierarchy and personalized, informal clientship.‖ He continues, ‗Order‘ (rabiab riabroi), knowing one‘s place in hierarchical society, and ‗harmony‘ or unity are the values appropriate to hierarchical society. Since the fall of Ayuthaya, these values have indeed permeated Thai society from top to bottom (1981:153). Ayuthaya kings and leading officials reinforced this social order by claiming the labor of all adult males, excluding monks and private slaves, for six months in the year (Reid 1988). The widespread resistance to the system of corvéed labor and constant attempts to escape ―the hated royal corvey,‖ Girling argues, weakened Ayuthaya‘s central powers. This weakened core of ―overmighty‖ princes and elites lead directly to the sacking of the city by the Burmese in 1767 destroying the Ayuthaya dynasty (Girling 1981:29).
12
Called the Law of Civil Hierarchy and the Law of Military and Provincial Hierarchies, Wyatt outlines this system: Ordinary peasant freemen were given a sakdi na of 25, slaves were ranked 5, craftsmen employed in government service, 50, petty officials from 50 to 400. At the sakdi na rank of 400 began the bureaucratic nobility, the khunnang, whose members ranged from the heads of minor departments at a na of 400 to the highest ministers of state, who enjoyed a rank of 10,000. The upper levels of nobility ranked with the junior members of the royal family, and most princes ranked above them, up to the heir–apparent, whose rank was 100,000 (1984:73).
57 In the Ayuthaya era, the king presented himself as a god, in supposed contrast to the ―father-son‖ type of Sukhothai government. Also emerging during the Ayuthaya kingship were individuals who acted as, using Suwan‘s terminology, ―Metropolitan Police,‖ although these officers were not part of a permanent division. These officers were responsible for patrols outside of the palace and for setting up checkpoints, located in each of the cardinal directions at the ferryboat entrances to the river-bound city (1996:39). At the checkpoints, officers inspected packages, documents and weapons and questioned strangers who sought entrance to the capital. Continuing the tradition of harsh punishments meted out on the rank and file, officers who failed in their patrol or checkpoint duties were made to stand publicly in front of the palace without food and water for twenty-four hours. The interrogation system during the Ayuthaya kingship was a system of torture, where the accused was whipped three times on the back. If the flagellation was not severe enough to elicit a confession or information from a suspect, the police minister administered his own torture and interrogation. Suwan justifies this system by adding ―This type of punishment might seems forceful and cruel but fairness was also shown to all suspects‖ If suspects continued to refuse the charges after being tortured and if no evidence was presented by authorities, they were interrogated by a different set of police ministers (1996:43). In an early example of international law enforcement to foster trade relationships under King Narai in Ayuthaya, special agreements were made for employees of colonial trade companies who committed crimes in the capital. In the king‘s eagerness to secure profitable trade relations a kind of corporate immunity existed: foreign traders in
58 Ayuthaya could not be charged for crimes within the area they worked. If they committed crimes outside of the area they worked, only employees of colonial corporations could be put on trial. Based on a legal treaty of 1664, if an employee of the Dutch East India Company committed a serious crime, Thai authorities brought them to the company‘s owner to be tried under Dutch law. If the owner himself committed a crime, he was to be arrested by Thai authorities and brought to the company‘s Javanese headquarters. In the case of the French colonial corporation, French managers could prosecute both French and foreign citizens accused of crimes against the company and could extradite them for punishment in France. However, the Thai king had a right to prosecute Thai citizens accused of crimes by the French with a French administrator serving as a witness (Suwan 1996:46). These early examples of international law enforcement continued in the nineteenth century when the new capital of Khrungthepmahanakornฯ (Bangkok) replaced the sacked capitol of Ayuthaya. A ―Police Constabulary Division‖ (klong trawain) was assigned to the city‘s Sampeng area (Bangkok‘s ―Chinatown‖) in an attempt to control opium trafficking and gang warfare stemming from Chinese mafia groups operating there. The constabulary unit was under the command of former British sea captain, Samuel Joseph Bird Ames13 and was composed of Malaysian and Indian constables (Chattaris 1966:1; Viroj 1978:13). In addition to these early special patrol units, the palace police and metropolitan police were the most important antecedents of the modern Thai police departments. Throughout the early Rattanakosin period, the King held supreme authority in court, and torture was a key part of the investigatory process.
13
Capt. Ames was born 2 May 1832 and died on 29 Oct 29 1901. He was buried in Bangkok‘s Protestant Cemetery on Charoen Krung Road near the Chao Phraya river.
59 Because of rising crime and international disputes between Thailand, England and France, in 1875 Capt. Ames was authorized by King Rama IV to reform the Thai police under the model of the police system used in Singapore. In addition to these cryptocolonial reforms, in 1875 the government issued fifty-three regulations to control police performance. Considered the first police reforms in Thailand, the regulations were separated into two geographic sections: policing the capitol and policing the northern area of the kingdom. In the northern area, police duties were centered on opium trafficking, illegal imports, and gathering intelligence on insurgent groups, remarkably similar to the duties of their counterparts a century later.
History of the “Modern” Thai Police The abolition of slavery in the late 19th century significantly altered the security strategies of the rapidly modernizing Thai state (Crukshank 1975). Suwan links Chulalongkorn‘s (Rama V‘s) emancipation of slaves to a dramatic rise in Bangkok‘s crime rates in 1887, supposedly the result of an influx of freed slaves living in urban poverty (1996:52). This increased crime rate prompted the royal guard commander, Putharet Thamrongsak to form twenty crime suppression units in four different areas of the city for a period of fifteen days, an effort which failed to achieve long-term success. Broader Thai governmental reforms conforming to British and French models led to an augmentation of existing Bangkok police units in place of soldiers who, up until that time, assisted with patrols in the city. The new police units, who were referred to by titles based on the British Constabulary (‗Inspector General‘, ‗Chief of Police‘, ‗Second Officer‘, etc), gradually began replacing the duties of the military within Bangkok.
60
The British Constabulary Model In 1890, Rama V traveled to Singapore and surveyed the British-based constabulary-model set up in the colonial city-state. Upon his return, Phra Naresuanrit implemented a patrol plan that placed officers in every area of Bangkok and further bureaucratized the city‘s police based on Singapore‘s police system. A British commissioner headed the newly centralized Patrol Department (Viroj 1978:13). Police patrols were also arranged in areas of the city under the de facto control of Chinese secret societies: from Silom to Saladaeng Road and Hualumpong to Charoenkrung Road. New divisions were created, including an interrogation division which commissioned spies throughout the city to gather criminal intelligence. During this bureaucratization process the justice system was also reformed, largely in reaction to French and British presence in the region. For example: The government realized that having officers interrogate criminals using proscribed methods of torture was best left out of the reformed system even though the law was created to support such action – the most common mistake that caused the government to consider this issue was the officers often punished innocent people because of inefficient behavior and performance (Suwan 1996:45). In place of torture, which was officially outlawed in the kingdom on 1 March 1896, the government began using witnesses to prove the perpetration of crimes. In 1892 under Rama V, reformation of the Siamese government, including the police, was masterminded by the King‘s counselor, Somdej Krompraya ThewawongWaropakorn, who modeled the new government after European systems. Somdej discontinued the ―four-direction system‖ (a bureaucratic continuity to the mandala state) and established a new structure based on bureaucratized ministries. The Interior Bureau, Defense Bureau and Marine Unit were merged with the new Ministry of the Interior. The
61 responsibilities of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense were both expanded in 1894. The Ministry of Interior was tasked with controlling Thailand‘s colonies and provinces while the Ministry of Defense controlled military issues and defense of the capital. Special patrol units were set up in the ―robber haven‖ of Pitsanulok and in Burapa in the Southeast, adjacent to the French-controlled Cambodian borderland. During this reformation, Prince Damrong Rajanupabwas expanded the Ministry of Interior, charged at that time with security in the area of the palace. As Tej Bunnag notes, the centering of police power in the Ministry of the Interior is a key factor in the political power monopoly of Bangkok and its relation to the political leaders of the Thai provinces (1977). This political restructuring at the height of the ―bureaucratic polity‖ in Thailand allowed the entire police department to be centrally administered by a single person, the Director of Interior, in a privileged urban area (Ockey). Concurrently, the Siamese court system was brought into greater conformity with European models, aided by Western advisors like Robert Kirkpatrick, Siam‘s first Legal Advisor who, beginning in 1896, tried criminal cases (Tips 1998). Zones of police interest during this time included 1) the suppression of opium, using a newly created unit of ―Police Soldiers‖ on the northern border controlled by the Uttaradit provincial Governor, 2) protection of the train system (which began in the late 19th century under the Thai State Railway) in using the newly created Railway Police Unit, and 3) the expansion of police forces to fight ―rebels,‖ and protection of foreign business travelers. In order to bureaucratically address these concerns outside of Bangkok, Damrong created the ―Provincial Gendarmerie‖ (krom tarmruat phuthon)
62 within the Ministry of the Interior in 1897 (Weed 1970), which was headed by Danish officer G. Shau (Tej 1977:97). This new department was similar to the recently developed metropolitan police system, but employed a more militarized management structure modeled after the French system (Suwan 1996:55). During this time of judicial reform, Rama V hired a British colonial officer in India, A. J. Jardine, to create and direct a temporary police organization, the ―Patrol Police Unit.‖ Jardine resigned from the unit‘s directorship in 1897, and was replaced by Eric St. J. Lawson, another English officer. Lawson was made commander of the Patrol Unit in 1904 and hired several other English officers to join the organization. Lawson standardized the police under the British model, instituting standard rules, reports and handbooks (Lawson & Thai Police Dept 1906). He also established a police hospital, known colloquially as ―Wat Figure 2: Thai police officer, Eric St. John Lawson
Kok Hospital,‖ in Plubplachai district, which treated wounded police and conducted autopsies using several
foreign forensic doctors. In 1901, the civil disorder of the ―Shan riots‖ in the northern provinces provided the chaotic impetus for the creation of the first Police Officer Cadet Academy, which was established at Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) to train commissioned police officers. The academy was developed by Maj. Gen. Praya Wasutep (a.k.a. Yee Chouw), a native of Denmark (Viroj 1978). Police Captain M.R. Daeng, the Provincial Police Bureau commander nominally headed the academy while a Danish officer, Captain Augus Figger
63 Frederick Kalls, one of the first foreigners who was given a Thai last name, ‗Kollasut,‘ served as trainer. Capt. Kalls had previously served as an artillery trainer for the Thai army and navy academy. A metropolitan police academy was established and later moved to Saprathum district, which provided a six month training regiment for police officers. Lawson also served as the first trainer at a separate platoon academy on Ratchadamri Road, next to Lumpini Park which opened in 1907. According to Suwan, the platoon academy for commissioned officers was created because, ―The metropolitan police were disliked by the public…the patrol policemen had to patrol all over the city and were treated badly by persons of influence and foreigners. Therefore, there were not enough people signing up to become metropolitan policemen‖ (1996:63). At the turn of the 20th century, British agent J.G.D. Campbell lists 3,100 Bangkok Police, the ―leading officials‖ of which, were British nationals (Office of the Prime Minister 1982:123). A special patrol officer explained to me that, up until 1907, the Interior Ministry used to patrol every area of Bangkok rather than the nine areas it was divided into after that date. As a result, officers from that time on no longer patrolled the whole city, a significant change in police occupational reality. Laws for punishment of provincial police officers were codified in 1903 by Prince Damrong under the Ministry of Interior Act. During this time, it became a requirement for police to carry a report book of recorded investigations with them at all times, a practice that is still required today. Officers accused of purposely ignoring orders, drinking, bad behavior, corruption, or insubordination could be found guilty by the Provincial Police Commander without trial. Punishments included suspension and probation as well as whipping, prison, and solitary confinement. A British military report
64 from 1907 lists 144 provincial police stations in Siam (Intelligence Branch 1907:147-50), and another volume, published a year later, lists 330 police sub-stations (Wright 1908:110-11). Tej documents how the creation of the Criminal Investigation Department (Krom Tamruat Phuban) is tied to covert/overt informational control. In a 1904 meeting of Interior Ministry superintendent commissioners, a proposal to create ―secret police‖ (polit lap) throughout the provinces was unanimously rejected ―on the grounds that these men themselves would probably become the thugs and bandits‖ (Tej 1977:228). Two years later, however, Prince Damrong personally authorized plain-clothes policemen (yokkrabat tamruat phuthon) to secretly collect information on ―thugs, bandits and receivers of stolen goods‖ in monthon Nakhon Chaisi (Suwan 1996:63). The next year, in 1907, Damrong lauded the success of this covert intelligence technique and urged other commissioners to appoint undercover officers (renamed ―judicial provincial gendarmes‖ - aiyakan tamruat phuthon) in other provinces. The Criminal Investigation Department was founded in 1913 in order to coordinate the covert informational capacity and operations of these new units who were then called ―criminal investigation police‖ (tamruat phuban). In the Rama V era, operations and strategies against the Chinese Mafia or AngYee, reveal the historical context of Thai ―dark influence‖ (described in Section III Chapter 5 of this dissertation). The Chinese organizations were highly systematized in leadership and structure, and members initially carried identification cards and wore a particular style of dress. The capacity for coercive force that Ang-Yee wielded was such an obvious threat to the Thai government‘s claim to legitimate coercion within the city
65 that competing state performances of its capacity for force became necessary. For example, the government began enacting scenes of warfare using military munitions and elephants in elaborate practice sessions in front of the palace. These performances were specifically designed to ―create stories of fear‖ among Ang-Yee members (Suwan 1996:59). Under the advice of British and French ambassadors, Ang-Yee members were also treated fairly upon arrest as a ―trick‖ (ubaay) used in order to create alliances between the Thai government and members of the Chinese mafia. These interactions demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between of legal/illegal economies and overt/covert influence. In 1915, in the Rama VI era, the ranks of commissioned and non-commissioned officers were created within the Thai police that still exist today. In 1915, Lt. Gen. Pra Woravong Teur Pra Oung Chao Kramrob, the first Director General of the Thai police, merged the provincial gendarmerie with the patrol police department into the ―Gendarmarie and Patrol Department,‖ and merged the their pre-existing academies into one institution called the ―Police Cadet Academy‖ (Viroj 1978:15). Prior to this merger, the structure of the Metropolitan Police Department was similar to the English system, where officers were separated by classes not ranks. Conversely, the Provincial Gendarmerie was based on the French military system, where officers were separated by ranks. Following the 13 October 1915 merger, which is still celebrated as ―Police Day‖ with ceremonies at police stations throughout Thailand, all police officers began following the French system, an arrangement that, according to Suwan, still exists today (1996:65).
66 In an effort to decrease expenses in the wake of the post-World War I economic crisis, the Ministry of Interior was merged with the Metropolitan Ministry under Rama VI, and made responsible for criminal suppression throughout the kingdom of Siam. During this time, rules for arrest by police officers varied depending on social class. Foreign citizens were only able to be arrested for ―obvious crimes‖ while consul officials and their families were immune to arrest. Commissioned officers who committed crimes could not be jailed without a court order, and a monk or member of royalty who committed a crime had to be treated as a commissioned officer. On 24 June 1932, Rama VII‘s absolute monarchy was overthrown by what Suwan calls an ―anti-government organization,‖ who appointed anti-royalist Police Colonel Phrayaburet Padungkij as police commander while purging royalist police officers. To mark this major transformation in the police, the name of the ―Provincial Gendarmerie Department‖ (which the ―Gendarmarie and Patrol Department‖ had briefly reverted to in 1926) was changed to the ―Royal Thai Police Department‖ (Thai National Police Department – the name it still bears today) and directed by a Police DirectorGeneral (Phrayaburet-Padungkij). The name change was intended to ―create a mutual feeling among all police divisions‖ (Suwan 1996:71). In 1933, the government was divided into two major divisions, central and local. The police were summarily divided with Command and the Special Branch bureaus within the central management department, while the Metropolitan and Provincial bureaus were within the local management department. The following year in 1934, the Immigration Department was created within the newly-formed Provincial Management Division.
67 Providing a brief glimpse of Bangkok patrol system in the pre-WWII era, General Praphat Charusathien kept records of the crime suppression plan at Samyak Police Station. There, twenty-four patrol officers were divided into four groups who each patrolled for six hours per day. Each patrol group consisted of a police captain, a police sergeant and two police constables who paired up and patrolled different areas around the station. Suwan describes how, ―most policemen preferred to patrol than to work at the station because they had a chance to enjoy the area‘s scenery and they were usually invited by business owners, who lived in the areas, to rest inside the shops and also given free drinks and food‖ (1996:74). This statement came to mind when, during a ridealong with the Bangkok Metropolitan Special Patrol, we stopped at a small shop in Thonburi and the shopkeeper treated us to bottles of cold Coca Cola. It was a pleasant afternoon in West Bangkok, seemingly not altogether different from the patrols of a half-century ago. In 1938, Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram (Phibun), who upon assuming power used the police to arrest fifty-two people who opposed him, attempted to consolidate power by merging military and civil servant positions. The Special Branch bureau within the police was a key organizational force in this consolidation. During WWII, Thailand declared war on the allied forces and expelled many Europeans and foreigners from its police ranks. Phibun expanded efforts to control ―Chinese trade‖ through police harassment of Chinese immigrants. In 1939, he ordered police inspections of Chinese schools, printing presses, newspaper offices and Chinese associations. In 1941, Chinese people were banned from trade in some areas. Also during this time, the police were assigned to public awareness campaigns in order to stop the spread of infectious diseases.
68 Officers patrolled Bangkok during WWII announcing the ―plague problem‖ and encouraging citizens to go to hospitals for inspections. WWII and Thailand‘s pragmatic alliance with Japan was used as an excuse for territorial expansion into Cambodia. In 1940, Gen. Phibun ordered the Police Director General, Pol. Maj. Gen. Aduldejcharat, to command the Field Police Unit. On 6 Jan 1941, the Thai military attacked Poipet and Jongkal in Northern Cambodia. The Field Police Unit, whose officers were considered members of the military under martial law, acted as a forward holding force against the French Army. Field police officers also gathered intelligence on French army movements, oversaw refugee camps in Thailand, and served as defensive forces in newly captured areas. Following Japanese occupation of Thailand in 1941, Special Branch police relocated British, American and Dutch citizens to holding areas at Thammasat University. The police within the Interior Ministry were further reorganized during this period of martial law, creating many structures that still exist today including the central investigation unit, a host of new Metropolitan Police sub-divisions, and the nine current regions of the Provincial Police. A standard salary range, qualification, and recruitment system was established in 1942, along with an expanded system of ranks under the Japanese ―Asian Police Organization‖ model. Thus, the martial law period under Phibun during WWII was a watershed moment for the centralization and expansion of the Thai police. New police stations and police academies were established throughout the country, the criminal record system was formalized, and forensic crime detection departments were created.
69 During WWII, Gen. ―Por‖ (Phibunsonggram) created the template of militant nationalism later used by royalists to amass dictatorial powers through informational control. Like subsequent royalist factions, he created a personal anthem played in movie theaters, declared his birthday as a national holiday, used a ―Public Relations Division‖ as a propaganda tool, and ordered the Special Branch police to spy on anyone seen as an oppositional threat (Suwan 1996:91). One such opponent, Pridi Phanomyong, called the Phibun regime a ―police government‖ (Rat Tamruad), perhaps coining the term. After the allied attack on major Thai cities in 1944, Pridi and the Free Thai (Seri Thai) revolutionary movement forced the resignation of Phibun and appointed former VP of the Thai parliament, Kuang, as Prime Minister. Following this move, a royal decree was issued making the Director General of the Police division responsible for police management, instead of the Ministry of the Interior. This bureaucratic shift made the police the only organization that had an different structure from other government offices. The police department was also substantially downsized and an internal investigation unit was established to investigate police corruption during a time when police were ―using the street execution method and hired criminals as spies‖ (Suwan 1996:92).
Police in Thailand after World War II Following WWII, the Chinese government declared that Chinese citizens living outside of China would retain their citizenship (Skinner 1957). This declaration caused a spontaneous celebration in Sept. 1945 among Chinese expatriates in Bangkok‘s Yaowarat and Sampeng Road, which was considered an illegal gathering warranting police attention. A riot ensued and numerous shootings and bombings caused the deaths of many Chinese citizens, Thai police, and Thai soldiers. Subsequently, the area was closed
70 to Thai citizens while ―many Chinese schools re-opened without asking for permission from Thai Government and taught students only in Chinese language‖ (Suwan 1996:92). This Chinese cultural movement was fomented in part by Phibun‘s strict educational and political controls on Chinese citizens in Thailand, which were perceived as attempted Chinese ethnocide. Post-WWII brought new policing problems as Suphanburi‘s Sua Fai, Kanchanaburi‘s Sua Mahasawn, and other bandit godfathers created underground power bases that warranted government troop movements to remove them (Suwan 1996:92-3). Simultaneously, Thailand‘s southern provinces saw the continual emergence of the separatist factionalism which still persists today. During the war, partisan organizations emerged against occupying Japanese forces made largely of a growing Malayu separatist movement. Factions loyal to the Malayu secretly seized power in the four southernmost provinces. After the war, the son of Malay separatist Phraya Vichitphakdi (a.k.a. Tawnku-abdulkadera), Tawnkumahaiyiktin mobilized farmers, members of the former Islamic committee, and local persons of influence to organize for an independent Malayu state. Thai police began monitoring what they saw as an armed separatist movement, prompting Tawnkumahaiyiktin to move his organization to Klanton state, where his father sought refuge. The leader of the Patani Mulsim association committee, Hayisuhrong-Abdulkaderah, simultaneously linked with British-trained insurgency forces in other southern provinces in the south creating the origins of ―Thailand‘s southern problem‖ (Hurst 2003). In addition to Chinese riots in Bangkok and a growing Southern separatist movement, an organized communist movement began in Thailand after WWII as well.
71 The Communist Party of Thailand was formed mostly by Chinese Thais, according to a recently translated and published ―internal history‖ (Baker 1 Oct 2003). The formation of the CPT and other communist organizational activities in Thailand brought the attention of the US and its newly-formed ―Containment of Communism‖ policies. Thailand was a strategic buffer between the newly proclaimed People‘s Republic of China, where Mao Zedong achieve communist victory in 1949, and mainland Southeast Asia. In the wake of this victory, as ―China hands‖ were forcibly purged from the bureaucratic offices of Washington DC and Bangkok alike, US-led military, economic, and political manipulation carried its ―special relationship‖ with Thailand to unprecedented levels (Fineman 1997).
The US-Thai “Special Relationship” The death of King Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII) marks a the rise of the US-Thai ―special relationship‖ of patronage, counter-insurgency, and the coercive state apparatus in Thailand, of which the Thai police were initially the most direct beneficiary. Although he was never formally crowned, Ananda was nine years old when he was made monarch, largely through the influence of Pridi. He was twenty years old when World War II ended and he returned to Thailand to attend law school. The young king Rama VIII, made a public appearance in Bangkok‘s Chinatown as a part of a government effort to diffuse the Thai-Chinese tensions there. When Ananda was shot dead in his bedroom at the Grand Palace on 9 June 1946, his death was originally called a suicide. After staging a coup in November 1947, Field Marshall Plaek Phibunsongkhram ordered a trial, charging King Ananda's secretary and two pages with regicide. In an elaboratelyextended Schauprozess, the three men, widely considered innocent, were eventually executed under Phibunsonggram‘s dictatorship in February 1955. The assassination
72 occurred during a time when the US (a country now courted by Phibunsonggkram, after his wartime alliances with the Japanese), and Britain (who backed the overthrown PM Pridi) were vying for covert political dominance of postwar Thailand. Girling writes that the primary goal of United States policy in Thailand from 1950-1975 was to maintain and protect the power of ‗anti-Communist‘ elite leaders from external and internal threats (1981). He argues that this stability in political power protected US economic interests and safeguarded regional stability through the suppression of communism (Ibid. 92). In the 1950s, the US focused aid efforts on the Thai police, and created an immensely corrupt internal security force that rivaled the power of the military. In the 1960s, US policy and aid initially focused on the external threat of communist invasion, and slowly shifted to a policy suppressing communism through internal social control in Thailand. In this way, the Thai police became part of the legacy of US support for coercive regimes throughout the world in the service of communist, drug, and insurgency suppression (Klare & Arnson 1977).
Police Gen. Phao and the Knights of the Diamond Ring Police General Phao Sriyanon once said “There is nothing under the sun that the Thai police cannot do.” So I‟m confident that drugs are something that the Thai police can deal with. Do it to the full. Thaksin Shiniwatra, Suan Dusit Ratchapat Institute, 14 Jan 2003 (Pasuk & Baker 2004:153) Although the basic ―stability‖ of many Thai elites remained assured despite numerous depositions of government, tanks once again rolled through the streets of Bangkok in 1947. Following Lt. Gen. Phin Choonhavan‘s takeover of the Thai government and his appointment of Gen. Phibun as Prime Minister, Col. Phao, Phibun‘s bodyguard, was made director general of the police department. Phibun‘s government
73 began receiving US support for the suppression of communism, and in 1949, the police department began a five year ―improvement campaign,‖ for which the US provided weapons and training. US ambassador in Thailand and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) head, William ―Wild Bill‖ Donovan, repeatedly warned Phibun about the perceived communist threat, considering it his personal mission. Subsequently, the Thai government began investigating the growing student movement. A chief apparatus for this surveillance operation was the secret ―Narasuan Committee‖ formed in 1950 by former OSS agent Willis Bird (Fineman 1997). The committee consisted of Pol. Gen. Sarit Thanarat, Pol. Lt. Thanom Kittikachorn, Pol. Lt. Phao Sriyanond, Pol. Gen. Fuen Ronnaphakat, Lt. Gen. Phin Choonhavan, and Air Force Col. (and Bird‘s brother-in-law) Siddhi Savetsila (Ibid. 133).14 Under the direction of the Narasuan Committee, the Thai police began a new militarized era of unconventional warfare, border patrol, paratroop actions, and special forces operations. This new era of paramilitary policing in Thailand occurred under the aegis and support of the United States who set up the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) office in Thailand in 1950 to foster joint cooperation between the US and Thai armed forces (Fineman 1997:132). The US provided the Thai military with training, administrative units, airport construction, photographic intelligence capabilities, artillery, antiaircraft artillery, small arms, armored vehicles, battleships, aircraft, helicopters, and informational devices. However, it was the Thai police, under Director General Phao, who were the greatest beneficiaries of US support.
14
According to Suwan, Navy Gen Chumnan Attayut, Pol. Lt. Lamay Uthanon, and Mr. Vorakarn Buncha were members of the Narasuen Committee as well (1996:71).
74 Born of Thai-Burmese ancestry on 1 March 1910, Phao Sriyanond began his career in the army after attending the royal military academy. As an army officer, he married Gen. Phin Choonhavan‘s daughter and, as an Army Colonel, participated in Phin‘s 1947 coup against Pridi, restoring Phibun as dictator (Wilson 1962). As deputy police director after the coup, one of Phao‘s first acts was staging the show trial and execution for Rama VIII‘s ―assassins.‖ A vertex of the Phin/Phibun/Phao power triumvirate, Phao was instrumental in suppressing a number of coup attempts against Phibun from 1948-1951. Phao was promoted to Director-General of the Thai National Police Department (TNPD) in 1951 and soon after became Thailand‘s Deputy Minister of the Interior (1951), Deputy Minister of Finance (1953) and a member of the board of directors of at least twenty-five corporations (Fineman 1997:130). As meticulously documented in Thomas Lobe‘s United States National Security Policy and Aid to the Thailand Police, the CIA provided weapons, funds, and equipment to the Thai police, and saw Phao as a more strategically useful counter-insurgency asset than his rival in the Thai military, Sarit Thanarat. The police operated throughout Thailand‘s provinces, were controlled with absolute authority by Phao, and were less interested in Bangkok-centered bureaucracy than the military (Lobe 1977). Additionally, in 1951, many United States officials predicted that Phao would most likely succeed Phibun as Prime Minister (Lobe & Morell 1978:158). That year, a National Security Council directive enlisted the CIA to build a paramilitary force in Thailand under Phao that would suppress communism within Thailand as well conduct covert operations in Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and China. This directive resulted in the CIA‘s creation of the South-East Asia Supply Corporation (Sea Supply), a front organization
75 that provided aid for conventional police activities as well as extravagant funding for new counterinsurgency police units, the Police Area Reconnaissance Unit (PARU)15 and the Gendarmerie Patrol Force, which was renamed the Border Patrol Police in 1959 (Randolph 1986; Sheehan 1971). With the support of the United States, Phao also enhanced the power of the TNPD, created a marine police force, and a police armored division (McCoy 1991). The police paratroop unit, PARU was formed at the behest of a CIA operative, James William Lair, who Phao made a ranked Thai police officer to serve as the unit‘s ―guru‖ in counter-insurgency and drug suppression (Warner 1995:31-2). In this way, Phao used backing from the CIA and millions of dollars in US support to strengthen his political power base. By 1955, the TNPD numbered 42,000, rivaling the power of the military which commanded a force of approximately 45,000 (Lobe & Morell 1978). This CIA funding allowed Phao to create a personal fortune, supplemented by blackmail, market rigging, prostitution, gambling, protection money, and opium trafficking (Ibid.). An inner circle of influential police officers, known as the ―Knights of the Diamond Ring,‖ formed his personal Praetorian Guard (Anderson & Mendiones 1985). This group ruthlessly influenced Thai politics, through intimidation and assassination of politicians, publishers, and business rivals who opposed Phao. These practices were well-known to US officials, who continued to give Phao and the TNPD weapons, vehicles, awards and praise from the US government. In 1954, Phao was given the Legion of Merit for ―exceptionally meritorious service‖ from the US Secretary of the Army (Darling 1965). In 1955, US ambassador William Donovan, former director of the OSS and CIA senior adviser, saluted Phao‘s police as ―a tough and 15
The first police Paramilitary and Reconnaissance Unit (PARU) training occurred on 17 Jul 1951, and was intended to create reinforcement capabilities for police in remote border provinces. Some police PARU units trained in US bases in Japan (Lobe & Morell 1978).
76 well trained national police force,‖ making Thailand the ―free world‘s strongest bastion in Southeast Asia.‖ During this state ceremony, ―Wild Bill‖ Donovan emphatically asserted that ―Thailand is not a police state‖ (McCoy 2003:185). Although Phao‘s political and military goals converged with the interests of US policy, Phao was not a simple US government pawn. Although Phao was known as ―Thailand‘s most ardent anti-Communist‖ (McCoy 1991), he continuously asserted his Machiavelian agency, courting both ―sides‖ of the Cold War. For example, although Phao and the Phibun regime allied with the West, unofficial tolerance of the left released internal pressure on the regime and eased tensions with Communist powers (Insor 1963). Fineman writes, ―Phin and Phao, in fact, were beginning to develop lucrative associations with procommunist Chinese businessmen, associations that would grow closer as the years passed‖ (1997). Under Phao‘s direction, 1952 saw another expansion of the Thai police department, when many sub-divisions were created, separating the suppression unit from the investigation unit by uniform color and duties. Twenty-two special police units were set up throughout the provinces to counter police station attacks by a increasingly mobilized communist insurgency. Suwan writes, ―In the meanwhile the communist party in Bangkok tried to create chaos between the military force and the police force by spreading rumors of an American backed coup d‘etat‖ (1996:111). Unbeknownst to Suwan, the basic strategy of order through covert informational control is evident here. ―Rumors of an American backed coup d‘etat‖ were sources of chaotic utility for the newly-developing US intelligence apparatus in Thailand, as much as for their communist ―rivals.‖ Once again exemplifying the Hegelian dialectic of chaos and order (Hegel &
77 Sibree 1881), the rumors of impending communist disorder justified the issuance of the anti-communist act, which was used to arrest more than one hundred accused communists in Thailand‘s rural areas. During this time, Pol. Gen. Phao, as commander of police department set up police groups to monitor and control media outlets, and prohibited all political gatherings. A Royal Decree on 20 Oct 1953, allowed the Minister of Defense and the police commander to organize a special joint force to react to ―any violent situation in order to stabilize the nation‖ (Suwan 1996:113). Attendant with this new capacity for martial law, new police duties were issued including enhanced border protection, prevention of a ―communist invasion,‖ and co-operation with volunteer border patrol groups. In 1954, Thai police officials began training abroad and in March 1955, Gen. Phao was invited to Britain to observe police practices there. After Gen. Sarit‘s coup in 1957, martial law was declared once again, and Phao was forced into exile in Switzerland, dying there on 21 Nov 1960. Sarit dismantled the Thai police power structure by replacing the majority of the police leadership with his military officers and transferring police weapons and equipment to the military. 16 He was determined to never again allow the police to rival the military in control, helping to fuel the animosity between the two coercive state organizations.17 Initially, Sarit was hostile to the CIA for its partisan support of the police over his military and sent most of the CIA operatives home (Lobe 1977). The CIA front company, Sea Supply, which was housed
16
Total US military aid to Thailand from 1950-1979 was around 2 billion dollars, a relatively unremarkable figure when compared to the 101 billion dollar world total during that period (Klare & Arnson 1977:116-7). 17 This institutional rivalry between police and military is a common bureaucratic relationships in countries where the two groups share operational overlap (militarized police and policized military), as documented by Janowitz (1977:148).
78 in a building adjacent to the headquarters of the TNPD, reportedly burned its records on the night of the coup (Randolph 1986).
US Counterinsurgency in Thailand after Phao CIA funding was not phased out entirely, however. The Civil Police Administration (CPA), which was organized to offer limited assistance and evaluation of the TNPD, arrived in Thailand in 1957 and was quickly used as a front for continued CIA activities in intelligence and influence (Randolph 1986:97). That the CPA existed at all, when little internal or external communist threat existed in Thailand from 19571961, is a testament to the fact that US intelligence agents simply needed a means to continue their counter-insurgency strategies in Thailand in this period of temporary hostility to US police aid . US counter-insurgency assistance to the Thai police through USAID‘s Office of Public Safety (OPS) was maintained throughout 1957-1961 (Lobe 1977), indicating the Kennedy administration‘s continued interest in counterinsurgency in Southeast Asia (Randolph 1986:89). In 1961, Kong Le and the Pathet Lao created fears of a communist regime in Laos, prompting US and Thai security organizations to renew their bilateral alliances (Lobe 1977). Sarit agreed to a secret CIA expansion of the offensive capability of the BPP and PARU which he had re-organized into the Provincial Police under his own control of the TNPD. The USAID‘s OPS was given a broad mandate to assist the TNPD‘s paramilitary and conventional forces in the expansion of anti-riot and counterinsurgency capabilities. Thus, by the end of 1961, US-assisted Thai police operations were once again geared for militarized ―business as usual.‖ On the advice of ―American advisors,‖ Thailand formed the Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC) in 1965 linking civilian, police and military
79 (CPM) agencies in a counter-insurgency network (Blaufarb 1977). Local village defense groups, police and military forces conducted search and destroy missions of ‗communist terrorists,‘ foreign-supported members of the Communist Party of Thailand (Kanok 1983). These search and destroy strategies continued into the late 1960‘s. In 1968, when insurgency spread to the north, the military responded with unobserved artillery attacks, napalm drops on villages and forced migration of village populations into refugee camps (Blaufarb 1977). Like Phibun‘s regime, by 1968, Thanom‘s military government was characterized by conflict between military General Praphas and Police General Prasert (Suchit 1987). Thanom staged a coup in 1971 with the support of the Army and subsequently banned political gatherings, abrogated the constitution and dissolved Parliament. The coup also aimed, according to Suchit Bunbongkarn, to reduce if not eliminate the influence of Pol. Gen. Prasert (Ibid. 50). Thanom‘s son and Praphas‘s son-in-law, Narong, quickly rose to military and political power as a result of this coup and continued Thanom‘s attempts to displace Prasert. It is a testament to how powerful Prasert had become through US support and police power that he survived these attempts to remove him. In events mirroring Phao‘s police era, Prasert rebuilt the TNPD into a force that threatened military control of Thailand. He pragmatically used US police assistance to further his own political and economic power base. Militarized communist suppression activities continued into 1972, when the Royal Thai Army attacked a guerrilla base with the entire elite First Division. The attack ended in failure with between 300-600 men killed or wounded and no known insurgent casualties (Blaufarb 1977:186). Despite failures like these, Thai counterinsurgency efforts continued to use ―active‖ suppression based on firepower and large
80 military operations. The other aspect of Thai counter-insurgency activities, ―passive‖ efforts focusing on village development, police interaction in village populations and intelligence were increasingly favored by US and Thai security agencies. These efforts were designed to bring village populations closer to the government by improving rural infrastructure and institutions under the rubric of ―development‖ (Blaufarb 1977:191). These programs also included propaganda and psychological operations which began as US-led efforts, but were eventually incorporated into the new Thai agencies including CSOC (Ibid.). Consequently, Thai counter-insurgency policies of the late 1960s that favored winning ―hearts and minds‖ through education and internal control began to replace earlier strategies of military suppression. Another ambitiously funded joint US-Thai program was the development of tambon village police stations. The fundamental premise of this program was that if police officers were present in as many villages as possible, insurgency could not spread and the villagers would learn to accept and trust the police (Lobe 1977). In actuality, the tambon project failed due to the widespread abuse of police power on the villages. Lobe writes, ―more police tended to mean more eyes and ears, more guns and repression, and more pressure on the villagers‖ (Ibid. 77). Although this attempt to control and monitor village life through police presence failed, BPP programs funded by the CIA through DEVCON Inc. in the mid to late 1960s were much more successful. Like Sea Supply a decade earlier, DEVCON was a front organization for the CIA offering covert support of police programs. These included the Bordercraft project, an attempt to encourage hilltribe populations to reduce opium cultivation by relying on profits from craft production to. Conveniently, the project also allowed the BPP and CIA advisors to expand their
81 village surveillance network (Lobe 1977:82). Similarly, the BPP continued to create village schools, an effort that began in 1955 with CIA support. In 1968, there were 212 rural schools in operation, which allowed BPP volunteers and policemen ‗teachers‘ to monitor the activities of more than 12,000 students. As a CIA advisor pointed out, ―schoolchildren are just about the best sources of information around‖ (Ibid.). In 1974, when Prime Minister Sanya renamed the ―Communist Suppression Operations Command‖ the ―Internal Security Operations Command‖ (Kanok 1983), the trend towards increased internal state social control was fully realized. The military government that took power in 1976 was a direct beneficiary of these programs of internal social control. Riggs notes that the primary goal of the 1976 Thai bureaucratic dictators is stability: the maintenance of the position of power. US counter-insurgency policy in Thailand from the 1950s through the 1970s shared this goal. The increasing reliance on programs that fostered internal surveillance, repression and control in the fight against communism fostered this goal of stability in government. Of course, surveillance alone did not ensure this goal. In fact, the intelligence network was not enough to prevent the 1973 uprising from occurring, which deposed a combined military and police coup who declared martial law in 1971 on the pretext of the threat of communist insurgency (Heinze 1974:491), and ushered in the three year ―experiment with democracy‖ in Thailand from 1973-1976. In retrospect, the unprecedented democratic gains resulting from the uprising seem to be little more than a ―threatening opportunity‖ in the eyes of the rightist regime that would gain control in 1976. After 1973 there were renewed calls among US and Thai security officials alike for absolute central authority among police and counter-insurgency agencies. General
82 Saiyud Kedphol, CSOC‘s Director of Operations prior to 1973 lamented, ―CSOC needs more authority...CSOC needs the support of the national leadership...At the moment, no one body is really making the decisions in this field‖ (Tanham 1974). Tanham, MinisterCounselor for Counterinsurgency in the early 1970s agreed, ―One doubts that the Thai counterinsurgency effort will really succeed in halting the expansion of the insurgency until an organization, or a single man, is given adequate authority and resources to make a concerted drive against it, but as of early 1974 this seems unlikely to happen‖ (Ibid. 157). Before US police assistance through the Office of Public Safety (OPS aid peaked in 1969 at $62.5 million) was terminated in 1974, the Provincial Police, the BPP, the Bangkok Metropolitan Police (responsible for riot and crowd control) and the Special Branch (responsible for internal security) had built up large amounts of ―surplus assets‖ in the form of weapons, ammunition, petroleum and spare parts (Randolph 1986). Critics of OPS complained that the police ―would be well-armed and supplied for years to come‖ (Lobe 1977). Despite the attempts of OPS to reform or exert control over these massive supplies of equipment, the 1970s offers a series of incidents to show how US aid was used in increasingly repressive ways. In 1974 the heavily armed BPP, accompanied by local police and village defense volunteers, attacked Ba Na Sai village, killing a number of villagers and burning it to the ground (Lobe & Morell 1978). The event caused widespread protests when it was learned that the alleged communist insurgents, the cause of the attack, were neither living in the village nor was the village government under communist influence. This incident revealed other instances where the ISOC and government troops used torture in
83 communist suppression activities including in the Na Kae district of Nakhon Phanom province where villagers were brutalized (Morell & Chai-anan 1981:169-70). In 1975 student and worker protest movements in Bangkok were the victims of violent strikebreaking at the hands of the TNPD. In one instance, women strikers were beaten at a peaceful sit-in at the Standard Garment Factory where the Director-General of the Police was a shareholder (Jumbala 1987). These police forces were directly involved in the violence of the 1976 massacre and coup. Although there is little evidence of direct US involvement, two decades of increasing support to the Thai security groups indicate the US links to nearly every group involved in the 1976 violence. The Border Patrol Police, trained and supported by the CIA and other US agencies since its inception in 1955, along with other police groups such as the Bangkok Metropolitan Police were ordered into Thammasat University on the night of October 5. The BPP was ordered from its upcountry garrison and participated directly in the massacre (Morell & Chai-anan 1981; Ruangyot 1992).18 The BPP helped train the Village Scouts who were also intimately involved in the massacre, as were the Red Guars (Krathing Daeng) who were connected with the newly-formed Internal Security Operations Command (which was, like the BPP, backed by the CIA). Thus, Thailand is another notorious site of CIA funding throughout the world which aided the repressive capacity of police paramilitary groups and created an international legacy of state death squads (Klare & Arnson 1977; Sluka 2000). Lobe documents how US-organized ―experimental village defense forces‖ in Thailand including the Village Security Force (VSF), Border Security Volunteer Teams, and the
18
Gen. Withun Yasawat (head of the US-led Thai forces in the ―Secret War‖ in Laos) was also involved in the massacres by Thai government forces in both 1973 and 1976 (Ruangyot 1992).
84 Hunter-Killer Teams, mostly based in Northeastern part of the country (1977). The VSF was made the ―highest priority of all USOM (United States Operations Mission)supported projects‖ by the US Mission. OPS director, Byron Engle, cautioned that the VSF would ―end up as nothing but vigilantes and village bullies‖ (Ibid. 69). CSOC deputy director, Gen. Saiyut Koedphon, and deputy director of the Thai police, Withun Yasawat, admitted intensive CIA collaboration with Thai police, security, and intelligence agencies. Through this collaboration, US identification of ―subversive elements‖ was realized through American indoctrination of groups like CSOC, ―Nawaphon‖ (through ISOC), and the Border Patrol Police (Lobe & Morell 1978). In the 1970s, groups like the Krathing Daeng (Red Gaurs, or Red Bulls, as described in Section II Chapter 3), were supported by the Thai Santhiban (Special Branch) police and ISOC, in turn, receiving US support directly from the CIA (Indochina Resource Center 1977).
Thai Police in the Post-Cold War Global Police Network Following the 1982 ―defeat‖ of the CPT through government amnesty, Thai police history is largely a narrative of increasing integration with the ―professionalized‖ reform models of the international law enforcement community. This self-described ―community‖ is largely a sophisticated euphemism for a series of policies, agreements, and interactions designed to homogenize the world‘s police forces under the rubric of ―international police cooperation.‖ The agencies and agendas of the globally-based police groups attempting to influence Thailand‘s security apparatus are legion. Immediately following the end of the counter-insurgency era in 1975, the US and other international groups used the Cold War precedent as a springboard into a host of new agendas. The United States, for its part, quickly found a new enemy beginning with
85 Nixon‘s declaration of a ―war on drugs,‖ which continued through subsequent administrations without abatement, victory or surrender. Like the communists of the 1950s-70s, drugs were suppressed through the application of firepower in external war zones. Beginning in the mid 1970s, Thailand began hosting the largest contingent of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents outside of the United States (Nadelmann 1993). From 1973-1981 the US provided more assistance to the Thai police under the International Narcotics Control Program than any other country, excluding Burma, Mexico, and Columbia (Klare & Arnson 1977). This broad level of cooperation between Thai and US police agencies eventually lead to an extradition treaty in 1988 and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), negotiated under Reagan‘s Attorney General Ed Meese which was activated on 10 Jun 1993 (Nadelmann 1993:378). Currently, US security aid to Thailand focuses on drug eradication efforts, the War on Terror, and protection of US economic interests. These goals are addressed through institutions like the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA),19 and militarized border protection and drug interdiction training exercised such as the annual OPERATION COBRA GOLD joint mission, administered by US Special Forces and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Thailand is the only country in Asia that hosts foreign offices of every major US federal law enforcement agency including the DEA, FBI, Customs, Secret Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Nadelmann 1993:480).20 In addition to US interests, many other countries including Australia, the 19
An International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was formed in 1998 as part of a larger $1.7 billion US assistance package following the Thai financial crisis earlier that year. The Bangkok-based ILEA trains law enforcement officials throughout Asia to ―combat transnational crime, including narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other financial crimes, counterfeiting, firearms trafficking, vehicle theft, and alien smuggling‖ (United States Information Service 1998). 20 The only other countries with this degree of representation are the United Kingdom and Italy (Nadelmann 1993:480-1).
86 United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, and China use Thailand, particularly Bangkok, as a ―central hub‖ to base their international law enforcement efforts in Asia. This increasingly-powerful group of international actors continues to assert a broader array of influence on Thai police policy and practice often under the rubric of bureaucratic reform and ―democratic policing.‖ In contrast to this façade of global good intentions, Andreas and Nadelmann write, ―the internationalization of crime control is primarily the outcome of ambitious efforts by generations of Western powers to export their domestically derived definitions of crime‖ (2006). Indeed, the agendas of the US, Interpol, the UN and other members of the ―international law enforcement community‖ seem to be designed to secure homogenization, surveillance and conformity in the policing systems of ―developing nations.‖ This global policing agenda is pursued in Thailand in the same way it is elsewhere: through technology, training, and ―cooperation,‖ (information sharing, expanded jurisdiction and extradition agreements) the world‘s police forces are becoming interchangeable. From this perspective, the coercive abuses of Thaksin‘s ―police-friendly‖ era paved the way for conformity to global policing in the period of royally-backed martial law that continues to this day.
Thaksin’s Police/State The remainder of this dissertation describes and unprecedented period of police influence in Thailand, under former Prime Minister and former Police Lt. Col., Thaksin Shiniwatra, which eclipsed even Phao‘s CIA-financed police empire of the Cold War era. Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin mirrored Pol. Gen. Phao in many ways. Under both Thaksin and Phao, radically-empowered police forces rivaled that of the military, leading directly to military-backed coups. According to Katewadee and Tan-Mullins, ―Thaksin has
87 deprived the military of their long-established political power in various dimensions, especially; the unequal power-relationship in politics between the police and the military is immense under his rule‖ (Katewadee & Tan-Mullins 4 Apr 2005). Just as Phao‘s police largesse created the justification for Sarit‘s military-backed coup in 1958 and a return to royalist nationalism, Thaksin‘s spectacles of police-backed order and ―corruption‖ were used to justify the military-backed coup in 2006 and a renewed royalist nationalism. To create a police-bureaucracy state, Thaksin buttressed his political influence as a former ranking Thai police officer by constantly promote former classmates, and further cemented these ties through kinship by marrying the daughter of a police general (Sorakol 2003). Thaksin‘s brother-in-law, Pol. Lt. Gen. Priewpan Damapong was appointed to head the Narcotics Suppression Bureau during the 2003 War on Drugs, described in Section II Chapter 4. Priewpan was then promoted to Assistant Director General of the Thai police. Also, Pol. Maj. Gen. and Constitutional Court judge Suwan Suwanwecho (author of the Thai police history that informs much of this chapter) is known for his close ties to Thaksin (Nation 13 Jul 2006). Furthermore, a former academy classmate of Thaksin was also appointed to head the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), often derisively referred to as the ―political police‖ behind ―the government‘s attempt to destroy oppositions by issuing arrest warrants or filing crime charges against them‖ (Sorakol 2003). The ex-CSD chief, Pol. Gen. Surasit Sangkapong was another Police Academy classmate of Thaksin‘s, and was promoted to oversee the legalization of the ―underground lotto‖ and its integration into government supervision. This process included mass arrests of illegal lotto financiers, tightened border patrol
88 designed to monitor the flow of Thai gamblers into Cambodia, and increased police budgets to cover increased responsibilities for legal gambling revenue. This radically-expanded cronyism in Thaksin‘s government created conflicts in the world of ―dark influence‖ (ittiphon muet) as well (discussed in Section III, Chapter 5). The Thai police and military traditionally compete for influence in underground economies as well as legitimate business and politics. Conflicts between Army General Kattiya Sawasdipol, ―who was seen as military‘s protector of underground businesses,‖ and Police Director General Sant Sarutanond under Thaksin led to a series of lawsuits and assassination attempts on the part of both parties (Sorakol 2003). Similarly, Thaksin dissolved the joint military-police administered Southern Border Provinces Center (SOBT), and gave jurisdiction of southern regional security to the police, an act which further upset the balance of power between the police and military. Katewadee and TanMullins note: Events and unrest in the South quickly followed, hence inevitably prompted one to question whether is it instigated by military as ―acts of revenge.‖ Yet, the police are also suspected to be responsible for many kidnappings of Muslims in Southern Thailand to suppress the region‘s unrest, most notably the prominent Muslim lawyer, Somchai Nelapaichit (4 Apr 2005). These acts of deliberate provocateurship by state agents are a key element of the order through chaos dialectic described in the following sections of this dissertation. The careful manipulation of disorder used to justify spectacular displays of order remains one of the most effective methods of constructing the modern state. In Thailand in 2003, this method was employed covertly by state-makers, leading directly to years of martial law. The effects of these campaigns of state order will continue to be intertwined with the future of the country long after the state-makers who orchestrated them fade into history.
89
SECTION CONCLUSION: Displays of Order in Thai Police History Through the lens of the past, Thaksin‘s police/state era exhibits a long historical precedent. The Thai state and its police developed in conjunction with perceived threats to state order, where each new enemy or act of disorder justified further centralization, bureaucratization and state incursion. Chinese secret societies, anti-state uprisings, riots, bandits, chao pho kingpins, southern separatists, communists and drug traffickers emerged symbiotically with the expansion and evolution of the Thai police system. Within the context of these chaotic threats, the Thai police were central agents in the creation of state order using the four techniques discussed throughout this dissertation. Spectacular ritual displays were an integral part of Thai police pageantry, beginning with their emergence in the royal protection demonstrations of the Angkor mandala state. These displays are historically evident in the literal performances of force in front of the Bangkok palace in the 19th century – performative showcases designed to create ―stories of fear‖ among Chinese ang-yee cadre – and the rituals of ―police day‖ performed annually in stations throughout the country. Historical displays of order are interrelated to broader performances of coercive force, such as long-standing state practices of torture and violence, which gain historical legitimacy from Thailand‘s imagined past. The symbolism of King Naresuan‘s absolute rule and militarized expansionism is referenced by many Thai police units including the Naresuan SWAT team (discussed in Chapter 6) and the iconography of Ayuthaya era war elephants that adorns the contemporary iconography of the Border Patrol Police patch, tying the unit to anti-Burmese animosity. Performances of violent coercive were dramatically increased in the counter-insurgency era, when the US military and intelligence apparatus exponentially extended the violent capacity of the Thai police.
90 The Thai police are thus subject to similar historical influences as police groups in Venezuela, Brazil (Huggins 1998), Haiti (Trouillot 1990), and Nigeria (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights 1992), where historic circumstances and intervention by Western powers produced culturally-specific violent expressions (Browning 1992; Sluka 2000). Western influences are also extended by the state construction of order through assertions of economic dominance as Thai state-makers historically gained legitimacy through integration with global institutions such as USAID, ASEAN, Interpol, and the various regimes of global drug prohibition. The creation of economic legitimacy through transnational collaboration recalls Thailand‘s crypto-colonial period, when the Thai police modeled themselves after European police organizations and actively recruited many European officers for leadership positions. This bureaucratic self-colonization assisted a broader assertion of economic dominance as the Thai police expanded in conjunction with Siam‘s economic frontiers, railway networks, and foreign trade networks. Prior to the Bangkok period, the criminal immunity offered to foreign traders in the Ayuthaya era is another historical example of asserted economic dominance. Finally, these displays of order are interrelated to historical assertions of covert/overt informational control. From the first undercover police spies of the Interior Ministry, to suppression of Chinese printing presses and newspaper offices, to Phibun‘s use of Special Branch police as covert surveillance apparatus, the role of the Thai police in state informational control is historically apparent. This informational control capacity was expanded in the era of sustained counter-insurgency, and was profoundly altered by the covert netherworld of the US intelligence apparatus. The sections and chapters that
91 follow are directly informed by this history: the 2003 Thai state construction of order through its war on drugs, corruption, and terror are a reflection of the historical precedents of the past.
92
SECTION II: THAI DRUG SUPPRESSION AND THE 2003 WAR ON DRUGS “It is called an wisaaman ( - irregular or extraordinary) killing when police accidentally kill a suspect…This kind of thing only attacks one police officer – lower ranking ones – not the commander, not the policy makers, even if there is more than one cop there.” Pol. Sgt. ―Bandit‖ interview, May 2003 ―Bandit‖ was a mid-ranked police officer. His nickname reflected his selfpresentation as a nakleng, a kind of Thai anti-hero in Thai cinema and television filtered through American gangster films and Westerns. He smoked a cigarette and stared at me, waiting for the words to translate. Waiting for their implications to expand. After all, I was a farang, a foreigner, and this process would take time. For weeks, station commanders and office staff of this small Bangkok police station adeptly answered my questions with non-controversial responses. Evidently, this intense officer from the rank-and-file was as tired of the performance as I was. I asked him about his role in the three-month drug suppression campaign that ended a little over a week before. This question prompted him to unexpectedly launch into a discussion of extra-judicial killings. We talked at a picnic table in the canteen outside the station, watching a hand-to-hand combat training seminar. Twenty or thirty officers were paired off, smiling and laughing as they applied choke holds to each other. Later, I would reflect on the surreality of this scene. ―Did this happen in this station?‖ I asked. Without pause, he said, ―Yes, it happened just recently.‖
93 When I asked follow-up questions about the drug campaign, again he reiterated his statement above, providing a chilling non sequitur. In his mind, the drug campaign and extra-judicial killings were intimately linked. In February 2003, the first day in the Year of the Goat, the Thai Prime Minister unveiled a three month operation to ―rid drugs from every square inch of Thailand.‖ As one of the world‘s major transit points for heroin and opium and with a domestic methamphetamine production problem reaching epidemic proportions, this quixotic campaign seemed immediately destined for failure or tragedy. A week later, the Thai Interior Minister, Wan Muhamad Nor Matha, warned district chiefs that all drug dealers in their areas should be made to understand that they had to ―give up and get out‖ or they could ―get caught‖ or even ―get killed‖ (Bangkok Post 25 Jan 2003). Wan Nor, declared, ―In our war on drugs, the district chiefs are the knights and provincial governors the commanders. If the knights see the enemies but do not shoot them, they can be beheaded by their commanders‖ (Ibid.). Within days, bodies began piling up throughout the country as the police acted on blacklists of drug dealers, users and addicts. The government and police claimed that rival drug dealers were killing each other to avoid being betrayed by their accomplices. These were lies; an example of the state constructing order through deception. At the end of the three-month campaign, close to 2,500 were dead, with no investigations into the murders. One of the many grisly paradoxes of the drug war was that this national tragedy couldn‘t have been timed better for my research. I arrived a month before its declaration and left a month after its ―conclusion,‖ on one of the many declarations of drug-free victory the day before the Thai king‘s birthday. Prior to the
94 campaign‘s launch, I was not planning to make drug suppression a major focus of my research. Now it became impossible not to study this massive spectacle of chaos and order. I witnessed a series of political operations designed to fulfill a similar function: creating the necessary enemies of the state, whether they are drug dealers, criminals, terrorists or rival states. Following the Weberian definition (1972: [1919]), the constant demonstration of coercive force is integral to state legitimacy and the state construction of order. The state demands sacrifices. Within these state processes, it was the structure of rank within the Thai police that drove Bandit‘s conversation. Both of his parents were farmers from the Northeast. He studied at a provincial school and received a one-year police certificate from a metropolitan police academy. After ten years, he held the rank of police sergeant. Without the requisite social and financial connections, the highest non-commissioned officer rank is senior sergeant major – naaydaap tamruat. This rank translates as, ―sword police,‖ and many of the most talented and intelligent officers in the Thai police wear the rank‘s metal insignia depicting two crossed swords on their epaulette sleeves for their entire careers, without the money or connections to become commissioned officers. The Thai police, like any bureaucracy, depends on the chain of command. Lower rank officers follow orders from those of higher rank, or they will be reprimanded, fired, or in certain cases, subject to bodily injury or even death. In order to reconcile this system with cultural constructions of masculinity and individual psyche, it must be internalized. ―Bandit‖ elaborated this point, I know my duty, I know I have to be polite with everyone. If I have to deal with thieves, killers and criminals, how can I act polite all the time?... Sometimes the commander orders an arrest for actions that aren‘t illegal –
95 we have to follow even when we know it‘s wrong. It‘s a tradition (praphenii) to do this. This was a moment of pure human honesty in the middle of all of the government and media deception surrounding the drug campaign. This man was not an automaton of the state, despite his occupational position as a state agent. I was overwhelmed with the value of the pure human interaction the officer was presenting to me. He wouldn‘t tell me more, perhaps realizing the trouble the human proclivity for honesty might cause him. It didn‘t matter. In that moment, a strange empathy connected us. Through the liberation of information (Martin 1998), the differences between us faded. Highlighting a bureaucratic system of patronage underlying a moral economy, he continued, If I talk too much, it will affect the station, but what I said is the truth and there is limitation (kho jam kat) – they can‘t totally follow the law. They have to follow the commander more than the law. They have a receiver and a giver, even though I‘m 100% good, but he‘s a cop and sometimes when somebody offers something to him he can‘t say no, because it‘s tradition. He can‘t blame the law, but sometimes we can‘t follow the law totally. It‘s there – a social fact. I can‘t talk too much… There was a long silence between us as the flies from the canteen buzzed and the martial arts trainer finished the session. Wanting to eliminate some of the tension, I asked a generic question, ―What do you like best about your job?‖ He smiled and said, ―To prevent everything from going out of control...‖ Another pause. ―Go ahead, publish it, I‘m telling the truth, I don‘t care.‖
96
Chapter 3 - An Introduction to Thai Drug Suppression In his expressed desire to ―prevent everything from going out of control,‖ Bandit revealed one of the central motivations of a host of state agents. From the neighborhood officers patrolling Bismark, North Dakota, to the narco-cops of Columbia, police are envisioned as keepers of the social order. They are seen and often see themselves as watchmen holding society‘s Hobbesian fears at bay. One aspect of this dissertation‘s central theses is that states construct order through the manipulation of chaos: by allowing it to occur or creating it in order to justify its reaction, identification (of ‗threats,‘ ‗risk,‘ ‗enemies,‘ etc.), and control. The dialectic relationship between chaos and order is central to the state-making process. Indeed, ―Order Out of Chaos‖ is the motto of the LAPD SWAT team and many of the thousands of teams that mimic it. These teams secure ordnung with armored personal carriers, gas grenades, weapons that fire thousands of rounds per minute, often with enough power to penetrate a car‘s engine block. In short, in order to create order, state agents use and control chaos. At its most Machiavellian, in the context of drug suppression this perceived necessity results in acts of provocateurship, manifested in cases throughout the globe when drugs are planted on enemies of the state; or in the case discussed in the following section, when Thai state agents conducted thousands of assassinations explained as ―dealers killing dealers.‖ Anthropologist Michael Whiteford, in an article about Columbian drug dealing, guerrilla movements and paramilitary terrorism, writes how a culture surrounding these modern manifestations of chaos, constantly and unconsciously reproduce these manifestations (2002). Beyond this habitus of tolerance, the central question for Whiteford is, ―How do you keep things in order when disorder abounds?‖
97 This question, which assumes that disorder is pervasive, is also asked by police, intelligence agencies, and the political and economic elites of the modern state. These groups position themselves as merely reacting to inevitable acts of disorder. The construction of order by the state, however, requires that chaos and disorder are often managed and manufactured. Drugs are an excellent example of how state agents carefully attempt to control both sides of the chaos/order ―divide‖ for the purposes of state building and order making. To use another example from Columbia, Michael Taussig‘s imaginary ―Cocaine Museum‖ holds a display case containing: …a black ski mask, an orange Stihl chain saw, and a laptop computer, its screen glowing in the shadows. When they arrive at an isolated village, the para(militaries) are known to pull out a computer and read from it a list of names of people they are going to execute, names supplied by the Columbian army, which of course, has no earthly connection with the paramilitaries. Just digital. ―It was a terrible thing,‖ said a young peasant in July 2000, in the hills above Tulua, ―to see how death was there in that apparatus‖ (2004:18) The majority of the Northern paramilitaries‘ income, Taussig describes, comes from coca and marijuana cultivation. These northern production centers were rarely subject to eradication. The US-backed ―War Against Drugs‖ in Columbia focuses instead on attacking guerrillas in the south leaving the northern profit centers in place to ship cocaine to the US. ―The War Against Drugs‖ is actually funded by cocaine and is not against drugs at all,‖ Taussig writes. ―It is a War for Drugs‖ (Ibid.). Tausig shares common criticisms of Plan Columbia, which was created in the late 1990s, ostensibly as a mechanism for economic revitalization and drug suppression in Columbia. Despite these lofty goals, plan Columbia provided government security forces with funds and training for drug suppression (including aerial fumigation). This aid, in turn, burgeoned security forces‘
98 ability to profit from drug routes now free of left-wing competition (Livingstone 2004; Stokes 2005). Furthermore, the cycle of global drug production and prohibition efforts, led particularily by US police, profoundly affect the stability of Latin American states and indigenous landscapes (Steinberg et al 2004; Youngers & Rosin 2005). This situation is mirrored in the Thai War on Drugs, which targeted low-level dealers and hill tribe villagers in easily-identifiable arrests, blanket seizures and uninvestigated murders. Profitable routes from Burma with high-level protection from Burmese and Thai government and business elites remained in existence. Thus, the Thai drug campaign eliminated competition from unprotected methamphetamine traffic routes while profits from ―protected‖ routes increased. Meanwhile, the fervent drug burning ceremonies, dramatic house raids and thousands of murders in the streets and villages throughout Thailand were part of the controlled chaos needed to construct modern state order. Where the Columbian paramilitaries had their laptops, chainsaws and ski masks, the agents and gunmen behind the Thai drug murders were unofficially state-sanctioned, with government-created ―blacklists‖ of drug users, addicts, and small time dealers marked for execution. Violence is integral to the construction of state order, and in the War on Drugs this ―order‖ depends on the ―chaos‖ of yaa baa and the myriad possibilities for its violent suppression. These state-created cycles of chaos and order run seemingly on their own internal logic. They require the kind of insane magic that drugs provide. Taussig‘s depiction of cocaine and gold as ―transgressive substances‖ is equally apt in the Golden Triangle21
21
As will be discussed in the following chapter, the ―Golden Triangle‖ was associated with drug production in Southeast Asia since 1971. Other associations of this term perhaps compounded its linguistic gravitas, making it particularly useful for military and intelligence operations. For mathematicians, symbologists, and occultists, a ―golden triangle‖ is a particularly ―magical‖ concept: it describes an
99 where opium profit routes made way for the hundreds of ―Amphetamine-Type Stimulants‖ (ATS), called “yaa baa‖ or ―crazy drug‖ in Thailand. Like the fetishes of gold and cocaine, yaa baa is its own fetish. In one aspect, it is an embodiment of Western consumerism meshing seamlessly with the ever-burgeoning Thai youth economy of disposable frenetic cool. This fetishization began simultaneously with two regional economic and political factors, making the unprecedented rise of yaa baa nearly inevitable: First, the ―Opium King,‖ Khun Sa, ―surrendered‖ to his Burmese handlers in 1996. This allowed the United Wa State Army (UWSA) to gain the territory and market access necessary to take advantage of one the main reason drug suppression efforts fail: reduced supply of one drug (in this case heroin) created an opportunity for another drug yaa baa (ATS) to fill the demand. Second, the ―East Asian economic crisis‖ (called the ―IMF crisis‖ by many of the people it effected) in 1997 caused widespread unemployment, leading many people to seek the short-term economic gains yaa baa sales provide. In this economic context of joblessness and competition, ATS use offers isosceles triangle where the ratio of the hypotenuse to the base equals the golden ratio, or ―phi‖ . These are the triangles at the tips of the pentagram with vertex angles of 36 degrees.
Since the geographic Golden Triangle region is synonymous with these powerful mathematic forms, found ubiquitously in nature and directly related to phi (the golden ratio, Fibonacci spirals, etc.), its continual global notoriety is assured.
100 momentary escape, especially for Thai young people raised in an era of political disillusionment in a growing, but often-inaccessible culture of consumption. Facing insurmountable pressure from a depressed job market, young Thais are subjected to an education system that stresses conformity, rote memorization and obedience to the three pillars of the modern Thai nation-state: Nation, Religion, and Monarchy. Along with the methods of state construction techniques discussed in this dissertation, it is here, in the schools, textbooks, and other cultural programming, where the state gains and maintains its base. In national schools and state-owned media production houses, a fantasy nation is created, as disconnected from ―reality‖ as the ATS culture it supposedly fights. Elaborate state constructions like the War on Drugs are used to build an image of a benevolent Thai state in the public imagination while ordered and ritualized violence are enacted in physical reality. These constructions are linked to what Alfred McCoy calls a ―metaphysical imaginary‖ where state-makers create elaborate fictions that mask their attendant violent realities (3 May 2006). In McCoy‘s example, rendition flights (extrajudicial flights transferring persons from one state to another) allow US interrogators to create a fictional space, free from international law. Similarly, in the 2003 War on Drugs, Thai officials created an elaborately-constructed ―reality‖ based on fabricated cover stories, statistical manipulation, information control, press events, and repeated misinformation. This section outlines the state-building cultural work of the Thai drug suppression campaign, which utilized all of the four major components of state order/chaos construction: 1) order through violence and the capacity for coercive force, 2) order through control of capital and economic dominance, 3) order through deception and
101 informational control, 4) order through public spectacle and ritual. Certainly, the drug campaigners proved master manipulators of both sides of the dialectical relationship between chaos and order. However, this campaign is only the most recent incarnation of a time-tested strategy of state building, used in the region for centuries. Thus, in the first chapter of this section, the drug campaign is historically contextualized by examining the confluence of colonial exchange, drug profits, and state building in Thailand‘s vertex of the Golden Triangle. Historically, this dynamic region represents a Southeast Asian example of Whitehead and Ferguson‘s ―tribal zone‖ (1992). Despite its current location within official national boundaries, the area within the hills at the intersection of Thailand, Burma and Laos indeed represents a point of ―state-nonstate contact‖ (Ibid. 5) where ―the wider consequence of the presence of the state is the radical transformation of extant sociopolitical formations, often resulting in ‗tribalization, the genesis of new tribes‖ (Ibid. 3). Here, ringed by a diverse patchwork of tribalizing groups in the surrounding hills, the nascent often-competing Tai kingdoms capitulated with the colonial powers who surrounded them. As the Tai state defined what Thongchai Winichakul calls its ―geobody‖ and coalesced into the Thai nation-state (1994), state-makers adopted a strategy of crypto-colonialism (Herzfeld 2002), internally colonizing Siam and making overt colonization by Western European powers unnecessary. The Thai state geo-body‘s transformation from pre-modern overlapping frontier into a definitive modern territorial interface is expressed in transformations from amorphous zones of chaotic threat into demarcated areas of bureaucratic order (1994:101). This modern metropolitan mandala of bureaucratic order is reliant on
102 internal threats as well as external tribal zones, forming a symbiosis between tribe and state. As Morton Fried points out, the political groups described as tribes cannot be defined independently outside of the state systems with which they are associated (1975). Furthermore, as Hjorleifur Jonsson documents, tribal people in state margins are engaged in their own public displays that highlight their engagement in both ―tradition‖ as well as ―modernity‖ in the face of increasing state encroachment (2004; 2005). Thus, in the crypto-colonial historical context of the region, a tribal zone of hilltribe groups served as a buffer between rival powers, while they were used simultaneously for the production and transport of one of the region‘s greatest economic assets: opium. Accordingly, Chapter 3 briefly outlines the political economy and economic history of major drugs in the Golden Triangle region; first through opium and heroin, and then, more recently with the ATS pills that followed them. As such, the portrait that follows is partly the story of a drug market‘s diversification from opium and heroin in the 1950s through 1990s to ATS in the 1970s through the present. This production shift amounts to a sea change in the global political economy of drugs. Despite the recent drop in opium production in the Golden Triangle, an examination of the history of opium and heroin in this region is critical to an understanding of Thai police history and its current drug suppression efforts. Thai drug suppression strategies are shaped by both the ―special relationship‖ of US assistance and a well-protected illegal border economy with the Burmese junta. From the perspective of this political and economic context, the campaign itself was an exercise in violent state theatrics. Using this lens, the violence of Thailand‘s War on Drugs, was both an internal and external performance. Within Thailand, the campaign
103 was a provocation of fearful docility for Thai critics while offering a feedback loop of violent state expression for Thai supporters of rampant royalist nationalism. For an international audience, the campaign was an external display of ―national resolve‖ in line with US and UN drug suppression policies: it was a drug war, Thai style. Thus, it is a dramatic capstone demonstrating this dissertation‘s examination of ―order through the performance of coercive force.‖ The violence of the drug campaign‘s thousands of deaths and arrests physically demonstrate this performance, while the state‘s capacity for coercive force was amplified on a daily basis through countless media-based demonstrations. In short, the Thai War on Drugs was a state death ritual, which employed physical and symbolic violence to create order. Accordingly, Chapter 4 is a narrative account of the public highlights of this massive ritualized display of Thai state order. Through this narrative, key themes show how the drug campaign was planned, publicized, operationalized, received and, in some cases, resisted. The first theme involves state officials‘ rhetoric of militarization, dehumanization, and comparison/continuity with other persistent ―enemies‖ of the state: communists and insurgents. The second reoccurring theme is that the War on Drugs was created and planned by key operational heads of that era using many of the same anticommunist strategies including shadowy groups of state-hired gunmen. In the murders of addicts, small-time dealers and politically-vulnerable ―hilltribes‖ people, the Thai state had a violent template on which to encode its message of social control and order. The state spectacles I will describe – the officially-conducted black magic ceremonies against drug traffickers; mass vows to remain drug-free; anti-drug muay Thai boxing matches; citizen surveillance programs; night-club raids and forced drug testing – document how
104 the 2003 drug suppression campaign was, like so many drug wars before it, a massmediated message in the service of maintaining and reproducing state order.
The State of Drugs in Thailand Several historical factors created the context for current drug suppression strategies in Thailand including the history of opium and heroin production, the political role of the Golden Triangle as a major hub for the heroin economy, and the use of drug funding for covert warfare by Western militaries and Thai police and military units. These historical factors contributed directly to the development of the of the ATS economy in the region. The Golden Triangle, made famous for its heroin production, is now a major source of millions of methamphetamine pills. In the years since the drug campaign, US government reports assert that Burma, which is widely regarded as the leading producer of ATS (BINLEA 2007), continues to produce an estimate of some 800 million pills per year, with the National Drug Intelligence Center claiming in 2006 that the number was in the ―billions‖ (2006). The 2003 drug suppression campaign described in Chapter 4 must first be contextualized in light of the intricate histories and political economies of opium, heroin and ATS both in Thailand and the highlands and border regions surrounding it. The US-backed covert economies and subsequent suppression of opium and heroin in this region provided a vast historical precedent for the ATS suppression performances that followed. Therefore, the next chapter begins by briefly outlining the world‘s first drug wars, the opium wars waged by the British empire to open Chinese markets to drug profiteering and as a source of Chinese slave labor. Marez writes, ―Anticipating contemporary contexts, in which the United States used the cocaine trade to fund counterinsurgency
105 efforts in Central America, Britain used funds gained from taxing the immensely profitable opium trade to fund the establishment and extension of British military power throughout the region‖ (2004). These colonial wars for drugs created the production base for opium. This base was expanded dramatically in the century that followed to fund covert operations on both ―sides‖ of the Cold War. Thus, beginning in the 1950s, the CIA and their communist equivalents used a time-tested method of warfare fundraising. This method is still in use today in the fertile opium fields of the Golden Crescent, the coca fields of Central and South America, and the ATS production facilities on the ThaiBurmese border.
The Origin of the Golden Triangle Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real. Andre Malraux, Man‘s Fate (1936) Several researchers have provided detailed histories and political economic analyses of heroin and methamphetamine trafficking in Thailand and Southeast Asia (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004; McCoy 2003), making reproduction of the intricate details of these documents unnecessary. However, a brief summary of these accounts is useful to provide the cultural, historical, political and economic background to contextualize drug suppression in Thailand. The evocative name, ―Golden Triangle,‖ was first used by US Asst-Secretary of State, Marshall Green, in a 1971 press conference (Levinson & Christensen 2002). Unbeknownst to the general public, while Green was delineating the boundaries of this ―polygon,‖ (which carefully excluded China in the leadup to President Nixon‘s upcoming visit there) US-sponsored covert operations were aiding the transport of heroin out of the Golden Triangle to US troops in Vietnam. The rain-soaked highlands in this triangular-
106 shaped area formed by hills and mountains of Burma, Laos, and Thailand are ideal for growing the poppies necessary for opium production. Indeed, the region was used since the end of the 15th century for this purpose although it only became a major production area for the global drug trade after World War II (Booth 1998). Since at least 1488, opium was processed in China to treat dysentery, cholera and other diseases. However, it wasn‘t until at least 1669 that opium smoking (originally mixed with tobacco from the New World) was introduced to China by the Dutch (Booth 1998:105; Boyang 1987:43). In 1729, the Chinese imperial government, banned opium-smoking dens and prohibited the sale of opium mixed with tobacco (Zhou 1999). Following this prohibition, the punishment for sale of opium for smoking was, according to Joshua Rowntree, the same as that for robbery and instigation to murder: death or banishment (1905). The British colonial regime created a new world-spanning commerce by waging three wars in order to break this early Chinese prohibition and forcing its way to sell its opium in China. Throughout the 18th century, much of the world‘s opium was grown and processed in India, under the growing military dominance of the British, and into the coffers of the East India Company. The British colonial powers gradually wrested control over the burgeoning opium trade from their colonial rivals, namely the Portuguese, Dutch, and French. As Marx describes in Volume One of Capital, The English East India Company, as is well known, obtained, besides the political rule in India, the exclusive monopoly of the tea-trade, as well as of the Chinese trade in general, and of the transport of goods to and from Europe…The monopolies of salt, opium, betel and other commodities, were inexhaustible mines of wealth‖ (1967:704). Thus, despite Chinese prohibition attempts, the British East India Company helped wage the world‘s first drug wars in order to open Chinese markets to its Indian opium. Opium
107 sales rose from 2,330 chests in 1788 to 4,968 chests in 1810. Following the initial British drug warfare and subsequent monopoly, however, sales rocketed to 17,257 chests in 1835 (Rowntree 1905). Britain's governor-general of India wrote in 1830, ―We are taking measures for extending the cultivation of the poppy, with a view to a large increase in the supply of opium.‖ Following the ship battles of the Opium War of 1839-42, and the Treaty of Nanking which forced the Chinese government to pay the British merchants $15 million, five ports were opened to English trade. Hong Kong was subsequently ceded to the British, and it became a British colony for 155 years. This strategically valuable island served as a strategic conduit for the British opium monopoly and the drug wars fought to secure it. In the process of building this growing legacy of warfare and profiteering, colonial trade dramatically expanded the centuries-old exchange corridors which moved jade, opium and Mongol warriors along what would later be called the ―Burma Road‖ which connects the Shan State of Burma with China. The ―gold‖ in the name Golden Triangle is, according to Bertil Lintner, a reference to an early method of payment used in opium trade, when in the Thai-Burmese border town of Tachileck, opium was exchanged for 99% pure gold bars (1999:238). Beginning long before the first opium wars between Britain and China in 1840, the region was intertwined in the politics of colonialism (Booth 1998:135). The cash crop economics of colonialism spawned the initial opium production routes in the Golden Triangle where opium exchange became linked inextricably to warfare (Michaud 1997).
Ferguson and Whitehead‘s concept of
the ―tribal zone‖ on the edge of colonial contact containing a continuum of modes of exchange from warfare to economic trade to marriage is especially applicable here
108 (1992). Warfare and drug profits are part of a symbiotic history in the tribal zone of highland Southeast Asia. Although state policy makers simplistically implicate ―hill tribes‖ as the region‘s drug producers, colonialism, cold war era warfare, and everexpanding states were the impetus behind the Golden Triangle‘s prominence in the global drug economy as well as its tribalization. Today‘s anti-historical media-saturated environment exacerbates this tribalization process. In other words, although state policy makers and mainstream media accounts revel in depictions of Khun Sa and other ―tribal drug warlords,‖ state power makers systematically created their warlordship as well as their subsequent iconic media status. Chiang Kai-shek‘s nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) army retreated from the Chinese communist People‘s Liberation Army in 1949. This movement of US-backed KMT forces from Yunnan China into Burma created the geo-political context for the region‘s role in modern global drug production (McCoy 2003). In 1940, this area was producing only eight tons of opium per year, but crop substitution and brutal campaigns of opium suppression in 1950s China (see especially Zhou 1999) caused a dramatic shift in production southward. These production pressures combined with the covert revenue sources demanded by the Cold War‘s covert brushfire wars to create the modern drug economy of the Golden Triangle.
The Cold War, KMT, CIA and Police General Phao As discussed previously in Chapter 2, one of the local beneficiaries of CIAbacked opium transport networks, Police Commander Phao Sriyanond, publicly positioned himself as an anti-drug crusader, while secretly gaining vast amounts of wealth from drug trafficking (McCoy 2003; Wilson 1962). The development of Phao‘s
109 ―anti-communist‖ opium network shaped the structure of police power and the drug suppression strategies that followed. These strategies routinely crafted state order through the strategic manipulation of drug dis-order and chaos. In this period, the symbiosis between Burmese drug production and Thai consumption/transport began in earnest. Following the Cold War, this symbiosis continued to metastasize, as political elites in Burma and Thailand carved out vast swaths of illegal profit on both sides of the border. The history of the CIA‘s involvement in Golden Triangle opium and heroin trafficking from 1950-1970s is famously revealed in Alfred McCoy‘s Politics of Heroin. Again, a brief summary of this research will serve to highlight the connection between opium and heroin trafficking in the region with the recent ATS trafficking and drug suppression efforts of the Thai government that follow. In 1950, the recently-formed CIA used agents in northern Burma to create political alliances with the thousands of troops of the former Nationalist Chinese government who fled across the border. The CIA supported the KMT, who used profits from opium to finance their insurgency against the communists in China. President Truman, in his crusade for communist ―containment,‖ wanted the CIA to use these troops to plan an invasion of southwestern China. The plans were made in retaliation against Communist China‘s involvement in the Korean war. After three planned invasions failed, the Nationalist soldiers remained along the Burmese border growing and selling opium to finance their military operations (McCoy 1991). In the early 1950s, Civil Air Transport, a CIA airline front organization, flew much of this opium across the border into Thailand into the logistical networks of CIA-
110 backed Pol. Gen. Phao. In a series of self-penned articles in the Bangkok Post (cited in McCoy: 10 Feb 1950 and 20 Feb 1950) Phao publicly positioned himself as an antiopium crusader and leader in the suppression of drug smuggling, but immediately began using his position in the TNPD to secure the upper hand in the newly emerged opium economy of the early 1950s. The sudden emergence of the illicit opium trade helped upset the delicate balance of power between Phao‘s police and Sarit Thanarat‘s military (Ibid. 183). As McCoy describes, The ―opium war‖ between Phao and Sarit was a hidden one, with almost all the battles concealed by a cloak of official secrecy. The most comical exception occurred in 1950 as one of Sarit's army convoys approached the railhead at Lampang in northern Thailand with a load of opium. Phao's police surrounded the convoy and demanded that the army surrender the opium since anti-narcotics work was the exclusive responsibility of the police. When the army refused and threatened to shoot its way through to the railway, the police brought up heavy machine guns and dug in for a firefight. A nervous standoff continued for two days until Phao and Sarit themselves arrived in Lampang, took possession of the opium, and escorted it jointly to Bangkok, where it quietly disappeared (2003:183-4). In 1955, the national police under Phao were the largest opium-trafficking syndicate in Thailand both exporting and controlling the government opium monopoly (Ibid. 186). The TNPD used US-purchased planes, boats and trucks to ship opium from the Thailand-Burma border to Bangkok to Singapore or Hong Kong (Insor 1963). An opium suppression effort in Iran that year, also under the supervision of the CIA, reinforced the demand for increased production in Southeast Asia (see also Chouvy 1999). The ensuing lack of supply in the face of unchanging demand no doubt contributed dramatically to Phao‘s near-total control of the opium monopoly in Thailand. The US and CIA support of the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist Chinese army were also used by Phao and the TNPD to ship opium harvests for the Southeast Asian
111 heroin market. Often, KMT shipments would be disguised in elaborate ―raids‖ on KMT smugglers by police border patrols. The KMT would inevitably drop their shipments and escape unharmed leaving the TNPD to collect a reward for the opium in Bangkok where it would ―disappear‖ (Insor 1963:70; McCoy 2003:162). The role of the Thai police in protecting the CIA‘s Sea Supply Corporation (Marshall 1991) shipments to the KMT, as well as the aircraft, naval vessels and automobiles supplied by the US, gave Phao considerable advantage in establishing the basic structure of the Golden Triangle heroin trade (McCoy 2003:191). The Thai government‘s control of the opium trade continued after Phao was exiled in 1957 (due in part, ironically, to an scandal involving opium22) and Field Marshall Sarit took power. In 1961, the Burmese army forced KMT troops across the border into Thailand where they established new bases and recruited local hill tribes to produce opium and heroin. The increase in opium cultivation was massive: from an estimated 18 tons in 1958 to 400-600 tons by 1970. These profits increased dramatically in the second ―Opium War‖ in 1967 when the Sino-Shan Chang Chi-fu, the first ―Khun Sa,‖ was defeated consolidating KMT control of 90% of the region‘s opium trafficking (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:16). The KMT was only one player in these complex Cold War-generated machinations and drug profits. In Thailand, Burma, and Laos, communist guerrillas were 22
McCoy explains the origins of the scandal, ―During the night of July 9, 1955, a squad of border police crouched in the underbrush at the Mesai River, watching KMT soldiers ferrying 20 tons of opium from Burma into Thailand (citing Bangkok Post 14 July 1955). When the last bundles were unloaded early the next morning the Thai police burst from the jungle and rushed the smugglers. Miraculously, the KMT soldiers again escaped unharmed. The police escorted the opium to Bangkok, where General Phao congratulated them. But for some reason, perhaps the huge size of the haul, Phao became overanxious. He immediately signed a request for a reward of $1,200,000 and forwarded it to the ministry of finance. Then he rushed across town to the finance ministry and, as deputy minister of finance, signed the check. Next, or so he claimed, Phao visited the mysterious "informer" and delivered the money personally‖ (2003:1867)
112 pitted against their CIA-funded equivalents in an endless global game of divide-andconquer. The CIA-backed Royal Lao army also ran a major heroin laboratory. In addition, during this time, the CIA created a covert army of 30,000 Hmong highlanders in Laos. Hmong army commanders also financed these operations with opium profits, using Civil Air transport as one of the major modes of trafficking. The French military‘s demand for opium in Indochina was serviced by the same US-backed supplies which would cater to similar demands from the American military and create centers for opium consumption in Saigon and Bangkok. By 1971, according to a White House survey, 34% of US soldiers in South Vietnam were addicted to heroin (McCoy et al 1972). The source of this heroin was directly tied to laboratories of CIA assets. When soldiers returned home, their habits were re-supplied by the same trafficking networks: 25% of the US demand for heroin was supplied by Southeast Asian syndicates (McCoy 2003). Thus, among the KMT (made of Shan, Kachin and Burmese-Chinese ethnic groups), as well as Hmong guerrillas and other proxy armies of Thailand and the United States, opiate production and trafficking was a major profit source for financing anticommunist activities. Likewise, the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) utilized similar financial sources by allying with Kokang traffickers in Kachin state. These funds were large enough that the Chinese communist army was able to withdraw and provide a support role (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:17). The United Wa State Army (UWSA) arose as the Communist Party of Burma disbanded in 1989 and seasoned Wa veterans retooled for a new diversified product. Therefore, the infamous Golden Triangle opium economy, and that market‘s later diversification into methamphetamine, are both the direct result of covert and overt warfare on both ―sides‖ of the Cold War. The cold
113 warriors of this period were also the region‘s most prominent drug traffickers, a notorious example of the production of order through the manipulation of chaos
Burma, SLORC and the Rise of Yaa baa The end of the cold war did not bring an end to the drug profits it helped create in Southeast Asia. When the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) came to power in 1988 and renamed Burma ―Myanmar,‖ it faced a diverse insurgency utilizing these time-tested funding sources. One-by-one, as various ethnic separatist groups surrendered or cut deals with the junta, opium and heroin fiefdoms continually changed hands. In 1996, the ―Opium King‖ Khun Sa, Commander of the Mong Tai Army (MTA) surrendered to SLORC, an act which allowed the United Wa State Army (UWSA) to gain access to MTA-held borderlands near Thailand. This was a critical moment that would spawn the yaa baa explosion of the late 1990s and lead to the violent ―solutions‖ of 2003‘s drug war. Khun Sa‘s surrender reduced the supply of heroin and increased its costs. Once again, in a dialectical cycle of order and disorder, suppression of the supply of one drug created an opportunity for another drug to fill the demand. Demand from Thailand is, by all accounts, massive. By comparing 1994 United Nations statistics to the Thai Financial Action Task Force (FATF) from that year, Thai economists estimate that profits from drug trafficking in Thailand made up an amazing 21 percent of the world‘s total drug profits (US $85 billion of US $400 billion worldwide). This massive underground economy was also more than twice Thailand‘s earnings from all its legal exports (Pasuk et al 1998:86).23
23
This figure is an extrapolation of figures reported in the Thai-language daily Wattachak (19 Aug 1994). Wattachack used a Thai Financial Action Task Force estimate that drug trafficking profits in Thailand were $85 billion USD per year. From these figures, Pasuk, Sangsidh and Nualoi make their seemingly incredible estimate.
114 The same year as Khun Sa‘s surrender in 1996, the UWSA flooded the market with yaa baa. Thai officials estimate 100 million pills were brought to Thailand in 1997 (24 million were seized that year up from 9 million in 1996). By the turn of the century, production centers within Burma reportedly produced between 400 to 600 million pills (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:25). According to the Thai ONCB in 2002, over 800 million ATS tablets were transported into Thailand. Once there, a domestic market of an estimated three million ―drug addicts‖ (5% of the country‘s population) consumed the majority of this supply. According to the United Nations Drug Control Program, in that same year, Thailand was the single largest consumer of ATS in the entire world (UNDCP 2002). Unlike the opium poppy fields and heavy production equipment necessary to produce heroin, which are visible to both satellite and ground-based surveillance, ATS production is much more difficult to detect (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:xii). ―Pill factories‖ are commonly placed in small houses or apartments making them easily transportable and relatively unobservable to even the burgeoning surveillance technologies of state and global intelligence agencies. These factories are also not vulnerable to crop destruction techniques used on marijuana and poppy fields. Simple ATS recipes can be obtained in seconds from the Internet and producing ATS is much less complicated than manufacturing heroin. Finally, Ephedra, from which some ATS formulas derive, is not subject to legal restriction and is illegal only if misused (UNDCP 1996:52). The ―wild ephedra‖ growing in China and Khazakstan provide another legallyobtained base chemical to supplement pseudo-ephedrine production centers in India and Burma.
115 In the last decade, the Burmese government publicly suppressed its notorious opium production while replacing it with ATS production. When SLORC became the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, the junta‘s name changed while profits from yaa baa production were just beginning to be ―developed.‖ French sources studying the geopolitics of drugs agree that elements within the SPDC, collect a ―tax‖ of one baht per/tablet or 10% the wholesale price for border sales of yaa baa (AEGD 2000). Beyond this direct profiteering, Burmese army officials supervise refinery locations and provide security to convoys carrying precursor chemicals (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:21). Dr. Desmond Ball, Professor of Australia National University‘s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre is a leading expert on security and military issues within the Asia-Pacific region. In an article in The Nation he said, ―In the case of many methamphetamine production labs, you‘ve got Burmese troops actually guarding the plants, you‘ve got military intelligence guys providing the escorts of the trafficking caravans, you‘ve got MI (military intelligence) people allowing it to actually cross the border into Thailand‖ (Nation 21 Jun 2001). This system of production within Burma works symbiotically with markets of consumption within Thailand.
Burma/Thailand Drug Symbiosis That‟s what they won‟t tell you. It‟s always big bad Burma shoving the drugs down the throat of poor Thailand. But it‟s the generals profiting. The Thai generals, not just the Burmese. And it‟s the Thais taking the drugs. It‟s just supply and demand. The border only exists when they want it to exist. ―David,‖ an American journalist in Bangkok Just as global politics are intimately connected to golden triangle drug trafficking, the regional patterns of trafficking are a result of a symbiosis between production and consumption between Burma and Thailand. Chouvy and Meissonnier write, ―the
116 consumption boom in Thailand is only the alter ego of the explosive rise in production in Burma, and vice versa‖ (2004:xx). Similarly, despite Burma‘s characterization as a ―narco-state,‖ the picture within ―Myanmar‖ is not the simple one of military generals controlling every aspect of production, distribution and profit. Doubtless, many junta officials profit directly from the drug trade. Anthropologist Monique Skidmore writes, Burmese military bases both warehouse opium and heroin and provide distribution networks for the products. Burmese soldiers oversee the growing of opium, and military bases both protect the heroin and amphetamine refineries … heroin and smuggling revenues reach to the highest levels of State power and allow the regime to continually stave off bankruptcy (2004:95). Foreign investment, transnational corporations and other governments provide the thin international legitimacy necessary to continue the junta‘s repression and moneylaundering capabilities. Skidmore continues, ―The more transnational capital flows into Burma, the more the trappings of modernity legitimate and enlarge the regime‘s capacity to launder money from its narcoeconomy and smuggling sectors and to purchase weapons to oppress the populace‖ (Ibid. 96). It would be a mistake, however to maintain the illusion that Burma‘s drug economy wasn‘t part of a political compromise of powersharing with competing separatist forces and insurgents. As Chouvy and Meissonnier write, ―Various insurgent groups control the drug traffic, to greater or lesser extent; consequently illicit drugs, formerly the sinews of war, have become its stakes‖ (2004:160). Accordingly, following Khun Sa‘s 1996 ―surrender,‖ and subsequent retirement into ―legitimate‖ joint ventures with Burmese military council members (Skidmore 2004:61), the United Wa State Army began the production of ATS. As stated above, while it might be convenient for Thailand and the ―international community‖ to denounce
117 Burma as an ―outlaw‖ territory, drug trafficking out of Burma originated from the historical creation of Communist/Anti-communist proxy armies. Regionally the trafficking creates buffer zones of profit by Thai economic and political elites (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:160). The full scope of the illegal border economy, which includes labor, prostitution, timber, gems, guns and drugs is a profitable venture for powerful Thai generals as well as their Burmese counterparts. This underground economy is condemned publicly by those who benefit from it privately.24 Legal and illegal economic cooperation among Burmese-Thai elites extends to the absolute highest level. Thaksin, whose family connections with Burmese elites extend back a century (Pasuk & Baker 2004:28-9), has numerous joint ventures with Burma‘s head of state and former chief of military intelligence, Gen. Khin Nyunt. Thaksin‘s former holding company, Shincorp, invested millions of dollars in joint venture with Khin Nyunt and his son, Dr. Ye Naing Win, creating companies such as IPstar Co, which launched a $350 million broadband satellite owned by the Shin Corporation (IPStar 26 Oct 2007).25 In the information age, Thaksin‘s and other Thai elites‘ political and economic connections to the Burma regime, and the narcotic networks that keep it afloat, are part of a contextual picture of ATS trafficking in the region. 24
In the domain of illegal logging, for example, Desmond Ball documents how from 1989-1996, Thai Ranger units on the Burmese border were used to enact Gen. Chavalit‘s 1988 agreement with SLORC. Thai Task Force 34 fought alongside the Burmese tatmadaw to attack ethnic army strongholds on the border. Ball writes, In return Thai logging companies were given access to forests in Karen State, which they then stripped bare with heavy machinery‖ (2004:174). 25 IPStar, or Thaicom-4, the ―heaviest commercial satellite ever launched in the world,‖ was launched by the European Space Agency‘s Ariane 5 heavy-lift launcher on 11 Aug 2005 after a delay in the launch date of 11 Jul 2005 (the launch was originally planned for 2003). The satellite‘s owner, Shin Satellite PCL, a subsidiary of the Shin Corporation, now owns five satellites in geostationary orbit. The name series for these satellites, ―Thaicom‖ was, according to company documents, created by King Bhumiphol himself to symbolize the merger of the communications industry with Thailand (IPStar 26 Oct 2007). PM Thaksin‘s tax-free 4.5 billion USD sale of Shin Corp. to Singapore‘s Temasek Holdings caused widespread political unrest in Thailand, and Madame Ho Ching, CEO of Temasek (the wife of Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong and daughter-in-law of Lee Kuan Yew) was burned in effigy on Bangkok streets. This unrest was used in the justifications for the 2006 military coup.
118 The continued movement towards globalization, with its regional networks of cooperation, development, and trade deregulation, also expands drug trafficking. Through these deregulated trade networks, cross-border transport is equally for both legal and illegal commodities. The Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board admits in its report on Thai drug suppression from 1997-2001 (called the ―Eighth Plan Period‖) that ―some of the economic policies which aim to accelerate economic growth may further facilitate the expansion of drug trade in the Indochina region‖ (in Pasuk, Sangsidh and Nualnoi 90). The report cites the development of highway routes on the Eastern Seaboard, the development of the Southern Seaboard, and metropolitan development in Bangkok as factors which ease the transport and production of opium and heroin. For example, in the Mong Yawn Thai-Burmese border region, its most notorious drug profiteers, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), used Thai labors to construct roads, dams, schools, hospitals, and fortifications. Port and road development on the Thai-Burmese border is similarly financed by profits from drug trafficking.
The Global Performance of Anti-Burma Rhetoric To come to Burma...is to take both a physical and emotional journey, a critical ascent into fear and to become caught up, like most Burmese, in the daily management of fear. Monique Skidmore, Karaoke Fascism (2004) At an international level, the symbiotic relationship between Burmese production and global demand allows Burma to serve as a stage of false performances. Key players on this stage are global law enforcement bodies who are supposedly tasked with combating world drug trafficking. Interpol provides an interesting case study, in that it is an organization with no international mandate for legitimacy beyond its UN-constructed NGO status (Meldal-Johnsen & Young 1979). In 1999, Interpol held a conference in
119 Rangoon on heroin trafficking. Interestingly, France (the country where Interpol is physically based), the US, and Britain, key representatives in this ―international law enforcement agency,‖ declined to attend the conference because they ―didn‘t think it very appropriate to dignify the Rangoon regime with a conference of this sort‖ (WSJ 26 Feb 1999). This move allowed these countries to maintain their purported stances against Burma‘s ―human rights record‖ and involvement in drug trafficking, while at the same time continuing to support Interpol where the countries are represented by proxy. Similarly, when the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was created by bilateral agreement between the US and Thailand in 1998, the participation of Burma and Cambodia was ―resolved‖ through the wrangling of funding (resembling a global game of Three-card Monty). While the US could not technically provide aid to the two countries due to political differences, nevertheless funding for their participation was secured from ―outside sources‖ (Bangkok Post 6 Oct 2003a). Finally, the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) engages in similar contradictory performances regarding Burma. When the first annual Mutual Legal Assistance Advisory Committee (MLAAC) meeting was held in Bangkok‘s Landmark Hotel in November 2000, the façade of ―Mutual Legal Assistance‖ was pursued at the expense of an honest evaluation of each government‘s (and the UN‘s own) ties to drug trafficking. U Kyaw Win, Director of the Supreme Court of Burma‘s SPDC served as co-chair of the meeting along with China‘s Judge of the Supreme People‘s Court, Dang Jianjun. An elaborate performance then ensued, with representatives from each ―MOU‖ country (Cambodia, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam) advocating the ratification of the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic
120 in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and agreeing to work towards mutual legal assistance. International law enforcement and the move towards regional and global cooperation were the watchwords despite the complications of complicity and/or direct involvement in drug trafficking by officials of every government involved (UNDCP 13-17 Nov 2000).
Crafting Yaa Maa: The Global Marketing of ATS The history of methamphetamine in Thailand begins with the history of Silas Burroughs and Henry Wellcome. The Burroughs Wellcome Company first introduced amphetamine under the proprietary name, ―methadrine.‖ In Thailand, ya khayan (diligence pill) became known colloquially as yaa maa (horse pill) in reference to the Burroughs Wellcome Company‘s unicorn logo. The ―horse pill‖ moniker also fit with the promotional image of the drug, as a way workers could increase the number of hours they could labor without feeling tired. The corporate origin of the Thai, and global, social problem of ATS addiction (as well as the concurrent social problem of ATS suppression) within the international pharmaceutical industry should be highlighted. Just as the first global opium market was crafted by the British East India Company (McCoy 2003:5), the Burroughs Wellcome Company was methamphetamine‘s corporate promoter and architect. The company‘s auto-biography, ―Proud of the Past: Committed to the Future,‖ reads, ―Over a century ago, two young American pharmacy graduates established in England a company whose aim was to discover and market new medicines to promote human health and improve the quality of life‖ (Burroughs Wellcome Inc. 22 Nov 2005). However, to understand how the modern pharmaceutical industry is
121 inextricably linked to Burroughs Wellcome and its promotion of legal methamphetamine, requires a closer examination beyond the corporation‘s self-penned propaganda.26
26
To call this document ―propaganda‖ is a literal extension of one of the company‘s founders own words. The Wellcome Trust, with its logo of Promethean torch enwrapped by two Caduceus-forming snakes, was established under the will of Henry Wellcome in 1936 as an independent research-funding ―charity.‖ In his 1932 will, Wellcome wrote, "It is my special desire that there should be no material reduction in the proportional expenditure for publicity and other forms of propaganda of the several organizations‖ (Deer 19 Sept 1993).
With assets of more than 10 billion pounds, the Wellcome Trust is the world's wealthiest private medical research foundation. From here the trust controls Wellcome plc, a top multinational drug company. Through this company, the trust controls its United States offshoot, the Burroughs Wellcome Co. and the trust‘s US equivalent, the charitable Burroughs Wellcome Fund. In homage to the masonic contrivance which made this charitable/private alliance possible, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund uses the all-seeing eye of Horus in its organizational iconography (above).
122 Today, the British-based multi-national, Wellcome PLC still bears the name of its American founder, Henry Solomon Wellcome, who was born in Northern Wisconsin in 1853 and was raised in Garden City, Minnesota. After graduating with a degree in pharmacy, he worked as an international traveling salesman for McKesson & Robins, promoting recently-invented gelatin-coated tablets. In 1880, he was invited by a friend from pharmacy school, Silas Mainville Burroughs, to form the Burroughs Wellcome & Co., which created a new market in England for the American compressed tablets. When Burroughs died five years later, Wellcome fought to become the sole proprietor of the company which he dramatically expanded. In 1901, he married Syrie Barnardo (the daughter of Dr. Thomas Barnardo, the Irish-born Freemason
Figure 3: Henry Solomon Wellcome's masonic funeral.
who founded the Doctor Barnardo Homes for orphaned boys). Eschewing his Midwestern roots, Wellcome became a British citizen in 1910. In 1932, he was knighted by King George V and made an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, a rare distinction for someone who did not hold a medical degree. When he died in 1936, the elaborate burial ceremony revealed not only his membership in the English Grand Lodge of Freemasonry, but his prominence among the British economic and political elite. Author and journalist Brian Deer calls Henry Wellcome the ―premier architect of the modern pharmaceutical industry‖ (19 Sept 1993). Wellcome knew that selling drugs was less about science and more about packaging. The specialty of the Burroughs
123 Wellcome & Co. was in manufacturing and marketing recently invented compressed tablets. In their company, the framework for the modern pharmaceutical industry was born. In 1884, he pioneered the ―tabloid‖ (a combination of the word ―tablet‖ and ―alkaloid‖) and prepared attractive-looking chests, which were given away to influential people. Wellcome‘s tabloid chests started the modern pharmaceutical industry‘s practice of providing endless ―freebies‖ for doctors, business and political elite. These ―complimentary first-aid kits for the rich and powerful,‖ were soon expanded into foreign travel expenses and financial support in exchange for useful business and medical contacts. Wellcome and Burroughs chose the unicorn for their corporate iconography, not only for its mythical gravitas, but also in reference to the power of the unicorn‘s horn to heal and cure poisons.27 Through deft manipulation of his will, which came into effect when he died in 1936, Wellcome created a ―production and research alliance‖28 between the Wellcome Trust (charity), Wellcome Foundation LTD (Wellcome plc), the Burroughs Figure 4: Burroughs Wellcome & Co.‘s corporate logo, the origin of the original colloquial Thai term, for methamphetamine, "yaa maa" ("horse medicine")
Wellcome Co. (USA), and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (charity – USA). Through these bodies, Wellcome
united the tax-exempt status of his ―charitable organizations‖ with their research and business equivalents, creating what Deer calls ―the most potent single instrument for the
27
Henry Wellcome first began to understand the link between the myth with the power of selling substances when he marketed his first product, ―Invisible Ink‖ (a.k.a. lemon juice) as a teenager in his hometown‘s local paper. The same mythological link would later bring him fame and fortune. 28 See the dissertation‘s Notes section Fig. 97, ―Wellcome‘s world: how the jigsaw fits,‖ for a graphic description of this alliance.
124 privatisation of science‖ and ―the greatest single concentration of power in the history of medicine‖ (19 Sept 1993). What Henry Wellcome set out was a double-edged scheme to run a business and a charity together. The flagship would be a philanthropic body - now the Wellcome Trust - enjoying the image and tax benefits of magnanimous, public-spirited generosity. But, behind this would operate ―industrial organizations‖: straight up-and-down for-profit corporations. Today these trade under the names of the Wellcome Foundation Ltd (long wrongly assumed to be charitable), and its parent, Wellcome plc. (Ibid.). This ―double-edged‖ strategy continues today in the form of a host of research grants, expense accounts for international conferences, promotional media, symposium sponsorship, and simple cash ensures that an army of people, organizations, and publications are promoting Wellcome products and increased drug consumption, all financed by the company and its ―charities‖ (Deer 19 Sept 1993). In addition to the controversial AIDS drug that eventually proved poisonous, AZT, which was one of the first drugs to be ―fast tracked‖ through the US Food and Drug Administration, Burroughs Wellcome plc sells over-the-counter cough and cold products, Sudafed and Actifed. These products contain pseudo-ephedrine which serves as a precursor chemical in the manufacture of ATS. In the growing US methamphetamine suppression efforts, these two drugs became controlled substances in many states in the late 1990s. These states now require the buyer of pseudoephedrine-based cold remedies to present ID and limit the amount purchased. Globally, pseudoephedrine is now listed in the ―United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances‖ as a ―Table I precursor‖ (International Narcotics Control Board 2007). These legislative limits on Wellcome plc‘s pseudo-ephedrine products are an attempt to control the proliferation of home-based methamphetamine labs. Because of
125 the ease of clandestine production of methamphetamine, according to Dr. Hamid Ghodse, president of the UN‘s International Narcotics Control Board, it is now the ―no. 1 drug problem in North America‖ and ―today's problem drug‖ (UPI 1 Mar 2006). The drug‘s chemical makeup reveals the simplicity of its production using pseudo-ephedrine.29 This crystalline substance is snorted, injected directly, or mixed with other materials and pressed into pills. Pills are by far the most popular form of ATS in Thailand to be discussed below. Amphetamine was first synthesized by a German chemist L. Edeleano (a.k.a. Edeleonu) in 1887 (Trent Volz 2007). Methamphetamine was synthesized for the first time in 1919 by a Japanese chemist A. Ogata, although there are some reports that this was first done in Germany in 1888 (UNDCP 1996:35). Ogata used red phosphorus and iodine to create a reduction of ephedrine, the same method of synthesis used in clandestine manufacture today (using iodine and simple household matches or other sources of red phosphorus). Methamphetamine (a hydrochloride compound) acts faster, lasts longer and requires smaller doses than amphetamine (a sulphate compound), but there is essentially little difference between the two, hence they are grouped under the moniker ―amphetamine-type stimulants‖ (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:4). After British chemist Gordon Alles resynthesized amphetamine and discovered the drug‘s stimulating effects in 1927 (Shulgin & Shulgin 1991), the patent was purchased by the US pharmaceutical, Smith Kline & French Laboratories. The company marketed amphetamine as Benzedrine in 1932 in an over-the-counter inhaler to treat 29
Production of methamphetamine results from the conversion of ephedrine or pseudo-ephedrine into Nmethyl-alpha-chloroamphetamine and then hydrogenating this using lithium aluminum hydride, sodium borohydride, or hydrogen gas with nickel or platinum metal as a catalyst. Hydrogenation creates Nmethylamphetamine and HCl. After water is evaporate from this, the final product of methamphetamine hydrochloride remains.
126 nasal congestion, hay fever and common colds. Five years later, amphetamine was approved by the American Medical Association for sale in tablet form. In 1940, Methamphetamine was marketed under the proprietary trade name ‗Methedrine‘ by Burroughs Wellcome. The company‘s own website admits Burroughs Wellcome made massive profits during World War II. What is not admitted is that during the war amphetamine was widely distributed to allied soldiers to keep them keep fighting. Meanwhile, German and Japanese troops were given methamphetamine. In post-war Japan an epidemic of methamphetamine use resulted from the drugs‘ unrestricted wartime access. Similarly, the US dispensed amphetamine to troops in the Korean war.30 Continuing its military heritage, the US army continued to give massive amounts of amphetamines to its troops in Vietnam. Nevertheless, pharmacists voluntarily withdrew Methedrine from legal markets in 1968. The ―US Drug Abuse Regulation and Control Act of 1970‖ made amphetamines illegal in the US. Simultaneously, the US became flooded with cocaine and illegal home labs of amphetamine proliferated in response to the drug‘s prohibition. In 1996, US Congress passed the Methamphetamine Control Act which began new controls over key ingredients and strengthened criminal penalties for possession, distribution and manufacturing. Despite these prohibitions, the pharmaceutical industry continues to reap massive profits from amphetamine in the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
30
In the 1950s, legally manufactured tablets of both dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) and methamphetamine (Methedrine) became popular in the US. College students, truck drivers, and athletes used both forms, and the drugs were sold as legal remedies for everything from weight control to treating mild depression. It wasn‘t until 1964 that it became illegal to possess or import amphetamines in the US, but manufacturing and prescription use was still allowed.
127 The routine and often mandatory use of ATS in the US military continues to the present day, a practice that came under scrutiny due to the ―Tarnak Farm incident.‖ On Apr. 18, 2002, a US F-16 crew dropped a 225kg laser-guided bomb near Kandahar at Tarnak farms, Afghanistan, killing four Canadian soldiers and leaving eight injured in a ―friendly fire‖ incident. Defense lawyers for the pilots argued that forced use of dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) caused the incident. Known in the military as ―gopills,‖ Dexedrine is routinely given to pilots to keep them awake and alert during long missions. The defense lawyers argued that pilots could be deemed unfit for missions unless they took the pills, a situation which constitutes ―forcible use‖ of ATS by the US military. One of the pilots testified that he took Dexedrine for every one of the seven tenhour missions he flew in the weeks preceding this incident (Ali et al 14 Jan 2003). Dexedrine is manufactured legally for the military in the same San Diego naval base which provided ATS to US pilots in World War II. In Thailand, the Burroughs Wellcome Company found a receptive demographic of managers, bosses and laborers committed to working longer and harder using the stimulant effects the ―horse medicine,‖ Methadrine, provided. Farmers, truck drivers, construction workers and laborers of all types used yaa maa, which was often provided by bosses and indirectly encouraged by the Thai government. Farmers, who account for the largest group of amphetamine users, formerly used formulas of pain-killers and caffeine. When these were banned by public health officials ATS use grew among agricultural and factory workers. A Thai college student at one of Thailand‘s largest universities described to me some of his uncle‘s experiences as a former agricultural day laborer. His wages were
128 often ―supplemented‖ by yaa maa which he and his coworkers would use to make agricultural work easier. This ―voluntary‖ example contrasts with documented cases of forced drugging of employees by Thai industrialists: In some cases employers mix amphetamines in drinking water so that workers can work long hours without feeling tired. According to a village headman: ―Some factory owners provide their workers with the drug themselves.‖ Students and schoolchildren start taking the pills to enable them to work harder, particularly at exam periods, and gradually become habituated (Pasuk et al 1998:102-3). In addition to workers and students, truck drivers were among the first to take the pills in order to drive long trips without rest. ―Most truck drivers consider the drug necessary to their job, but recognize that the dosage should be small, such as one-fourth a pill each time‖ (Ibid. 102). It was sold in ampules and, until 1963-1964, was readily available by prescription both as a pill and in a higher dosage via injection.
Red Bull, Krating Daeng (Red Gaurs) Legal Stimulant Economies When amphetamine was banned in Thailand in 1977, pharmaceutical manufacturers began substituting cheaper legal stimulants such as caffeine and ephedrine. Most yaa baa pills in Thailand today are blends of amphetamine-type stimulants and these ingredients. To provide another legal alternative to the stimulant economy, the massive popularity of ―energy drinks‖ arguably began in Thailand31 with the production of Krating Daeng or ―Red Bull.‖
Figure 5: Krating Daeng (Red Bull)
31
The energy drink phenomena may have developed first or simultaneously in Japan (as a post-war application of the country‘s wartime methamphetamine legacy) in the marketing of "genki drinks" touted today by Arnold Schwarzenegger who is known locally as ―Schwa-chan.‖
129 The cherry-tasting non-alcoholic liquid is packaged in small brown bottles with two formulas, ―kratingdaeng‖ and ―theoplex‖ which contain the same ingredients, the former containing roughly double the amount of the active ingredients of the latter. Both formulas of Red Bull contain the amino acid ―taurine,‖ pseudoephedrine, caffeine, and carbohydrates. Krating Daeng spawned many ―energy drink‖ imitators in little brown bottles: ―Shark,‖ ―.357‖ and ―Karabao Daeng‖ (―Red Buffalo‖) are available in any convenience store for 8 to 10 Baht per bottle. Interestingly, in the 1970s, a group by the same name as this popular energy drink, Krating Daeng (often translated as ―the Red Gaurs‖), was one of the most
130 influential right-wing paramilitary groups in Thailand (Bowie 1997:105). Together with the Village Scouts and Nawaphon,32 Krating Daeng was one of several organizations used to divide the student, worker and farmer social movements of the 1973-1976 period. Krating Daeng was the working class equivalent of Nawaphon‘s right-wing organization of the upper class (Ibid. 106). Unlike Nawaphon, the Red Gaurs recruited ―by promises of high pay, abundant free liquor and brothel privileges,‖ not primarily on the basis of ideological commitment (Anderson 20 cited in Ibid.). According to Anderson, the group was made up of, ―ex-mercenaries and men discharged from the army for disciplinary infractions, while their followings were mainly composed of unemployed vocational school graduates, high-school drop-outs, unemployed street-corner boys, slum toughs and so forth‖ (Anderson 1977:19; see also Sangchai 1976). To supplement the organization‘s strong police support, which included support from the Santiban (Special Branch police), the group received support and assistance from CIA-backed ISOC (Indochina Resource Center 1977). Thus, Thailand in the 1970s was rife with red bull (krating daeng) symbolism, both the stimulant beverage that emerged at the same time amphetamine was being outlawed, and the paramilitary organization. The king himself added to the authoritative weight of this symbolic resonance. As part of his mid-70s conspicuous rightward political shift, H.M. King Bhumiphol, test-fired weapons at a Red Bull/Gaur training site in 1976 (Marks 1977:58-9) thus adding royal legitimacy to the group. The Red Gaurs 32
Nawaphon, like Krating Daeng, was directly tied to US intelligence agencies (Morrell and Chai-anan 239) and was organized using startup money from Thailand‘s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC). In 1975, the clandestine cell structures of Nawaphon claimed membership of more than 150,000 provincial bureaucrats, monks and business leaders. When the civilian elected government of Thailand‘s brief 1973-1976 left-wing democracy negotiated with the socialist government of Vietnam, Nawaphon incited anti-Vietnamese riots in northeastern Thailand. Rumors also circulated that Nawaphon was responsible for the nationwide assassinations of the Federated Farmers of Thailand during this period (Bowie 105).
131 returned the favor by prominently displaying portraits of the king during their demonstrations. In addition to this royal support, Krating Daeng, like Nawaphon, was tied directly to US and Thai intelligence agencies, and was led directly by ISOC Colonel Sudsai Hasadin. Also involved was the former head of CIA-funded Thai mercenary forces in Laos, General Vitoon Yasawat and General Chartchai Choonhawan, a leader in the Thai Nation Party (Anderson 1977:n28; Bowie 1997:319, n43). These leaders, and the Krating Daeng organization, were involved in the Thamassat massacre of October 6, 1976. Krating Daeng‘s activities at the massacre are part of historical record.33 Prior to the Thammasat massacre, the Red Gaurs were involved in strikebreaking, firebombing, and assassinations of labor leaders, peasant leaders, etc. as well as violent attacks at many gatherings including an earlier attack at Thammasat University in August 1975 (Anderson 1977:25; in Bowie 1997:106; Indochina Resource Center 1977; Morell & Chai-anan 1981:167).34
33
According to the detailed account of Dr. Puey Ungphakorn, the rector of the University during that time: 9:00 a.m.: While police use heavy weaponry, Red Gaurs, Village Scouts and right-wing groups, having seized ten to fifteen wounded or escaping students including two girls, beat, mutilate, hang and burn them, occasionally with police watching. One girl stripped and shot repeatedly. Large numbers of students try to escape but are arrested. 9:06 a.m.: The Red Gaurs began to pour kerosene on and to burn four people, one of whom was still alive. 9:20 a.m.: Four students, their hands on their heads symbolizing surrender, came out through the front gate and were brutally beaten and shot by the Red Gaurs. One was hung. A girl, who had been shot to death, was sexually abused by plainclothes policemen; they used a stick on her vagina. At a nearby site, a man was severely beaten and burned. Another person was hung while he was still alive. (1977:8) 34 Morell and Samudavanija write, ―Red Gaurs frequently were seen carrying walkie-talkie equipment obviously borrowed from the metropolitan police, and they were constantly being transported in police vehicles from one part of Bangkok to another‖ (Morell & Chai-anan 1981:167).
132 With this history of deplorable violence and provocateurship attached to the name, ―Krating Daeng,‖ it is notable that the same name was chosen for the brand of ―Red Bull‖ stimulant beverage during the years of the group‘s most notorious activities, just prior to Thailand‘s prohibition of yaa maa. Chaleo Yoovidhya‘s company, TC Pharmaceuticals, began producing the Krating Daeng formula in the 1970s. In 1984, an Austrian businessman, Dietrich Mateschitz, worked for German cosmetics and toothpaste company, Blendax, now owned by Procter and Gamble (Nation 26 Nov 2001). Chaleo was one of Blendax‘s liscencees and Mateschitz also knew his son Chalerm. According to The Economist, while visiting Thailand, ―Mr. Mateschitz was hooked,‖ on Chaleo‘s Krating Daeng tonic.
Figure 6: Globallydistributed Red Bull import
Mateschitz said in the article, ―One glass and the jet lag was gone‖ (9 May 2002). A write-up of this article in The Nation reports, ―He always got the taxi-driver to stop on the way from the airport to buy a bottle‖ (Nation 13 May 2002). Thus hooked, Mateschitz made a deal with Chaleo‘s TC Pharmaceuticals to license the product and produce it globally. The original Thai company now owns 51% (Chaleo owns 49%, and son Chalerm owns 2%) of the new company formed in 1987, Red Bull GmbH, which is based in Austria. Mateschitz owns the remaining 49% of the company (Grohol 2006). Chaleo Yoovidhya was listed as #11 in Forbes ―Southeast Asia‘s 40 Richest‖ in 2005. The globally distributed Austrian product still uses the original logo of two red bulls butting heads (Fig. 6). However, the global product is
133 carbonated, less sweet, contains lower levels of Taurine,35 pseudoephedrine and ―only‖ 80 mg caffeine (twice the serving size of most caffeinated sodas), and is packaged in thin aluminum cans that are now ubiquitous throughout the world. Fawning marketingoriented internet sites describe the logo as ―two thick-necked Herculean crimson bulls in opposing charge against a yellow sun – is the epitome of the kinetic virility and pugnacity the beverage claims to provide‖ (Sauer 2005). Inevitably, the trendier canned variant was re-imported to Thailand for wealthy urbanites and tourists at five times the price of the original ―working class‖ drink that spawned it. I spoke to several groups of tourists on Ko Tao, a popular island destination for recreational divers and asked them if they knew where Red Bull originated. Responses varied from ―California‖ to various European countries. My German dive partners knew that the drink originated in Thailand, but were unable to recognize that the aluminumcanned variant was imported, whereas the cheaper glass bottles, used in the ubiquitous Red Bull and alcohol buckets, sold throughout Thailand‘s beaches and tourist areas, were produced domestically. By contrast, I also met John, an ―energy drink connoisseur‖ who walked me through the range of Thailand‘s energy drink offerings at one of the ubiquitous 7-11s: Okay, these small bottles are where it‘s at…M150, Carabao, and the original Red Bull…you want the one with the Thai label. It will take you out… Here‘s how you make a ‗BKK Special‘… you fill up a big gulp half full or drink the other half with the Red Bull and one of these little bottles of rum – the white one works good (Sangsom premium label). Put a cover on it and drink it through a straw in a taxi. That‘s why it‘s the BKK Special… Interview, 4 April 2003 35
Taurine is an acidic chemical substance that derives its name from ―taurus‖ (ox) because it was originally discovered in ox bile. Red Bull GmbH‘s obsession with ―bull‖ themes and images pervades its corporate headquarters in Fuschl, Austria. The building‘s design resembles two volcanoes, with a herd of bulls bursting forth instead of lava. In addition, Mateschitz created the ―Taurus Foundation‖ to benefit injured stunt professionals. The foundation sponsors the ―Taurus Stunt Awards.‖
134
Knowing the potency of the Krating Daeng original formula, but unwilling to tarnish the reputation of one of Thailand‘s most famous exports, the Thai Food and Drug Administration merely requires that all energy drink commercials warn consumers not to drink more than two bottles a day, according to Red Bull Beverage Co‘s marketing manager Sathit Sathirasrindh. These ―controls‖ prompted the company to promote a series of massive events and concerts featuring luk tung (country music) in the provinces to reinforce the product‘s ―working class‖ image (Somluck 19 Dec 2002). The events were in direct competition with the Carabao (Water Buffalo) energy drink Figure 7: Carabao Deng (Red Water Buffalo)
which promotes and is promoted by the Thai 1970s rock-folk
band of the same name. Carabao bottles feature the band‘s logo of a water buffalo skull with emblazoned with a red dove on its forehead (Fig. 7). The ―working class‖ image of all of these beverages, including Red Bull and M-150, is heavily promoted at muaythai competitions where arenas, boxing rings, and boxers festooned with corporate logos.
Yaa Baa Nation: The Rise of Thai ATS Culture I was flying. Music sounds so good. Like they made it just for you and your friends. Before I would buy the pills, I felt crazy, but always still. If I knew I was meeting with someone to buy them, the money felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. Nothing was as important as that business and nothing mattered more. Like a movie. Then, you get it. Get as many as possible and then smoke as fast as possible. But that time in between it feels like anything could happen. Like love. ―Roi‖ (Interview 11 Jun 2008)
135 While its legal equivalent, pseudo-ephedrine, is used in Red Bull and the legion of pseudo-ephedrine-based beverages (M-150, Red Buffalo, Carabao, etc.), as well as in clandestine ATS manufacturing, the original base material, ephedrine, is still transported into Thailand primarily from China using three smuggling routes: Klong Toey port, the Thai-Burmese border near Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son, and the coasts near Samut Sakhon and Trat. According to Pasuk, Sungsidh and Nualnoi‘s account, in 1998 there were five to ten manufacturers who use Chinese and Hong Kong chemists to extract liquid ephedrine from these base materials. Pill-makers then mixed the liquid with other materials and pressed it into pills. These manufacturers supplied wholesalers who sold to smaller distributors, eventually creating a trade network that by 1995-1996 spread to every province in the country (Pasuk et al 1998:103-5). The authors, writing in the late 1990s, noted a new trend: pills were beginning to be smuggled from Burma eliminating the need to acquire precursor chemicals elsewhere. This trend was caused by a mid-90s shortage of heroin resulting from Khun Sa‘s ―surrender,‖ which prompted manufacturers of pills within Burma (using ephedrine supplies from Yunan) to use existing heroin routes along the border to smuggle a new product. Thus, once again, the suppression and shortage of supplies of one drug created a new market for another drug, spreading yaa baa throughout Thailand in unprecedented amounts. As Chouvy and Meissonnier note, the influx of methamphetamine does not represent a supplanting of the opium and heroin market, but rather that market‘s diversification (2004:34). Similarly, these authors point to the flexibility of the drug, a product that ―transcends market segmentation‖ (Ibid. 66). ATS is as integrated into the
136 ―work culture‖ of Thai laborers as it is into the youth culture who use it ―recreationally.‖ Yaa baa‘s long-term existence among older generations of workers legitimized and normalized pill use among young people. Since the drugs‘ introduction among laborers, the market expanded into recreational use, primarily targeting younger consumers (Ibid. 81). Pasuk and Baker describe, ―Dealers expanded the market by classic pyramid selling – finding a customer and then encouraging that person to develop his own customer base. By this method, the trading networks penetrated into the schools‖ (2004:158). This expansion of ATS into the Thai youth market coincided with cultural trends of decreased politicization and increased preoccupation with consumer ―success.‖ Pasuk and Baker assert that the decline of politicization in Thailand resulting from the disillusionment of the events of the 1970s, particularly after the Thammasat massacre of 1976, lead many Thais to seek the business opportunities from new Western investment (1995). Of the younger generations following this period, the students of the 1980s tended to seek careers in engineering and management, leaving behind the idealism of Thailand‘s brief flirtation with political freedom. Enthralled with rising consumerism and political cynicism, this generation became obsessed with social mobility. The sudden transformation from political consciousness to permissive consumption was abrupt and dislocating. Succeeding generations of the 1990s and the turn of the new century inherited a social world deprived of community support networks and the economic refuge granted to their parents‘ consumerist models of success. Mary Beth Mills outlines this late 1990s zeitgeist as more and more female laborers migrate to Bangkok from rural areas, internalizing commodity consumption and idealized modernity at the expense of community networks (1999). ―Roi,‖ a student at a
137 large Thai university, described the globalized emptiness of these trends. ―In Bangkok, I feel like no one. I want to be a super model….I want to see the world. But now I am worried that I can‘t get a job. That is why I am here in the city. Why not have fun?‖ Roi described a globally-situated urban fashion culture where ―the Fashion Network‖ and ―Sex in the City‖ fill television screens and fashion shows routinely populate Bangkok malls. Apart from rising consumerism, disillusionment and social permissiveness are defining watchwords of the younger generations. Social criticism is discouraged and passé. Simply stated (perhaps overly-simplified, but nonetheless socially observed), a pleasure-seeking hedonism and pursuit of sanuk (fun) are all that remains to do. Yaa baa, in this social environment is the ultimate commodity of consumption: it exists for little purpose other than to prolong and enhance sanuk. Yaa baa is extremely fashionable and remains in vogue despite extreme government prohibition. Chouvy and Meissonnier point out that this pursuit of sanuk stands in contrast to the Western models of drugs as rebellion or rejection of the status quo (2004:116). In Thailand, however, these transgressions seem to be part of the performances of consumer lifestyles rather than attempts to subvert authority. Most Thai young people do not take yaa baa to reject consumerism, they long for access to it (Prost et al 1991). Indeed, participation in consumerism and upward mobility are often promoted overtly by economic elites and are internalized by this especially valuable ―target demographic.‖ Another ATS drug, ecstasy, is even more highly valued by Thai young people as a particularly jáap (‗cool‘) drug, revered for its expense and relative rarity. Produced primarily in labs in the Netherlands and Belgium and distributed by
138 Israeli and Russian networks, ecstasy is an inherently global drug (Agar & Reisinger 2003), the epitome of hip modern consumerism. The veneer of appearance and the acquisition of disposable cash is highly valued in hyper-modern urban Thailand,. The names of Bangkok‘s trendy night clubs are indicative of this veneer: ‗Narcissus,‘ ‗Bed,‘ ‗Luxury,‘ ‗Lucifer‘ and of course, ‗Taurus.‘ In particular, the massive discos of Royal City Avenue (RCA) are packed with thousands of Thai 15-25 year olds and a drug culture that caters to easily available yaa baa. For young Thais, at both clubs and schools, the preferred method of ATS consumption is crushing the pills, heating the powder on tinfoil or metal and then inhaling the Figure 8: One of Bangkok's RCA nightclubs
smoke. This method is
supposedly ―less dangerous‖ than swallowing the pills since, it is emically assumed, inhaling smoke is not ―ingesting‖ something into the body. Of course, this method also provides a more intense initial high, increasing the drug‘s euphoric effects (Pasuk 24 Oct 2003). To consume ATS is to succumb to the passionate seduction of Baudrillardian hyper-modernity (Baudrillard 1994). Stimulant use is the literal expression of the ―ecstasy of information,‖ the simulation of reality that is paradoxically ―more real‖ (Baudrillard & Witwer 2000). ATS is modernity embodied: the fact that it is chemically
139 synthesized and instantly consumable makes it even more desirable in the Thai youth culture of speed. A simulation of stimulation. When I arrived in Bangkok for the first time witnessed the Royal City Avenue disco scene firsthand. As my fieldnotes reveal, I was overwhelmed by yaa baa youth culture, as it elusively twirled, tweaked, and spun around me: These clubs (in the RCA area) are different. The crowd is younger. Just kids really. It‟s not like the Euros and the backpackers at Q Bar looking cool. Sure they are looking cool (it looks like a movie scene), but more importantly, they‟re having fun. Throwing down, as it were. The music was deafening – all treble, of course, when it should be all bass. And fast. It freaked me out – teenagers usually do. But it was something else. You can feel it around. There‟s an electric air beyond the lights and music and club scene. Some kids moved their jaws back and forth, or chew gum endlessly – again and again, fast fast fast. I guess that‟s why they call it speed. Hard to say who‟s doing what and who‟s just having a good time. Who would want to say? Kids just move fast sometimes, but man, oh man. Fieldnotes 2001 In 1996, Health Minister Sanoh Thienthong in General Chavalit‘s cabinet, employed a public awareness campaign to successfully change the colloquial Thai name for ATS from yaa maa, to yaa baa (―crazy drug‖) (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:xii). This effort included a television PR campaign that dramatically reenacted violent incidents involving ‗crazed‘ ATS addicts. The name-change was successful, although the overall message of the PR campaign was not. When users took the drug and experienced no psychotic effects, they disbelieved the government propaganda (Pasuk & Baker 2004:160). Meanwhile, supplies of methamphetamine were incrementally replacing amphetamine without consumers realizing the difference between the drugs nearly identical effects (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:66). The ONCB‘s 1997 list of ―yaa baa‖ pills included ―4 types of amphetamine pills, 11 types of ephedrine pills (unrefined), 3 pill types composed of Fenprporex, and 72 varieties of methamphetamine pills‖ (Ibid.).
140 The type of ATS produced by the UWSA, the vast majority of the supply, is of relatively low purity, roughly 30-35% and is usually mixed with morphine based derivatives (Malaysia Star 23 Mar 2001). All of these pills are known under the name ―yaa baa.‖ In 1997, the Thai economy shrank 12 percent (following forty years of continual growth), and this financial crisis produced a catalyzing effect on the growing yaa baa economy (Pasuk 24 Oct 2003). This event caused 2 million people, an estimated one in eight urban laborers to lose their jobs and created a massive social strain on Thailand‘s poorest people. Linkages of exchange and credit create social links, and these systems are understood and exploited by suppliers of yaa baa (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:76). The systems of perpetual credit resulting from poverty were easily connected to the drug economy. The financial crisis also placed more pressure on young people for better performance in an increasingly competitive educational system. During this period, amphetamine and methamphetamine spread rapidly, especially at schools. More than ever, students needed to over-perform for a tight job market. The effects of ATS are ideally suited to an education system based on competition, rote memorization, and conformity. The situation is paralleled in American schools, as documented by Charlotte Iserbyt‘s (a Senior Policy Advisor in the US Department of Education during the Reagan administration) expose (Thompson Iserbyt 1999). Similarly, teachers in Thai government schools devote considerable time to promoting the state‘s version of national and religious values. In Neils Mulder‘s anthropological examination of Thai school textbooks, Theravada Buddhist religious values are used to create simplistic classifications of ―good‖ and ―bad‖ behavior, an avoidance of disagreement at all costs, and conformity at all costs (1997). Nationalism, a
141 strict interpretation of patriotic behavior, and mandatory devotion to the three Thai ―pillars,‖ represented by the three colors of the Thai flag, ―Buddhism, Nation and Monarchy,‖ are also educational goals of the highest order. To enforce these strict social controls, corporal punishment and bodily enforcement are still unofficially accepted forms of discipline in the classroom. The prolonged mental concentration provided by stimulants is useful to Thai students under increased pressure to perform well on standardized testing and in rigid school structures. The perceived, if fleeting, feeling of competence and invincibility they provide offers a convenient escape mechanism. Alternatively, the drug can help a student cope with the shame of failing an exam in the ―face‖ of overwhelming expectation from family. Furthermore, ATS stimulants create feelings of social bonding with those who consume the drugs together; an instant camaraderie that transcends nation and kinship. In the historical context of a social system where citizens are assigned a predetermined ‗rank,‘ under a rigid class hierarchy, this equalization and camaraderie is profoundly meaningful. Young Thai women face additional social pressure to conform physically to an idealized femininity based on extreme thinness. As in many parts of Asia, it is not uncommon for relatives and friends to tell a young woman whether or not they perceive she gained or lost weight immediately upon seeing her. This constant overt evaluation of women‘s bodies by family, teachers and peers is another motivating factor in ATS use. In urban areas, fast food chains proliferate along with the paradoxical idealized fashionbased models of femininity. Methadrine‘s original pharmaceutical application as a ―dietary aid‖ is well known in schools, which already contain social networks of bulimia
142 and anorexia, exemplifying the globalization of disease, drugs and disorder. These weight disorders are common in schools despite, what I found to be, the Thai health care system‘s apparent near-ignorance of their existence (Jennings et al 2006).36 For young men, by contrast, yaa baa offers an opportunity to express ―bold acts of virility meant to be impressive to his peers‖ (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:118). Yaa baa use offers a convenient performance of the ―passion of risk‖ (Breton 1995) which overcomes the boredom of conformity through flirtation with danger or death. Thus, in the categories of gender, education and economic class, yaa baa is a ritualized collective phenomenon, similar to other global phenomena involving drugs and ritual (St. John 2004; 2008).
Moreover, the drug youth culture created by yaa baa is
tailor-made for the urbanizing economic trends of Thailand. As more young people move to urban areas in search of employment and city-based ―cool,‖ yaa baa is the bond, the social glue, for an unprecedented cultural transformation. In Bangkok, Chiang Mai and other urban areas, relentless hyper-media, synthesized discos, energy drinks, motorcycles, and the endless construction of shopping shrines, create a frenetic culture of ―speed‖ ideal for stimulant use. This culture clashes with a classroom environment of conformity, social control and rote memorization. Young people in Thais new generations engage in a ―soft rebellion‖ with Thai institutions that Meissonnier depicts as characterized by ―decline of politicization, and growth of derision.‖ (2004:xiii). Both emerging ATS culture (khwaampen yaa baa) and ―traditional‖ Thainess (khwaampen Thai) profit elite interests who control ATS supplies (Pavin 2005). The
36
In mid-2003, I attempted to located treatment for an Australian friend with bulimia by calling numerous hospitals and clinics in Bangkok. I spoke to both women‘s health officials and mental health professionals, attempting to find a clinic that was familiar with the treatment of bulimia. After explaining the symptoms numerous times in English and Thai, I was unable to find anyone familiar with the disorder.
143 dealers providing yaa baa to student distributors at schools are inevitably individuals with social and economic power: kamnans or other politicians with close relationships to police, military leaders, governors, the Ministry of the Interior, as well as prosecutors and judges. These powerful individuals often sell drugs directly as well. One parliamentary committee on military affairs stated, ―Government officials at every level are involved in the drug trade, from helping suspects escape prosecution to directly entering the business themselves‖ (Nation 29 Jan 1998 in Pasuk et al 1998).37 From police and drug suppression agencies to the judicial system, government officials protect, are complicit in, and profit from ATS and other illegal drug sales.
Performing the Thai Drug Suppression Strategy Given that the highest levels of the Thai political and economic elite profit directly from drug trafficking, it should come as no surprise that their public effort to ―combat‖ drugs is simplistic and ineffective. This statement is by no means an implication of all or even the vast majority of Thai political and economic leaders in profiting and complicity in drug trafficking. As is the case in any instance of corruption and abuse of power, high-level involvement in illegal activities is made possible through a chain-of-command, a code of silence, and the complicity of secrecy. Those who profit at the highest levels are protected by cell-like structures leading to those who physically 37
In a landmark study in 1987, Chulalongkorn University professor and Narcotics Control Board investigator, Jumpol Pongsuwan, revealed that eight MPs, police officers and ―persons of influence‖ used political connections to build marijuana smuggling rings in Northeast Thailand (Barnes 11 May 1994). Similarly, in 1994, Thai MP Wattana Asavahem, a member of parliament and deputy leader of the Chart Thai party was denied a visa into the United States. Don Ferrarone, the DEA chief in Thailand at that time, told Pol. Gen. Chavalit Yodmanee (then ONCB head), that the DEA had evidence against Wattana. The MP was implicated in major drug trafficking by a Chinese national arrested in Hong Kong in joint operation with DEA in May 1994 (AFP 6 Jul 1994). Narong Wongwan, leader of the Justice Unity Party, a prominent politician with close ties to the military, was similarly denied a US visa in 1992 because of suspected drug trafficking links (Shenon 26 Mar 1992). These are only three examples of a host of such investigations linking Thai government officials to the drug trade they are supposedly combating.
144 buy and sell drugs. These structures create the necessary social distance and plausible deniability for those involved at the top levels of the pyramid-like structure. The vast majority of the employees, bureaucrats, assistants, and official ―bosses‖ are generally well-meaning people who are kept intentionally ignorant of the systematic corruption around them. Of course, this corruption depends on a certain degree of willful ignorance on the part of those not directly involved. Many people in government or business organizations choose to ignore or avoid obvious suspicious or illegal activity, either through fear of losing their employment, social castigation or awareness of the tragedy and injustice caused by these activities. Thus, most Thai social policy makers, bureaucrats, officials and police are genuinely concerned for the well-being of their country, unaware of or unable to stop the drug profiteering occurring systematically around them. Again we are confronted with the tendril of state order created through information control. State secrecy, deception, and lies (paradoxically-chaotic cultural forms) create a powerful basis for continual and amplified state coercion. This is similar to the process wherein occult sorcery gains greater cultural resonance through ―darkness and secrecy‖ as Whitehead and Wright describe (2004). Intriguingly, the use of occult sorcery, is an active part of the coercive arsenal of the Thai state, and ―black-magic‖
Figure 9: Police participate in an anti-drug black-magic ritual in Suphan Buri province, 2001
rituals are occasionally performed against the state‘s enemies. These performances exemplify the construction of state order through public rituals. In June of 2001, in front
145 of the Buddhist Don Chedi Memorial, police and state officials in Thailand‘s Suphan Buri province performed a saab chaeng ―black magic‖ rite in hopes of cursing drug traffickers (Fig. 9). Organizers told the 20,000 local onlookers and the national media that the curse was performed because extra-judicial killings and the death penalty ―were not proving to be adequate deterrents‖ to drug trafficking (Anjira 26 Jun 2001). This ritual performance is marked by numerous historical precedents in Thailand. On Sept. 10th, 1992, a group of ―witch doctors‖ participated in a similar ―curse ceremony‖ in front of the Nakorn Ratchasima provincial hall (Nation 11 Sept 1992). These practices are similar to the a Figure 10: Anti-vote buying "curse ceremony," Nakorn Ratchasima, 1992
process described by Geschiere and Roitman (1997) where the
supposedly ancient tropes of witchcraft are employed for particularly modern purposes in the political economy of Africa. In this case, the Thai state‘s use of the ―modernity of witchcraft‖ was leveled against corruption, as the curse was directed at ―vote buyers and vote sellers.‖ Importantly, although these ceremonies were performed in public, in front of prominent government buildings and national media, the ―black magic‖ and ritualized curse ceremonies nevertheless draw on an undercurrent of secrecy and concealment. Because these performances are conducted by a group of occult ritual specialists, the
146 state‘s capacity for coercive force is demonstrated by the secret ―powers‖ (amnaat) of the participants as much as by the visible ceremonies themselves. In this way, these ritualized state spectacles conform to Ken George‘s assertion that ―the real problem, the real secret begins with knowing what kinds of knowledge and what kinds of relationships are culturally (and historically) constructed, recognized and read as ‗secret‘‖ (1993:232). Like the state black magic curse ceremonies, extra-judicial killings associated with drug suppression in Thailand draw on an undercurrent of secrecy and concealment to augment the process of media amplification. In this way, murders of ―suspected drug dealers‖ by unidentified (indeed, secret) agents become performances of coercive force and assertion of the legitimate violence of the state. Moreover, extra-judicial killings surrounding drug suppression occur frequently enough in recent Thai history as to become ritualized spectacles of violence. In a famous case from 1996, six alleged yaa baa dealers were shot dead by police in a small farmhouse in Suphan Buri (literally, the ―City of Gold‘) one hundred and twenty kilometers north of Bangkok. Prior to their deaths, the six men who had taken three people hostage surrendered to the two hundred police officers who surrounded the farmhouse. The six men were marched in front of a crowd of neighbors and journalists in handcuffs to waiting vehicles when they were abruptly escorted back to the farmhouse and all shot in the head at point blank range in the space of ten seconds (Fletcher & Gearing 1996; Gearing 1999). The infamous officer in charge at the scene was Salang Bunnag, a.k.a. ―Dirty Harry,‖ a police veteran of the communist suppression campaigns of the 1970s, who claimed all six men were killed in self-defense after attempting to escape. Saleng told reporters at the scene, ―these people were not saints…they had killed too many people and arrest warrants had been issued for
147 all of them. Today we have closed their cases‖ (Gearing 1999). Months after this incident, Saleng arrived in central Thailand ‗s Uthai Thani by helicopter to lead an operation in which five more suspected traffickers, allegedly part of the same gang in the Suphan Buri incident, were killed by police. In 1999, the Thai Attorney General‘s Office said that a suspect was killed ―in self-defense‖ by police every three days (Ibid.). These killings can be seen as a type of public spectacle of violence used in addition to the firing squad executions of the Thai capital punishment apparatus. In 2003, the Thai Corrections Department began inviting members of the press to state executions. One journalist describes vividly how members of the press, family and other onlookers were seated next to the execution chamber called ―the place to relieve suffering,‖ watched as five condemned prisoners were brought in front of execution poles to be shot by automatic weapons (Prateepchaikul & Anucha 19 Apr 2002). These punishments, disseminated through electronic and print media, function in similar ways to the executions described by Foucault, as well as by Hay (1975) and Linebaugh (1992) who show how the preferred state method of violent expression in 18th and 19th century England, public hanging, provided both an example of state control and societal definition. To deal with the social problem of the drug economy with its massive cultural and global implications, the Thai government continues to use the failed but profitable strategy favored by nearly all nation-states – simple suppression. This strategy allows some state agents to profit at two levels: both from complicity in drug trading as well as from its suppression. Budgetary expansion for a growing host of anti-drug agencies is constantly justified through the drug suppression strategies of international and domestic
148 programs. For example, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board continues to introduce greater penalties for drug traffickers, increasing the risk and profits of drug trading. Furthermore, the Thai government utilizes anti-money laundering legislation, written in 1997 and burgeoned by the executive decrees of 2003,38 to seize assets from the endless parade of traffickers who are not directly protected by the apex of the power structure. The Thai government is one of hundreds of nation-states using similar strategies which were battle-tested in the endless drug wars of the United States. These strategies continually merge through historical and political cooperation: since World War II, Thailand continually served as one of the US‘s closest drug war allies. Beyond the economic benefits, the political utility of drug suppression is well documented. Drug dealers and users are often touted as public enemies of the highest order when other convenient state enemies don‘t exist or become passé. Drug suppression in Thailand parallels the communist suppression of past decades as the same units, border deployments, and rhetoric is retooled for the ―new threat.‖ However, the state agents responsible for the enforcement of these highly public campaigns often do not share the view that drug suppression should be given the highest priority among the pantheon of laws and legislation. In a 1998 criminology study, Sutham, Pornchai and Vauhgn reported that ―Thai police officers perceive the drug problem as less serious than poverty, unemployment, corruption, and other types of crime, including murder, motor vehicle theft, and burglary‖ (1998). These attitudes appear to conflict with the Thai government policy of promulgating numerous drug laws and regulations that impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for serious drug-related offenses. Consequently, although officers perceive drug laws as effective, their attitudes regarding the seriousness 38
Described in Section IV, Chapter 7, ―The APEC Security Ritual.‖.
149 of the drug problem may cause them to exercise broad discretion in dealing with drug offenders, resulting in drug laws not being fully enforced. This type of discretionary enforcement of substantive laws is also widely reported in the United States (Skolnick 1975). In her detailed address to the 2003 Lisbon International Symposium, Pasuk outlined the simple economics that make supply-side suppression efforts nearly impossible. With production costs around five US cents inside Burma, the cost per pill at the border climbs to fifty cents and then to around two dollars once inside Thailand. With this mark-up of more than forty times production cost Pasuk describes, ―those controlling the trade can afford to lose a lot in transit‖ (24 Oct 2003). Even a cursory examination of accounts of drug trafficking on the Thai-Burmese border reveals that it, like other contested Thai border zones, is a key site of state order through the maintenance of dis-order (chaos). News accounts describe a weekly litany of violence, seizures, and arrests of the myriad ―enemies‖ of the Thai state, creating the appearance that these forces of chaos are antithetical to the state project (Anucha 28 Apr 2001; 6 Apr 1991; Pathan 9 Dec 2003; Thornton 2006). However, few journalists and researchers explore how the violent and chaotic border zone is actually integral to state legitimacy, or how illegal border economies are intimately connected to state order through covert economic control of large percentages of ―illegal‖ traffic. The symbiotic system of drug supplies in Burma servicing demand from Thailand (discussed in Chapter 4) is also evident in Thai drug suppression strategies. The long mountainous Thai-Burmese border makes smuggling common and effective border control impossible. However, in addition to geographic factors, official and unofficial
150 political and economic agreements also make for an extremely porous border. This fluid exchange on both sides of the border includes not only legal and illegal economies but cross-border military and police operations as well. In 2001, more than two hundred Burmese troops attacked and occupied a military outpost in Thailand‘s Chiangrai province (Reuters 11 Feb 2001), an act that would provoke all-out war between most nations sharing a common border. That this event was quietly forgotten is an indication that Thailand and Burma share more than ―close‖ diplomatic relations. The political and economic benefits gained by a relatively open border allows for a high degree of tolerance for military incursions into both countries. On many occasions, the border between the two countries seems to exist only as a matter of bureaucratic convenience. Extra-territorial suppression operations into Burma by Thai police and military forces occur as well. Seemingly illegal incursions are recently coming to the attention of academics studying contentious borders (Andreas 2000). Historically, the Thai government also supported sabotage operations within Burma conducted by British exSpecial Air Services (SAS) Counter-revolutionary Warfare Squadron operatives. The SAS trained and recruited Karen groups as anti-drug warriors within Burma as well continuing decades of warfare by proxy (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:32). In 1999 at Ban Mae Soon Noi, nine Thai villagers were killed by traffickers with links to UWSA. Several months later, eight hundred agents from within the Thai police and military launched an unprecedented cross-border operation closing the area to traffic, not only of drugs, but other underground economies such as arms and Burmese teak trafficking. For this operation, the Burmese government authorized Thai forces to pursue traffickers into Burma and destroy their laboratories. The traffickers served as an expendable sacrifice
151 by the Burmese generals to maintain the status quo at the border. In fact, this operation represents an early case of competition elimination and ATS market consolidation, which would be repeated during the drug campaign of 2003. Unsurprisingly, after this crossborder raid conveniently eliminated his competitors, Wei Hsueh-kang, the UWSA Southern 171st Military Region commander, closely allied with the Burmese government still operated mobile labs within the area. Other traffickers responded to the suppression effort by simply altering the routes into Thailand to ones previously used by the Communist Party of Thailand in the 60s and 70s (Ibid. 30). This continual use of the former CPT transit routes is only one aspect of the parallels between the anti-communist strategies of half a century ago and the current Thai drug suppression efforts. The drug routes created by the KMT to finance its US influenced proxy war live on. Just as the CPT trafficking routes are the same ones used today to move methamphetamine, the Thai police, military, and intelligence units have switched their mission from fighting communists to fighting drugs. Drug suppression units within the Thai police quietly began to centralize in the aftermath of the 1973 uprising. Then Dir. Gen of Police, Prachuab Suntharangkun set up the Anti-Narcotics Centre in 1973, appointing Pol Maj Gen Pao Sarasin as secretary general. When this center was first set up, the initial staff were unwilling to join, a recruiting problem later solved by recruiting only ―enthusiastic officers‖ for its ranks. Pol Maj Gen Pao39 recommended against centralized control of drug suppression powers in the hands of any single agency due to the amount of money involved in the drug economy (Vitoon 16 Apr
39
Not to be confused with the infamous Phao Sriyanond, Pao Sarasin went on to become Police Director General and obtained top positions in numerous political and financial organizations including the Narcotics Control Foundation, CMIC Finance and Securities, Thai Farmers Bank, Thailand‘s Toyota Foundation, etc.
152 1978). Lt. Gen Vitoon Yasawas was appointed as head of the ONCB soon after. Lt. Gen Vitoon was a former commander of the CIA-financed Thai mercenary force in Laos during the 1960s (Ibid.). The continual retooling from anti-communist to anti-drug units justified a centralization of power in Thai bureaucracy. For example, the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), which was authorized to relocate border communities and solve ―ethnic minority problems‖ with military firepower and intelligence resources, was created by the 1952 Anti-Communist Act. ISOC found itself without a mission in 2001 when the anti-Communist Act was repealed. Rather than disband, ISOC simply re-allied with the 3rd Army and the National Security Council (NSC) under the People‘s and State Security Protection Bill which created a new domestic role for Thai military and intelligence. This retooling was justified in order to ―boost efficiency‖ in drug suppression. Under the new structure ISOC gained direct responsibility for border security and drug suppression, an unprecedented centralization of power for the agency. A new Northern Border Provinces Administration Center was built and funded in order to assist ISOC‘s new role as a ―spearhead‖ in the fight against drugs (Wassana 5 Jan 2000). This convenient reaffirmation and centralization of ISOC‘s power illustrates how the militarization of the anti-drug crusades are but a mirror image of the past communist/anticommunist movements.
153 Devoid of the communist and insurgent enemies of the 1970s and 80s, the war on drugs also offered a convenient reason for maintaining international military cross-training with the US. In the annual Cobra Gold joint operations, for example, Thai and US police and military groups focus primarily on drug traffic suppression. Task Force 399 was created as part of
Figure 12: ―Marine Cpl. Jeff Richardson…portrays a protester being subdued by Royal Thai marines Monday. The exercise…was part of the marines‘ training on riot control during Cobra Gold, a joint US-Thai military exercise.‖ Photo: Rick Chernitzer. Stars and Stripes, May 2001
the Baker Torch training program and is made up of Thai Special Forces, regular infantry, and Border Patrol Police. Based out of Mae Rim in Chiang Mai, this group is assisted by US Special Forces 1st Group. These efforts represent a continued militarization of anti-drug efforts in the region. The acquisition of Chinese surface to air missiles by the UWSA to counter Thai Blackhawk helicopters are part of this trend of a
Figure 11: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) anti-drug posters in Vietnam
154 global drug conflict manifesting itself in regional militarization (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:33). These militarized suppression strategies are mirrored by drug abuse ―prevention‖ policies focusing on the danger of drugs, which invoke the primary motivator shared by both: fear. Anti-drug posters printed by the ONCB are placed in schools and slums throughout Thailand. These posters depict a variety of images of violence, fear and death. Examples of similar anti-drug posters from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime country office in Vietnam reveal a trans-regional basis for the phenomena: The Orwellian display of larger than life images of terrorized children, crucified/impaled bodies, and ubiquitous death‘s heads was taken to new extremes in Thailand‘s numerous campaigns against yaa baa: A severed hand cautions workers against using yaa baa in the workplace. A torn family photo warns the young that a drug habit might cause them to break off ties with their family members. A handcuffed and shackled adolescent gives insight into the conditions of life in prison for users who have been arrested. A picture of a child being strangled drives home the fact that yaa baa can cause one to go insane. A deadly cobra or a skull is superimposed upon a photograph of pills. The slogans are equally alarming. ―Yaa baa‘s effects are poisonous‖, ―yaa baa – death for nothing‖, as well as ―Yaa baa – a danger of death (Chouvy & Meissonier 2004:94). These images fail to achieve their intended messages in two ways. Users see the extreme and graphic portrayals as evidence that their own use is not excessive. One user said she is ―far from that situation‖ and that her ―boyfriend who takes more (than she does) is also not so far gone‖ (Ibid.). Secondly, users familiar with the drugs actual effects recognize the state‘s portrayal as false, and thus perceive other aspects of the ―prevention‖ campaigns to be based on lies. Another Thai university student explained to me, ―I found out about yaa baa from programs at school that told me they were bad. Then I did them
155 and they made me high – happy, you know. I knew the ads that say it just makes you crazy were maybe fake‖ (Interview, ―Farng‖ Jun 2006). Certainly, actual incidents of violent or ―psychotic‖ behavior have been linked to yaa baa users in Thailand. However, one particular government-sponsored ad campaign is single-handedly responsible for perpetuating the image of the ―Yaa Baa maniac‖ (Lewis 2003) in popular media. I first noted a thirty-second antidrug PSA on Thai television in 2001: it depicted a wild-eyed man holding a child at knife-point, a dramatic image reinforced by hand-held camera zoom techniques, gritty lens filters, and nightlynews inspired music. The ads were part of the broader public awareness campaign sponsored by the health ministry under Gen. Chavalit‘s cabinet of 1996, which successfully changed the colloquial
Figure 13: ―A Thai man, known only as "Tee," high on methamphetamine and covered in his own blood after cutting himself in a rage, takes 19-year-old college student Pathcarapan Tiyawanich hostage in a siege which lasted over three hours before authorities overpowered him and freed the girl in central Bangkok.‖ Photo: Getty Images.
name of ATS in Thailand from yaa maa to yaa baa. Over the course of my later fieldwork in 2003, I realized that the image of the rabid methcrazed man holding a hostage at knifepoint, was prominent Thai cultural trope and national media meme.
156 This media image was so powerfully internalized in popular Thai cultural conceptions that it was reproduced in public reality in 2004. In this particular ―hostage drama,‖ Wanthong Thoka, variously described as both a ―construction worker,‖ a ―homeless man,‖ and ―high on drugs,‖ took a young boy hostage in Bangkok‘s northern district of Lat Phrao and demanded transport to a bus terminal. Importantly, the full performance of the knife-weilding hostage-taker simulacrum did not occur until after the arrival of Bangkok Special Patrol PPU and camera-wielding media crews. Pol. Maj. Samruay Saensom ―When police arrived at the scene, the suspect became highly agitated and he stuck his machete at the boy‘s throat and his knife at the boy‘s waist‖ (8 Dec 2004). After an hour, Wanthong dropped his hands, was shot with rubber bullets by members of the SWAT team, and ―severely beaten‖ by the surrounding crowd before being placed under arrest. This interim moment of vigilante justice reoccurs frequently in ―hostage dramas‖ throughout recent Thai police history. In the liminal zone between the ―resolution event‖ (commonly marked by surrender or successful use of force by police) and arrest or death, public onlookers are often allowed a chance to momentarily ―overpower‖ police control of an incident and attack the hostage taker as a ―mob.‖ In November of 2001, a 32-yearold Thai man repeatedly stabbed a female university student in a hostage standoff with police on Bangkok‘s skytrain system. Although Bangkok‘s Arintaraj SWAT team was at the scene, the man was subsequently beaten to death by the surrounding crowd. The man‘s brother alleges that the people who beat and killed the man were police officers and that his brother would have died a more merciful death if he was shot by police snipers (Anucha 10 Nov 2001).
157 These hostage incidents, then, offer an example of the performance of coercive force by state agents as well as active consensual public participation in such performances. Subsequently, these performative events become ritualized public spectacles through the process of media amplification and symbolic reproduction. Furthermore, the police role in such performances is internalized by state agents. While riding in with a Metropolitan Special Patrol car enroute to the Australian Embassy, the trope of the knife-wielding yaa baa addict weighed heavily in the thoughts and words of a veteran hostage negotiator we were interviewing. ―Some police usually get angry, but when negotiating with a person holding a knife I employ theory not art,‖ he said.‖ ―Some police get angry because they don‘t know what to do in a hostage situation. They want to get it over with.‖ Here the negotiators account became difficult to discern, and because we soon arrived at the embassy and the officer disembarked, I was unable to follow-up. However, the words he employed could have equally described a anti-drug media ad, a training incident, or a memory from a lived experience: Once on patrol, we pulled over someone high on yaa baa. He was holding butcher knife in a crowded market. With a negotiation team, the theory is to get the person to trust you… You want to see through that person‘s mind and get them to ―view the same god as you. Pol. Sgt. Maj. ―Throk,‖ interview Aug 2003 It is this personal merger of religious world view that becomes apparent in another reoccurring trope of Thai drug suppression: the police confession ritual.
Confession, Shame and Merit in Thai Drug Suppression Like the juridical systems of the British Empire, the torture centers of the Khmer Rouge, and many other regimes of social control, the Thai criminal justice system carries an obsession with obtaining ―confessions‖ from those it chooses to target. This creates state legitimacy as well as a systematic expression on the bodies and minds of its citizens.
158 These confessions are intertwined with cultural conceptions of shame and Buddhist idioms of merit. In a UNODC report, Daniel Lewis describes a threeday rehabilitation program (no date for the program is provided) conducted in schools throughout Thailand by a joint team of soldiers and monks. The program uses the ―nation, religion, king‖
Figure 14: ―Students at a three day event at which many of them will confess to drug use and give themselves up for drug treatment and rehabilitation. Note the monks in the background‖ (Lewis 2003).
model to recruit student drug users into rehabilitation schemes. Lewis writes, ―The presence of both monks and soldiers lends credibility to the claims. The students do not want to lie in front of the monks. They also trust the soldiers not to arrest them with the monks present to hold them to their word. The response to being treated seriously and warmly is amazing, and many students give themselves up and enter treatment‖ (2003). Thus, the state‘s capacity for coercive force is used in tandem with military-backed Buddhist nationalism to produce confession and rehabilitation among Thai students. Another confession-inducing technique is the Buddhist-inspired used of public shame. In a newspaper article entitled, ―Ex-dealers shamed into changing habits: Social stigma key to cleansing community‖ uses Ban Pang Lao in tambon Mae Khao Tom in Chiang Rai's Muang district as a model ―drug-free community.‖ In this village of 1500, residents were threatened with ostracism and were told no one would attend their funeral if they dealt in drugs. Prior to this neighborhood effort, police were useless in preventing drugs from entering the community. One woman said, ―If drug dealers were caught and
159 sent to police it would take only a few days to see them released and come back laughing and saying we could never defeat them.‖ When a dealer promised to stop dealing drugs after one final sale to provide money for his family he was killed by unknown assailants. The village headman said, ―That was really his last time because he was shot dead after that‖ (Mongkol 25 Jul 2003). This story of village ostracism made obligatory grist for the international press mills. AP picked up this story in an article, ―Thai village flushes out drug scourge with rules and threats of ostracism.‖ The article first repeats the state-supplied narrative in full: Children stole from family rice stores to buy methamphetamine - the drug of choice for most Thai addicts - and outsiders drove into town all night long to buy the little orange pills from a few dozen villagers who had taken up drug dealing full-time. Then, backed up by angry residents and relatives, village elders threatened the drug dealers and users with a terrifying fate for a Thai: If they died, no one would attend their funerals and no monk would say prayers for their souls. The dealers and users soon went clean, and no one suffered ostracism. Thai Buddhists believe the soul will be consigned to hell if funeral rites are not performed properly. A well-attended funeral - usually an elaborate affair of relatives and musicians - is one of the main requirements of a proper cremation (MSN 20 Oct 2003). Later in the article, the details of this tidy story become clearer. This neighborhood campaign did not start until two villagers were killed ―by rival dealers‖ in the violent state drug campaign described in the following chapter. Echoing the importance of this massive violent state ritual, this localized case serves as a media spectacle in its own right. ―Ban Pang Lao's success is being touted as a model for Thais to come up with indigenous - and perhaps ingenious - ways to combat the country's drug epidemic, and government officials brought foreign journalists to the village to show off its achievement‖ (Ibid.). Thus, this village serves as a convenient culturally-based example
160 of social control – an alternative to the violent solutions of the drug campaign that spawned it. However, both state violence and village threats of ostracism rely on another important factor at the locus of state ideology and individual personality: the confession. After nearly all major and most minor drug-related arrests the government and its media enact one of two rituals. The drugs, money, manufacturing equipment, etc. of the raid, bust or seizure is put on display in the attached press rooms of police headquarters or the equivalent local government site. Local and national media are then invited to a press event where officials preside over the display of the seized items. Alternatively, or sometimes simultaneously, the confession of ―the accused‖ is recorded and the person is made to physically reenact or demonstrate the crime for which they are accused (―Police collar major suspect.‖ 7 May 2003). These media displays provide visual justification for the rapid growth of the Thai prison system. In the seven years from 1996 to 2002, Thailand‘s prison population increased 250 percent (Pasuk 24 Oct 2003). In Bangkok, 70 percent of prison sentences are drug-related while nationally 53 percent of incarcerations are drug-related (Ibid.).
Figure 15: ―Udom Chidcheuwong, 38, charged with producing methamphetamines for sale, shows city police chief Pol LtGen Damrongsak Nilkhuha how to use a machine to turn drug powder into tablets at a Royal Thai Police headquarters media conference...‖ Photo: Somchai Poomlard
In 2005, outspoken celebrity forensic scientist Dr. Porntip Rojanasunan criticized the Thai police focus on obtaining confessions rather than other kinds of evidence. ―The pattern of the investigation is to bring them away and try to find the information. And some of them disappear forever ... I mean, they die. I do not like this pattern‖ (Corben 9
161 Sept 2005). The confession-driven tactics are not limited to drug cases. In the growing Thai government obsession with terrorism, torture and violence are an intimate part of the confession ritual. In 2004 for example, Muslim human rights lawyer, Somchai Neelapaichit accused Thai authorities of torturing suspects in the hundreds of deaths blamed on Muslim separatists in the south. Days after these accusations, he Figure 16: Confession ritual at Royal Thai Police Headquarters.
disappeared, and eventually five former police officers are currently in trial for the
abduction. Somchai is still missing (Ibid.).
162
Chapter 4 - The State Demands Sacrifices: The 2003 Drug Suppression Campaign Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651). In Drug Warriors and Their Prey, Richard Miller outlines a ―Chain of Destruction‖ whereby groups of ordinary people are targeted by governments as ―involved‖ in drug trafficking and systematically eliminated (1996). First, the targeted group is identified and its members are ostracized from community life and subjected to revocations of legal rights. Next, their property is confiscated, and the group is geographically concentrated. Finally, the targeted group is directly or indirectly annihilated, completing the chain of destruction. Miller uses the US drug war of the early 1990s as a case study showing how drug users who, of course, ―look and act like everyone else,‖ were targeted for destruction. This chain of destruction provides an accurate model for the Thai drug campaign, to the detail. From their identification in police blacklists, their ostracism in the demonizing rhetoric of state officials, confiscation of their property under new anti-money laundering powers, their concentration in neighborhoods of urban poor and rural hill tribe villages, people who were ―involved‖ with drugs in Thailand were annihilated by the thousands in a three-month period.
The Leadup to the Drug Campaign When Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra took office in February 2001 he promised to make drug suppression one of his ―top priorities‖ and vowed to strictly enforce drug trafficking laws. Thaksin conducted a 2001 anti-drug campaign which supposedly ―failed.‖ However, this first anti-drug drive by Thai Rak Thai party crafted many of the images and soundbites of death and demonization that would serve as
163 the basis of the later campaign. For this pilot campaign, one police chief in the lower Northeast ran a plan he called, ―the Shortcut to Hell.‖ He explained to The Nation, ―Our target is to send 1,000 traffickers to hell this year, to join some 350 before them…We have applied legal means, political science and even Buddhism, but the (drug) problem seems to be getting worse. Now it‘s time to rely on (the) Death Angel. Of course, it‘s a legally delicate means, but it‘s the path we have to take to bring peace back to society…This year we expect at least 1,000 traffickers to travel to hell‖ (in Pasuk & Baker 2004:163). In his birthday speech of December 2002, the King of Thailand criticized the Thaksin-led government for failing to deal with the methamphetamine problem. King Bhumiphol simultaneously called for a ―war on drugs‖ to deal with the scourge of addiction. The king‘s statement is thus a major impetus leading to the militarization of the 2003 drug campaign, a point that many Thai and Western commentators, perhaps fearing censure from a pro-royalist public, conspicuously ignore.40 Instead, commentators focus on the King‘s criticism of Thaksin‘s failure to deal with the drug problem, and the former Prime Minister‘s subsequent crafting of the campaign as a reaction against this criticism. In this rhetorical disconnect, a key example of state order through informational control, the ability of the state to construct order from the chaos of drug trafficking is partially revealed. With the media focus on Thaksin‘s unabashedly merciless campaign of violence, the connection is rarely made explicit that it was the king‘s call to arms, that served as the origin point of Thaksin‘s War on Drugs.
40
In a notable exception to this widespread ignorance, Paul Handley writes that ―Bhumibol appeared to give a nod to the Thaksin Shiniwatra government‘s anti-drug campaign in early 2003, in which some 2,300 alleged criminals, most of them petty drug users at worst, were extrajudicially executed by ‗mysterious killers,‘ known to human rights activists as disguised police hit squads‖ (Handley 2006:4412).
164 Meanwhile, the domestic methamphetamine problem, a subject of widespread popular concern in Thailand, which continues to result from the collusion of Thai and Burmese military and economic elites, produces the chaotic particularities so useful to state building processes. The 2003 drug campaign is only the most gratuitous and epic example of this technique of state production. On 14 January 2003, Thaksin announced that at the beginning of February, he would wage a ―war on drugs‖ and drug dealers. For this occasion, he resurrected the violent rhetoric of the previous campaign, ―With the traders, you must use hammer and fist, that is, act decisively and without mercy‖ (Pasuk & Baker 2004:160). During this speech he quoted former Police General Phao Sriyanond who, as described in Chapter 2, in addition to conducting numerous political assassinations in the 1950s, profited from CIA support in the Golden Triangle (Lobe 1977; McCoy 1991). Quoting Phao‘s allusion to Shakespeare, Thaksin announced, ―There is nothing under the sun which the Thai police cannot do‖ (Pasuk & Baker 2004:257). In the speech he made numerous references to drugs as a national security threat. Thaksin continued, ―Because drug traders are ruthless to our children. So being ruthless back to them is not a big thing…. It may be necessary to have casualties… If there are deaths among traders, it‘s normal…‖ He said, ―the first of February is D-day.‖ In the speech, the US war on terrorism was specifically referenced as a model example of total government commitment to dealing with national security threat. He gave a deadline of 9pm on April 30 for provincial authorities and police to ―rid drugs from every square inch of Thailand.‖ A week later, the Thai Interior Minister, Wan Muhamad Nor Matha, warned all district chiefs that drug dealers in their areas should be made to understand that they had
165 to ―give up and get out‖ or they could ―get caught‖ or even ―get killed‖ (Bangkok Post 25 Jan 2003). Wan Nor minced no words describing what would happen to police officers who failed to comply with the hard line of the ensuing action, ―In our war on drugs, the district chiefs are the knights and provincial governors the commanders. If the knights see the enemies but do not shoot them, they can be beheaded by their commanders.‖ Like Thaksin‘s speech the previous week, Wan Nor‘s press briefing constantly alluded to the dehumanization of dealers and served as an informal authorization of their extra-judicial murders. ―Tell them to stop selling drugs and leave the communities for good or they will be put behind bars or even ‗vanish without a trace.‘ Who cares? They are destroying our country.‖ Several weeks later, he said that the beheaded knight reference came from King Naresuan who ruled in the sixteenth century. Wan Nor said, ―They should check out history books about what King Naresuan did to his generals who failed to keep up with him on the battleground during his great fight against the prince of Burma. The King had all of them beheaded‖ (Pasuk & Baker 2004:161). The idolization of King Naresuan‘s military prowess is a major invented tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983) in the martial culture of Thailand. Importantly, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, Naresuan is the name of the national-level police paramilitary unit (PPU) in Thailand.41
41
In addition, a military camp in Phitsanulok and a police camp at Hua Hin are named after King Naresuan. In the Thai Navy, a Chinese-manufactured modern battle frigate bears his name. Beginning in 1987 through 2000, under the ―Peace Naresuan/Foreign Military Sales Program‖ I-IV, several dozen F-16s were purchase by the Royal Thai Air Force in ceremonies at Fort Worth. Beyond these Naresuan representations, there are many statues and monuments to him around the country. In addition to his violent prowess, Naresuan was the first king known for appointing yokkrabat (spies) as officials of the central government (Tarling 1999:1:2, 92). Jeremias van Vliet, Director of the Dutch East India Company‘s (VOC) trading post at Ayutthaya described his own portrait of King Naresuan in 1640, ―His reign was the most militant and severe of any which was ever known in Siam. Many stories and living eyewitnesses report that in the twenty years of his rule he killed and had killed by law more than 80,000 people, excluding those who were victims of war…He was the first to make the mandarins come creeping before the king and lie continually with their faces downward‖ (Reid 1988:253-4). Thus, in King Naresuan, the themes of revenge and sacrifice within and for the Thai state are deeply embodied.
166 A similar violent allusion, foreshadowing the ensuing bloodshed, was made by Police Region 8 Commander Pichai Sunthornsajjabun when he said that the more than ten thousand anti-drug volunteers in his region were part of ―a plan to shorten the lives of drug traders.‖ Pichai was the same police chief who created the ―Shortcut to Hell‖ campaign and ―death angel‖ speech in 2001. Not varying from this violent rhetoric, he continued, ―A normal person lives for eighty years. But a bad person should not live that long.‖ Police Region 8 authorities blacklisted 1,700 drug dealers in seven provinces in the ensuing campaign. A police colonel from this region told the press that he received direct orders to interrogate drug suspects and then kill them. He asked, ―Why should we spare the scum?‖ (Pasuk & Baker 2004:164). Several state officials offered weak contrasting statements to these overtly violent speeches. Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh claimed, ―We do not want them dead,‖ and denied that the government condoned extra-judicial killing of drug dealers. He also said that Thailand obeyed strict laws in its drug eradication efforts. ―Everything we do is legal,‖ he claimed. He cited the harsh penalties and seizures of assets that drug dealers would face which would make killing them unnecessary. National Police Director General Sant Sarutanond reiterated these claims and said he agreed with a tough policy on drug dealers, while quickly commenting that the police were not intending to take the lives of drug traders (Bangkok Post 25 Jan 2003). Thus, in the days leading to the declaration of the drug campaign, the public was subjected to a host of conflicting statements exemplifying Orwellian double-speak, ―language which pretends to communicate but really does not‖ (Gibson & Lutz 1991). While some high-
167 ranking officials called for death, beheadings and merciless action, others insisted that the ensuing campaign would be legal, legitimate and free of extra-judicial violence. To create legal legitimacy for the three-month war on drugs, the Prime Minister‘s Order 29/B.E. 2546 (2003) was issued on 28 January 2003. It called for complete suppression of drug trafficking ―ranging from soft to harsh (techniques) including the most absolutely severe charges subject to the situation.‖ That same day, Sucharit Patchimnant, the Local Administration Department Director-General, announced that he had ordered each province to complete the list of people involved in trafficking. These lists would be compared to similar ones drawn up by the Office of the Narcotics Control Board and local police. At a briefing on drug suppression policy, Interior Minister Wan Nor said he had received one of these ―blacklists‖ of drug trafficking in the provinces which included many kamnan and village heads (Apiradee 28 Jan 2003). The following day, the National Centre to Defeat Narcotics was created through executive order. This center was opened the first day of the drug campaign and was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh (Yuwadee 29 Jan 2003). Chavalit specifically cited the methods used for communist suppression in the drug suppression strategy for the new centralized center. Rewards were increased for informants and arresting officers, who would be paid a minimum of 1,000 baht for each arrest. For larger seizures, the reward would be increased with a maximum award of one million baht. The reward for methamphetamine seizures was set at three baht per tablet (Ibid.). With this blacklist and reward system in place, the Thai government was ready to wage its war on drugs.
168 Perhaps as a trial run for the particularized violence of Thailand‘s War on Drugs, or as an initial demonstration of the performances of coercive force that would follow, a template of violence emerged on the night before the campaign officially began. Boonchuay Unthong and his wife Yupin Unthong, were on their way back from a fair in Ratchaburi with their eight year old son, Jirisak, when they were shot and killed. Boonchuay had just been released from an 18 month drug-related prison sentence. Those who witnessed the murder said a ski mask-wearing man on the back of a motorcycle shot Yupin first, who was also riding on the back of a motorcycle, seated behind her husband. Her son, Jirasak was able to hide behind a fence and watch as the gunman walked up to Boonchuay and shot him in the head. Later, it was revealed that both Yupin and Boonchuay were on one of the government ―blacklists‖ that would drive the body count during the ensuing campaign.
Declaration of the War on Drugs On February 1st, 2003, the Drug Suppression Campaign officially began.42 In the shadow of the King Chulalongkorn statue at Royal Plaza, thus spatially anchored to the popularly-revered Rama V cult, a public ceremony was held to launch the War on Drugs. Officers from nearly every national-level and metropolitan police unit lined up in parade formation along with citizen ―Police Volunteer‖ groups in pickups and motorcycles.
42
This day marked the Chinese New Year celebration of the Year of the Ram or Goat. This date is the astronomical cross-quarter day of Imbolc. Meaningful numerology abounds here It also has the particular numerical distinction of ―1/2/3‖ – the Thai date system follows the European model of listing the day first followed by the month. In the Gregorian calendar, on this day, there are 333 days remaining in the year. The same day the drug campaign was declared, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board. Cross-quarter days, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain are the midpoint between the solstices and equinoxes. Thus, this three-month state-designed death ritual coincided exactly with the astronomical cross-quarter days: starting on Imbolc and ending on Beltane. This ritual pattern was then continued in the three-month ―War Against Dark Influences‖ which began on Beltane and ended on Lughnasadh. See the Notes section, Fig. 98, ―Astronomical cross-quarter days, and their relationship to solstice and equinox points.‖
169 While Prime Minister Thaksin presided over this state spectacle, provincial governors and police held similar events throughout the country. Especially in the border areas, these declarations included oath-swearing ceremonies where local leaders, state officials and citizens vowed to not be involved in drugs. At one ceremony in Mae Sot, Samart Loyfa, a local ―person of influence,‖ acting with unofficial authority, said that kamnan, village headmen or other local leaders would be fined 200 baht for every drug user caught in their area (Supamart 1 Feb 2003). Throughout his career, which ended in the high-profile ouster in 2006, PM Thaksin successfully orchestrated public events and mass rituals for political gain. When he was being investigated for concealing assets by the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) in 2001, he would often arrive at court on foot shaking hands with the crowds and media. At one press-laden temple appearance, over one thousand monks, nine Buddha images and 30,000 people participated in a chanted ritual to ―ward off evil influences‖ against the Prime Minister (Pasuk & Baker 2004). This ritual was described as ―voodoo‖ by a prominent monk. When signatures were collected to show support for him, Thaksin‘s former military cadet school classmates appeared at his door in full uniform with the press in tow. Thus, Thaksin‘s public ritual declaration of the drug suppression campaign mirrors many similar media performances throughout his career. As a corporate media mogul, and the first to introduce cable TV to Thailand in the early 1980s, it is unsurprising that PM Thaksin could effectively plan and manipulate public spectacles. Like lethal clockwork, two people were killed by police ―entrapment teams‖ on the day of the government‘s declaration (Nation 2 Feb 2003). Over the weekend in the
170 first days of the campaign, official police spokesman Pol Maj-Gen Pongsapat Pongcharoen gave the first of a series of briefings highlighting the statistics of raids, deaths, arrests and seizures conducted by police across the country. Pongsapat told those gathered in the press briefing room of police headquarters that police raided nearly 3,000 ―suspected locations‖ and arrested 1,499 suspects (1,058 for drug addiction and possession and the rest for dealing) and seized 3.1 million tablets of methamphetamine. Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh and national police chief Sant Sarutanont also began the first in a series of government denials that there was a state policy to encourage extra-judicial shootings. That these statements contradicted local realities, was revealed that same day when a district chief from Muang said that a number of suspects turned themselves in out of fear that police would kill them (Bangkok Post 4 Feb 2003). Indeed, within days, bodies began piling up throughout the country as police acted on the numerous blacklists of drug dealers, users and addicts. The government and police claimed that rival drug dealers were killing each other to avoid the risk of betrayal if their accomplices turned themselves in. The killings were labeled kha tat ton (literally, to ―kill to cut and remove‖); preemptive or silence killings. Within a week, eighty-seven people were dead, initial sacrifices in the state‘s spectacular death ritual.
Blacklists and Growing Deathtolls In that first week of the 2003 War on Drugs, Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha was pleased to report that 20,000 alleged drug dealers had contacted local authorities and planned to turn themselves in on February 7th (Bangkok Post 6 Feb 2003). Wan Nor did not mention how such a convenient nationwide event would be
171 logistically possible. Every day, newspapers and TV stations catalogued the growing death toll, the number of arrests, numbers of pills, money and weapons seized. This dutiful reporting was accompanied by full-page banner headlines such as ―Return of a Dangerous Powder,‖ which reproduced the government‘s line of the ―growing threat‖ of yaa baa and the accompanying ―comeback‖ of heroin (Jinakul 9 Feb 2003). In this onslaught of media coverage, government officials continued to issue death threats and violent rhetoric. In the final line of the above article, for example, Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon, the Police Captain who launched Bangkok‘s ―social order‖ campaign, declares, ―you have only two choices: be arrested or be killed.‖ By February 10th, in the first week and half of the campaign, the police reported the deaths of 144 ―suspects‖ and admitted that eight of these were killings ―in self defense‖ by police officers. In the early days of the campaign, and from then on, most of the dead were revealed to be small-time dealers, villagers and ―tribespeople.‖ One Chiang Dao villager described the reason he and others around him were turning themselves in, ―We went to police in fear of our lives. Officials came to our villages and told us to go to police because we used to be involved in drugs.‖ The Third Cavalry Regiment of the Army increased its deployment to the Northern provinces, especially in the area around Chiang Mai where ―blacklisted tribespeople and village leaders had not yet surrendered‖ (Bangkok Post 10 Feb 2003). In the provinces and rural areas of the country, the violent enactment of the War on Drugs was particularly unrestrained. Some regional police stations reportedly placed wooden coffins outside their entrances (Asif 2004:4). Foreign and domestic human rights groups produced continual evidence that the majority of the ―suspects‖ blacklisted
172 and targeted during by the campaign were hilltribe minority members. Thus, in the drug campaign ethnic affiliation with ―non-Thai‖ groups such as the Hmong, Shan, Yao, Karen, Lahu, Lisu, and Akha provided another convenient marker of difference and demonization to be used for social control purposes. Many of the people in these groups are not allowed Thai citizenship and have no legal rights within the country. Often, they entered the country as ―illegal labor‖ and are thus subject to bribery, secrecy and the fear attendant with their economic role. The predominant Thais nationalist sentiment is that most ethnic minorities are uncivilized, illiterate, involved in drugs, and ―animal-like.‖ This last category of dehumanization is particularly noteworthy: to be compared to an animal in Thailand is considered extremely offensive and obscene. According to Chayan Vaddanaputti, a political science professor at Chiang Mai University, prior to the 1970s, hilltribe people were perceived as friends and trading partners by many lowland central Thais in a ―mutually symbiotic relationship between the hills and the valleys‖ (Gill 1 Sept 2001). Following the anti-communist crusades and economic ―reforms‖ of the 1970s and 1980s, public perceptions changed. A new xenophobic and dehumanized depiction of ethnic minority people was entrenched by educational texts, Bangkok-produced movies, soap operas, skin-whitener ads and a host of other mass media strategies. Chayan describes this transformation, ―The demonization and criminalization of ethnic minorities, and the perpetuation of the myth that they are non-Thai, has been embedded in Thai textbooks, in Thai history and in the mainstream media‖ (Gill 1 Sept 2001). Thailand‘s ethnic minorities lack access to basic state categorization schemes such as records of birth, death, marriage, property. Without this
173 access and the crucial links to mandatory state identification cards, the majority of these populations are cut off from basic education, health care, business opportunities, etc. Even prior to the drug campaign, a 2002 Amnesty International report documents numerous cases of torture and abuse of hilltribe people by Thai state agents after being arrested on ―drug charges.‖ In one case, two Akha men were taken from their Chiang Rai provincial village to an 11th Cavalry Army base for ―opium detoxification.‖ Once there, they were placed in a small hole dug in the ground with three other men. Soldiers covered the men to their necks in ashes, coals and water for the duration of the day before blindfolding them for interrogation. One man said, ―They tried to force me to admit the drug charges by electric shocks to my ears, kicking my face and body, punching me hard in the body and hitting me with a gun handle on my head an chest several times…When they felt that I could no longer stand it because my body was soaked with blood, they took me back to the hole and left me there for a night and a day‖ (Amnesty International 11 Jun 2002). He spent six days in the hospital for these injuries while the man he was arrested with died of injuries from a similar ―interrogation.‖ Dr. Matthew McDaniel, who lived with the Akha in Thailand since 1991 and
Figure 17: ―The Third Army's Pha Muang task force patrols a border village in Chiang Mai's Chiang Dao district looking for drugs,‖ 1 Mar 2003
founded the Akha Friendship Foundation was deported after reporting forty-seven cases of abuse ranging from extrajudicial killings to torture by the Thai army and police. After he filed his report with the United Nations, he was arrested at the ―Friendship Bridge‖
174 between Thailand and Burma while trying to renew his visa. He was transported to an immigration detention facility in Bangkok where he was declared a threat to national security, a persona non-grata, and was deported to the United States (Ibid. 26). The overt targeting of ethnic minority groups during the drug campaign was also highlighted by Wasant Panich, director of Thailand‘s National Human Rights Committee. Of the 2,625 total deaths in government counts, Wasant said, ―nearly all of these were carried out in underprivileged slums and rural communities, most often targeting ethnic minority hill tribe communities who suffer discrimination and racism in Thailand, creating thousands of widows and orphans, leaving them with little hope of bettering their lives‖ (in Asif 2004:64). Anchalee Polkliang, Deputy Director of the Inter Mountain Peoples and Culture Association said, ―most of those killed were poor hill tribe people; the powerful drug pushers were not even touched‖ (Ibid.). A US DEA official in the Chiang Mai field office who saw an official list of the dead admits that a ―disproportionate‖ number of its names were ―non-Thai names‖ i.e. hilltribe names. Contrary to the scolding public statements that followed, the agent stated that US officials in Washington DC knew the names on the lists as well as the violent nature of the drug campaign (Ibid. 74).
Night Club Raids and the Political Economy of Drug Testing During the middle of the campaign, the police began a series of night club raids. These raids were conducted only at certain nightspots where club owners and managers didn‘t have the necessary government connections to avoid them. Many of the raids were designed to be high-profile media spectacles, with local or national press on hand. Although some raids were on local clubs and massage parlors with Thai clientele (Bangkok Post 19 May 2003), most were conducted at dance clubs frequented by
175 foreigners and backpackers. In the typical club raid, the performance of the state‘s capacity for coercive force, and the amplification of that capacity through media, took central stage. Usually between midnight and 2am, when the bars were legally required to close, blue-clad black-bereted units from the Metropolitan Special Patrol Division (typically between 50 and 100 officers) would pile out of buses along with a contingent of around ten commissioned officers. The entrances and exits of the club Figure 18: ―Scores of masseuses from a parlour in the Makkasan area await the results of urine tests after an anti-drugs raid late on Tuesday night.‖ Photo by Somchai Poomlard in ―Crackdown pushes up the street price of speed pills‖
would be blocked, the music turned off and an announcement would be made that the police were conducting drug searches. A DJ
or club manager would sometimes announce, ―Everyone will have to submit urine to see if you have drugs or not.‖ After the announcement, amid drunken slurs and confusion, plastic sample containers were passed out and lines began forming for the bathrooms. As there were usually no guard or monitors in the bathrooms, action there was intense, as worried expats and illegal workers tried to figure out who could loan them a clean sample. Outside, state health workers and low ranking police officers would dip ―drug detection‖ swabs in each person‘s sample as everyone stood in line, sheepishly carrying containers of warm urine. Once a person had presented their sample, along with their passport, they were given a green hand stamp and allowed to leave. Usually, the raids would net one or
176 two arrests for ―testing positive.‖ Of course, police admit that the kits do not differentiate between illegal drugs and prescription medication. Daniel Loverling‘s 2004 account for the Seattle Times indicates that even a year after the drug campaign was declared, the raids continued to conform to the same pattern I observed in 2003. In the raid he observed at Q Bar, a posh Thai-owned dance club, just two of 373 people tested positive, and these patrons were later cleared of charges. However, in Loverling‘s account, 104 foreigners were fined for not carrying a passport, after they were taken by bus to a local police station. He quotes Richard Lofthouse, Q Bar's general manager, ―It's pretty much an annual event. It's a little bit like Christmas… It seems the last few years it's happened around exactly the same time — August through September.‖ Interior Ministry officials did not make the statistics on the number and frequency of the raids available. Nevertheless, the locations and timing of the raids correspond to the underground economy surrounding night clubs and the routinized ―crackdowns‖ of the drug campaign. In Loverling‘s account, despite not finding any drugs, police threatened to close the Q Bar for one week, but changed their minds when club management suggested that the matter should be settled in court. In the above example, it is important to note that no one was actually charged with drug offenses although hundreds of foreigners were taken to the local police station for failing to carry their passport. In the raids, drugs were the excuse for ongoing highprofile displays of order by the state as well as for selective enforcement of regulations at venues that aren‘t ―cooperative.‖ In a March 17th, 2004 raid at the French-owned Novotel CM2 nightclub, television cameras and news media were again present when one underage patron was identified, causing the club to be closed for thirty days (Nation
177 29 Mar 2004). This case clearly illustrates how the club raids were used to selectively enforce the underground economy of bribery while providing a media spectacle of social control. The raids were elaborate ritualized performances of state order through spectacle, where state agents produce the ―show‖ of drug suppression and social control. I was able to observe this ritualized police performance on several occasions. One weekend night around midnight, a British acquaintance got a frantic cell phone call from her seventeen year old daughter who was out with some friends. The club they were at was being raided, and the patrons there were all being drug tested. My friend enlisted me to go with her, hoping my knowledge of the Thai police would prove useful. This particular club was designed to mimic a middle-eastern style tent complex with a wide outdoor atrium area. Here, approximately fifty Special Patrol officers, mostly young low-ranking members were grouped in drill formation. Commissioned officers were overseeing a makeshift ―laboratory‖ where kids, both Thai and foreign lined up with their urine samples. As time passed, many of the smiling riot officers began flirting with various club-goers in line. My friend‘s daughter came out after testing ―negative‖ and was allowed to leave. As her other friends were also released, one said, ―I didn‘t even have to show my sample, I just moved off to the side and pretended to be cleared already. Look… I‘ve still got it!‖ He showed us his container to prove how easy it was to thwart the police inspection system. I later learned that no arrests were made during this raid. These ritualized drug raids on clubs extended well beyond the drug campaign and are currently part of the ultraconservative ―Social Order Campaign,‖ launched by Pol. Capt. Purachai‘s Interior Ministry in 2001. Interior Minister Pracha Maleenont, who was once owner of a TV-station and several entertainment companies, continued his
178 predecessor‘s practice of inviting television crews to film the club raids. Thus, the night club raids illustrate the symbiosis between state and media, a merger which allows the Social Order Campaign to extend beyond newspaper headlines into visual media, increasing the campaign‘s impact in the minds of citizens. The media spectacle of the club raids again achieved international attention in 2005 when Biosensor Applications, a Swedish company began a high-profile marketing campaign in Thailand touting their drug detection system, BIOSENS™. This orange box was first developed by Bofors, a Swedish Defense Contractor in 1995 to detect ―terrorist explosives,‖ drugs, and bacteria (Biosensor 2004). This Pandora-esque box represents another merger of the military-industrial complex with its criminal justice equivalent. The European Commission provided millions Figure 19: The Biosens drug detection system and corporate iconogrophy
in startup capital for the Biosens system and a
prototype was first field tested in Kosovo in 2000. In 2004, Biosensor and Rapiscan Security Products, USA (a subsidiary of the security division of the US optoelectronicbased components and systems firm, OSI) signed a distribution deal for exclusive rights to the global police, military and security markets. A similar distribution deal was made by Chartered Electro-Optics Pte Ltd. (a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Pte Ltd.) for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and ASEAN countries. Fresh from a ―breakthrough sale‖ of ten of the $50,000 (USD) systems to Australian Customs,
179 Biosensor Applications was eager to expand to Thailand‘s terrorism and drug-plagued police. Then-CEO Carl Lundberg staged a series of demonstrations in the country, loaning the equipment to the Thai police and supervising its use. Lundberg stated, ―Earlier this year did police (sic) in northern Thailand try the equipment. It did for example indicate methamphetamines on the steering wheel on a car driven into Thailand from Burma. Eventually police found 12,000 speed pills in that car‖ (Nilsson 11 Oct 2005). In October of 2005, Lundberg staged another Biosensor demonstration at Lucifer nightclub in Pattaya, Thailand. An article in ―ScandAsia News‖ repeated companypenned propaganda by including the products description as an ―artificial dog nose‖ and reproduced press-release photos from the company‘s website. This ―news‖ article declared, ―Normally are drug raids at bars and nightclubs tardy affairs where all patrons must leave urine samples and await the outcome before they are released. All you need with the Swedish machine is to touch the bend of the arm with the sensor‘s filter and the test is done‖ (Ibid.). During the night-club raid, as Lundberg described, ―The machine indicated methamphetamines on clothes and sweat on six patrons. Police could later through urine sampling verify methamphetamines in the body on all but one of them.‖ According to the Biosensor corporate website, this represents a categorical scientific improvement: ―the system has a proven Probability of Detection (POD) and low false alarm rates (FAR) in detecting the most prevalent illegal drugs such as amphetamine, cocaine, heroin and ecstasy‖ (Biosensor 2004). Both the corporate news article and the company‘s CEO were hopeful that Thailand ―may well become the first police force in the world to purchase this
180 equipment‖ (Nilsson 11 Oct 2005). After this historical contract came to pass (Nilsson 15 Mar 2006), Biosensor negotiated similar sales with Japanese customs and the Indonesian police (Nordic Business Report 11 Sept 2007). The Biosensor case is one of a host of examples of the state construction of order through political/economic alliances, and represents the merger of public order, drug suppression and counter-terrorism with the corporate profits of the global criminal justice industrial complex.
The Reward System In addition to military deployments in hilltribe areas, mass arrests, night club raids and media spectacles, the cash incentive program43 was also radically expanded in the middle of the drug campaign. During a trip to meet with the Burmese military generals, who share many economic ties with Thai elites including Thaksin, the payment system was expanded to include cooperative members of the Burmese military. Later, when pressed about the details of the reported plan to offer the same drug seizure cash incentives to the Burmese military that was offered to his own police, Thaksin said, ―I don't want to say anything on this matter, but in principle the government will do everything in its power to realise the ultimate goal of permanent eradication of drugs.‖ However, former General of the Third Army, Deputy Army Chief Watanachai Chaimuanwong cautioned that cash rewards would be the equivalent of the Thai government buying methamphetamine pills from Burma at production cost. He posited that Burmese troops would simply seize 300,000 pills at a time, and claim 900,000 baht from Thailand numerous times (Yuwadee & Wassana 12 Feb 2003).
43
As described above, in ―Leadup to the Drug Campaign,‖ the reward system paid 3 baht per pill seized, up to 1 million baht, which was paid to Thai police and informers. This meant that the pills ―seized‖ by the Burmese military would be purchased by the Thai government‘s ―reward program‖ at cost.
181 The monetary rewards offered to Burma included intelligence sharing and broader economic incentives as well. During Thaksin‘s meeting in Rangoon, satellite photos of drug production areas within Burma were shared and a bilateral agreement was planned. This agreement for a three-fold ―drug eradication‖ deal revealed how the drug campaign was tied to economic cooperation and border development between Thailand in Burma. Thaksin announced, 1) Border areas would be developed commercially creating jobs and decreasing the number of alien workers illegal moving to Thailand. 2) Macro-economic collaboration to improve Burma's infrastructures, including road-builiding to link Burma with India and Bangladesh, and a rail connection between Burma and Three Pagoda Pass in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 3) ―Correction‖ of Myanmar‘s negative image of drug dealing and ethnic hostility (Yuwadee & Wassana 11 Feb 2003). These agreements were also part of Thaksin‘s continued cooperation with the Burmese government to create ―reconciliation‖ between Burma the remaining minority groups fighting the junta from border regions. In addition to the above three-fold scheme linking economic development to drug suppression, a thirty percent share of the value of subsequently seized assets was offered to military units from ―neighboring countries.‖ To avoid accusations that the Thaksin government was again making unbalanced deals with Burma, a proposal was also made for the payment of 150,000 baht rewards to provincial governors who reported exceptional progress in their drug suppression goals and 100,000 baht for outstanding district chiefs (Temsak 11 Feb 2003). On February 11th, the head of the Thai Human Rights Commission, Surasi Kosolnavin, issued the first in a series of complaints, urging for an investigation into each violent death being reported by police. He specifically cited police statistics that, at that time, 87 of the 183 killings were clearly related to the drug campaign. Surasi asked, what
182 was the motive behind the remaining one hundred uninvestigated murders supposedly not related to drugs? He called for investigations into all of the deaths using the procedures employed in cases involving extra-judicial killings: conducting an autopsy in the presence of a local administration official, a public prosecutor, and a doctor (Ampa 11 Feb 2003). Augmenting these concerns, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights requested to send a special rapporteur to Thailand to investigate worldwide news reports of extra-judicial killings associated with the drug campaign. The Thai Foreign Ministry asked that this visit be delayed indefinitely because neither the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister would be available to welcome the envoy and were ―tied up with something else‖ (Bangkok Post 12 Feb 2003). Thaksin was quick to declare Thailand‘s ―innocence‖ in its drug war and that the UN ―should show us their appreciation and thank us for dealing with the problem seriously‖ (Bangkok Post 13 Feb 2003b). The day Thaksin was making these comments, a major state performance was conducted in the ritually-important city of Ayuthaya. Six tons of drugs were burned at the Bang Pa-in Industrial Estate as part of a public media event to show the province‘s commitment to the war on drugs. As the deputy public health minister presided over the event, and announced that another twenty tons would be burned in June in honor of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (Bangkok Post 13 Feb 2003a). The government continued to publicize the continuing deaths on statecontrolled television stations, radio and newspapers. On February 16th, 2003, the Ministry of the Interior announced that 596 people were shot dead since February 1st, eight of them by police in ―self-defense.‖
183 On February 19th, Forensic Sciences Institute director, Dr. Pornthip Rojanasuna noted that the Royal Thai Police were not requesting her agency‘s help to examine shooting victims supposedly resulting from dealers killing dealers. She said that prior to the drug campaign the Institute was allowed to be involved in the investigations of such murders to differentiate them from extrajudicial executions. That same day, perhaps feeling pressure from these public suspicions and the various human rights groups voicing concern, Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha spent extra time in a cabinet meeting calling for new euphemisms for the killings. He said that describing drug dealers as being murdered by fellow drug dealers indicated that the government condones these deaths. Wan Nor preferred to say that the drug dealers have ―expired‖ instead (Bangkok Post 19 Feb 2003). Having accomplished this semantic wrangling, Wan Nor continued to militarize the metaphors and strategies of the drug campaign: ―The government declared war on drugs on Feb 1st and it must start right away to maximize the damage to the other side. Otherwise it is not a war‖ (Temsak & Yuwadee 19 Feb 2003). At the time of this briefing, 720 government officials and 686 police officers were on blacklists for drug involvement. In response to these numbers, Police Director General Sant Sarutanont issued an order to ―decentralize‖ his power by allowing his subordinates to transfer police officers suspected of involvement in the drug trade. It is important to note that Pol. Gen. Sant, continued to use the language ―involved with the drug trade‖ making no distinction between dealers, buyers and users. These transfers to inactive posts were applicable to any officers suspected of drug involvement without investigation of any kind (Bangkok Post 24 Feb 2003).
184 Despite these internal shake-ups, ominous signs, and uninvestigated killings of the drug war, a survey by Suan Dusit Poll on the week of February 15th (of 8,674 people, representing 846 communities throughout Thailand), 90% said they totally supported the campaign (―Strong Support for Crackdown‖ 24 Feb 2004). In another poll (the smaller Rangsit Poll), over 66% favored a continuation of the government‘s violent approach. A survey of monks also showed 70% support of the campaign (Jaran 2003). One famous monk from the Northeast, Luang Pho Khun Parisuttho told Thaksin, ―the sin from killing a yaa baa trader is the same as from killing one mosquito. Nothing to be afraid of‖ (Pasuk & Baker 2004:166). These comments were extremely similar to another monk‘s support of the anti-communist killings in the 1970s, when a popular monk said that killing communists was no sin. Public opinion for the violent tactics was high, due in no small part to a nationwide public propaganda campaign. One rally was organized on Sanam Luang, the sacred field in front of the Grand Palace. Also known as Phramen Ground, this field is the site of royal cremations, mass gatherings, and the Ceremony for Calling the Rain, making it a revered location associated with royal legitimacy and fervent nationalism. The Labor Ministry funded and organized the rally with 20 million baht
Figure 20: ―An anti-drugs rally organised by the Labour Ministry draws thousands of people yesterday of Sanam Luang. The rally went ahead despite protests over the withdrawal of 20 million baht from the Soical Security Fund to finance it‖ (Bangkok Post 24 Feb 2003)
from the Social Security Fund. Thousands of white t-shirt clad students and citizens carried signs and banners while listening to anti-drug speeches. Those involved took
185 mass ―sacred‖ vows to remain free of drugs. This public ritual and the Suan Dusit poll occurred a week before a highly publicized murder, referred to below, would shift government tactics from the overt performance of violence, to the powerful construction of order through secrecy and informational control.
Citizen Spies and Anti-Drug Pop Culture Help learning! Help ensure that drugs are eliminated in schools for the benefit of our King. Students help Thai children avoid drugs! Public service announcement in Bangkok Cineplex, April 2003 I sat transfixed in the darkened Emporium Mall Theater as cheerful carnivalesque children‘s music accompanied this announcement, occurring just after a frenetic advertisement for Pringles potato chips. The anti-drug PSA was followed by the obligatory King‘s Anthem, penned by King Bhumiphol himself, which legally requires theater-goers to stand in homage to historical images of the revered monarch in elaborate royal uniforms and military fatigues. During the drug campaign, messages like these were ubiquitous on movie screens, televisions, and radio waves. They were augmented by a phalanx of full-color billboards, magazine ads, and train-station posters. The antidrug messages were often linked visually and politically to royal patronage. It was, after all, the King‘s 2002 birthday address and his displeasure with Thaksin‘s failure to deal with ―the problem of drugs‖ that supposedly provided the impetus for the 2003 anti-drug campaign. Many of the anti-drug projects during the campaign were led by local police stations. I spoke to an officer within the support unit of a local metropolitan station, ―Bonlum,‖ who described his unit as the ―housewife for the station.‖ He told me, ―During the drug suppression campaign, the support unit only provides funding.‖ In the case of informants and ―spies‖ (khaa say lap) however, ―Money for informants has to be
186 raised by the station itself by creating activities to raise money through charities or whatever.‖ Prior to the interview, I observed an anti-drug charity soccer match, sponsored by the police station, and confirmed through Bonlum that these events were being used to fund informants and citizen surveillance (―spies‖). At such events, he said, ―the station can show a good image for the public - it can show results…The government gives some money for projects, but it is usually not enough and not specific plans for putting it into action. It can be done any way that is effective, especially through people in the area – the latest one is a bowling game fundraiser. If they win, they get a trophy from royalty‖ (interview April 2003). This statement illustrates an important aspect of how the cycle of citizen surveillance is internalized through local funding of surveillance programs. Prior to 2003, a number of Thai police intelligence and ―community policing‖ programs are particularly illuminated through Foucauldian lenses. In 2001, the police began the ―let the police watch your house‖ program for vacationers, particularly during national holidays. Thailand has a large civilian police volunteer corps who can be seen driving in pickup trucks and motorcycles. In 2002, Bangkok police began a recruitment program for ―spy kids‖ (named after a recent Hollywood film of the same name) from middle schools who are told to watch other students for suspicious behavior and are given a 24 hours police phone. After receiving his training certificate, one thirteen year old told reporters, ―If I am a spy, I can make a change. I can prevent other children from being misled. First of all, I will keep my eyes on my young neighbors. They often come home late‖ (Nation 5 Aug 2002). These programs events, like the 2003 anti-drug soccer match are often linked to royalty through royalist iconography (strangely, in the above case,
187 royalist bowling trophies), giving the public the impression that they are nationally supported. However, in actuality, the onus of fundraising for police informants and citizen surveillance falls on low-level officers and local stations. One wellproduced local police project was a music recording called ―Songs to Resist (or Counter) Drugs‖ (pleng dawdaan yaasepdit) released one year before the War on Drugs (2002). One of the classically-trained police singers who preformed on the recording gave me a
Figure 21: ―Songs to Resist (or Counter) Drugs‖ (pleng dawdaan yaasepdit) CD
copy of both the CD and cassette tape version. The recording has eight songs on a variety of topics related to police, yaa baa and drug dealing, using the slow drums, synthesizers and guitars of mo laam, a popular style of Northeastern folk music. The ―album from the old to the young,‖ (album pii hay nong), uses kinship terms, pii Figure 22: ―Songs to Resist (or Counter) Drugs‖ (pleng dawdaan yaasepdit) CD cover
(elder or older sibling) to nong (younger
sibling) to express how it is a gift from older officers to the young generations. The first song, ―t.c.s. maa leew” (―The T.C.S. Have Arrived‖) creates an imaginary police bureau made of Buddhist abbots to fight drug addiction in children. The song identifies the
188 fictional police group by their initials ―T.C.S.‖ in the same way police divisions are referred to by their acronyms and explains that The Police Group of Abbots (tamruat chum chon sompaan) has arrived to solve the problem of drug addiction. This song represents a similar merger of the nationalist Buddhism with anti-drug rhetoric, using ―saving the children‖ as a powerful justification for police programs. Along with this ―locally-produced‖ example of anti-drug media, the pantheon of state and corporate-sponsored media accompanying the War on Drugs demonstrated the construction of order in two ways: 1) by rhetorical amplification of the capacity for coercive force, exemplified in the billboards at the Chiang Mai airport which promise lethal force for drug traffickers, and 2) as ritualized public spectacles in their own right. Through the manipulation of militarized and mythologized symbols, such as the monarchy and muay thai (Thai boxing), spectacular anti-drug events were powerful sites for the performance of state order. The ―MuayThai Against Drugs‖ event at Bangkok‘s Dhurakijpundit University on 23 July 2003, and the bizarre promotional comic book which accompanied it, provides an elaborate example of the construction of order through multimedia symbols and ritualized public spectacle.
Figure 23: ―MuayThai Against Drugs,‖ Dhurakijpundit University, 23 July 2003
189 The event was sponsored by the World Muay Thai Council (WMC), an ―authoritative body‖ (Council 2002 ) which was incorporated by the Thai government to promote and regulate muay thai matches throughout the world. As its ―One World…One MuayThai‖ website banner headlines attest, the WMC attempts to codify and homogenize muay thai using a promotional strategy that is paradoxically both nationalist and globalist. Boxers from fifteen of the WMC‘s 109 member nations fought in twelve matches at the 2003 event, which was televised live on Channel 5 throughout Thailand. The WMC‘s press release describes that, ―the show was the Opening event in the MuayThai Against Drugs series, and also held to coincide with HRH, the Crown Princes (sic) Birthday‖ (Council 25 Jul 2003). The curious capitalization in the above description denotes the ritual connotations of this public spectacle: certainly, the ―show‖ was an ―Opening event,‖ but what was being opened? Royalism and nationalism are commonly intertwined at muay thai matches (Vail 1998). Royally-ranked military generals are the sport‘s high-level financial and political backers, muay thai‘s mythologized history is linked to various nationalist militarized exploits of former monarchs, and all Thai bouts feature numerous symbolic references to the monarchy and nation. However, the planned Figure 24: VIP and royalty elevated seating area at the ―MuayThai Against Drugs‖ event.
coincidence of the MuayThai Against Drugs event with the Prince‘s birthday
led to a spectacle of royal legitimacy beyond even these invented traditions of royalism
190 (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983). Larger than life portraits of the royal family were displayed and VIP attendees, including several ambassadors, Privy Councillor HE General Pichitr Kullavanijaya, WMC President Gen. Chetta Thanjaro were seated on a stage adorned with royal regalia. This elaborate day-long public spectacle thus merged royalism, nationalism, and globalism with the government-sanctioned violence of both muay thai and the drug suppression campaign. Free with admission, spectators of the MuayThai Against Drugs event received a bizarre media tie-in product entitled ―The Day the S.M.A.R.T. Team Got M.A.D. to save the world from Drugs and Illiteracy!!‖ (Hovendove 2003) This full-color forty-two page comic book was a ―special collector edition‖ published by the WMC, specifically for the event, with text in both English and Thai. The comic‘s opening pages feature a bright yellow background, the representative color of Thailand‘s monarchy, along with a picture of Crown Prince Maha
Figure 25: ―The Day the S.M.A.R.T. Team Got M.A.D. to save the world from Drugs and Illiteracy!!‖ anti-drug comic book
Vajiralongkorn and a proclamation that the S.M.A.R.T.™ Team wishes the prince ―the best and happiest birthday ever‖ (Hovendove 2003). These royal connections continue on the next page which features a picture of Privy Councilor Gen. Pichitr and a crown
191 icon adorned with the acronym ―K.I.N.G.‖ bearing the clumsy acronym, ―Knowledge & Information is Necessary & Golden.‖ Strangely, the picture of Gen. Pichitr is not labeled, leading Western audiences to assume perhaps that the Privy Councilor is Thailand‘s king. This page explains, This comic – book represents the prototype that we will utilize as the foundational publication for other W.M.C./M.A.D. countries throughout the world.We (sic.) will offer special localized (in-culture and inlanguage versitions) (sic.) (Hovendove 2003) These lofty goals are buttressed by the vision of the S.M.A.R.T.™ World, ―To Preserve Our Children‘s Dreams,‖ and the equally elaborate mission,
Figure 26: ―The Day the S.M.A.R.T. Team Got M.A.D." characters and team logo
Our Mission: To make the world a safer, happier, more promising and rewarding place for our children through personal empowerment. We believe every child and young person is at risk if they lack: (1) an ongoing relationship with a caring parent and / or role model : (2) a safe drug & illiteracy-free environment to learn, grow and prosper (3) positive self-images : and (4) marketable skills supported through the blending of cutting-edge technology and CLP‘s. (Hovendove 2003) ―CLP‘s‖ remain unexplained throughout the remainder of the comic‘s hastily-crafted characters, schizophrenic layout, and convoluted plot. Eleven members of the ―S.M.A.R.T.™ Team‖ are introduced including ―Bee Smart©,‖ who‘s stated mission is
192 ―to show his fellow youth the positive rewards of staying drug and gang-free, and away from activities that can result in early teen-pregnancies and exposure to the deadly AIDS virus.‖ Bee Smart is rendered in the same anime-esque style of the rest of the S.M.A.R.T. Team, differentiated only by his wavy haircut and super-powers: ―Superstrength; shoots glue-like substance that is almost impossible to escape from once it sets; flies at mach-4 plus speed, emits steel shattering buzzzzzing sound, super-fast computer mind, creates wind vortexes.‖ Other characters, including ―Anti-Drug Lady Bug©,‖ ―Hopper the Drug Stopper©,‖ and ―Empowerman©,‖ boast equally bizarre empowerment-related missions and superpowers picked seemingly at random. The Byzantine plot of ―The Day the S.M.A.R.T. Team Got M.A.D.‖ concerns the battle between the S.M.A.R.T. Team and the sixteen villains of ―C.I.D.E.‖ (Conquer Infect Destroy Earth). C.I.D.E is led by ―Stoad©,‖ the ―strongest ( mentally and physically ), vilest, most heartless, cruel, evil and destructive force on Earth, period !!!‖ In a parallel universe to earth, Stoad, ―the dream stealer,‖ is dictator of a galaxy that is ―on the verge of total extinction brought on by its‘ (sic.) own selfdestruction though eco-abuse & misuse, drugs, gangs, and wars.‖ All of the children in this universe are separated from Figure 27: ―C.I.D.E.‖ (Conquer Infect Destroy Earth).
their families and confined to the planet
193 ―little Q‖ where they are ―supervised by highly advanced and extremely powerful super computerized virtual babysitters and kept out of the way (and hair) of all grown-ups.‖ This virtual nanny-state is governed under the noble ―master plan‖ of a ―council of plants‖ who ―equally share power, wealth & resources, have one standard currency throughout the universe, eliminate all drugs, wars, poverty, birth defects, handicaps and other counterproductive & negative ills of society…‖ However, after a single planet becomes ―bored with the status quo,‖ drug use and abuse ―take root‖ and total anarchy spreads throughout the universe. ―Realizing the need for a leader powerful enough to restore control and hopefully peace‖ the council of planets elects Stoad as supreme leader. When only two planets were left in this decaying Hobbesian world, Stoad then enslaves the ―smartest and brightest minds from throughout the universe,‖ holds the children of the nanny planet ―little q‖ hostage, and forces a scientist to create a doorway to a parallel universe, our own. Rapidly developing technological advancements such as the internet, satellite
Figure 28: ―Stoad©,‖ the ―strongest (mentally and physically ), vilest, most heartless, cruel, evil and destructive force on Earth, period !!!‖
communications, and ―encoded/encrypted subliminal instructions and messages to several unwitting well positioned partners (several groups of highly regarded top scientist)!‖ (sic.) allowed C.I.D.E. to simultaneously open a portal from the side of Earth. The global menace of ozone depletion was used to create this second portal ―with the
194 unknowing yet helpful hands of earth‘s inhabitants through the environmental misuse and abuse of their planet……‖ To stop C.I.D.E.‘s evil plans of earth conquest, the ―group of youth on little q‖ ally with the World Executive Muaythai Against Drugs Committee to form nothing less than a blueprint for a New World Order: What would happen if this small ray of hope were a M.A.D. group of young, inexperienced kids and young teens that although they were for the most part, very smart, computer & tech savvy and represented a complete diverse cross-section from its‘ (sic.) planet stretching across 110 countries (i.e. social-economic status, cultures, races, genders creeds and religious walks of life) they were still missing the one critical ingredient that would make the difference between their success or failure…. Respected leadership functioning within a globally interconnected infra-structure that had the ability to effectively reach & teach them and could & would bring them all together to work as one cohesive and synergistic united group…A united team with one mission… One vision… One objective… Saving their planet by protecting and preserving the mind, bodies and futures of the children youth & teens of earth by working together as a team to keep them drugs & illiteracyfree! Welcome 2 our M.A.D. drug & illiteracy-free world of learning, knowledge, information & technology…once the door to it is opened to and for you….. your life will never be the same…. So come on in, it‘s time to start to be M.A.D. (Muay Thai Against-Drugs) and G.E.T.T. S.M.A.R.T. (Gotta End This Together- -Society Making Anti-drugs Rewarding Together). (Hovendove 2003:19) From this hellish globalist vision, the comic begins. The C.I.D.E. spaceship sets off an explosion permanently closing the hyperwarp portal to Earth and the second spaceship filled with kids from little q is in danger:
Figure 29: General Pichitr Kullavanaijaya.
195 Being kids, they were devastate (sic.) and began to cry!!! All of a sudden there was a calming voice or voices seemingly heard out of nowhere. ―It is time for you all to be brave and become good soldiers because the battle for earth has just begun and you will soon hold the keys to either the victory or defeat of earth!!!‖ This ―calming‖ voice emanates from a computer screen and is ―led by his excellency general Pichitr Kullavanaijaya.‖ Gen. Pichitr says ―We also realize that even with all of the impressive military force and power that we collectively possess; it will still not be enough to stop C.I.D.E.‖ As he enlists the kids to save earth, a disturbing scene emerges as this Thai military general and member of the Privy Council declares, ―I am the solution….I am the answer!!!! I am the most powerful force and treasure in any universe… No matter what arms you bare or how you prepare…… The last thing that I have to say to you is to just beware!!!!!!‖ The caption under this picture reads, ―Just then the transmission abruptly ends and the face of pure evil appears….‖ Gen. Pitchitr and the reptilian Stoad become mirror digital images of each other and the kids realize it is time to ―G.E.T.T.-S.M.A.R.T!!!!‖
196 Despite the countless spelling and punctuation errors of their source material, including a gratuitous ―T‖ in an acronym describing a plan to combat illiteracy, the ―S.M.A.R.T.‖ team is formed. The kids reasoned that if they could find a way to bring together all 110 wmc countries, they could develop and create knowledge modules based around the most powerful and positive heroes and legends throughout the history of each respective country, through these learning modules, as they traveled to earth they would gain invaluable information and knowledge about every aspect of history (past, present and future), it‘s (sic.) many cultures, its people, traditions etc….they‘ll call it the ‗ultimate learning journey‖! (Hovendove 2003:28) The ―ultimate learning journey‖ in this issue consists of five paragraphs of Thai text describing ―Prajaw Sua‖ (King Sua) and ―Kongtonay Luak,‖ two historical figures common to the mythological nationalist history of muay thai (Vail 1998). However, these two Thai figures are merely disembodied figures from an informational module. The S.M.A.R.T. team ―knew that they needed help to bring together all 110 countries into one united, cohesive and productive team.‖ They summon a ―former world muaythai champion whose fighting spirit still burns as bright as ever!!! …T his (sic.) champion also possessed the leadership qualities necessary to rally everyone together to help lead our team to victory in the global fight against drugs & illiteracy….his name is fox….stephan fox!!!‖ (Ibid. 30). This white savior appears saying, ―On july (sic.) 25th, 2003 our mission is to bring all WMC countries together into one united Smart Team…UNITED WE STAND!!!‖ (Ibid. 30-1). Thus, the comic book tie-in with the MuayThai Against Drugs (and, perhaps, the US War on Terror) event was made explicit. The text asks readers to ―Please Stay Tuned for Our Next Episode…… ‗ LET THE BATTLE BEGIN ‘ !!!‖ The remaining pages of the comic lay out an ambitious array of credits, online learning
197 modules, a planned ―Global On-Line Digital Channel on the MuayThai GOLD eNetwork,‖ ―global community service announcements,‖ corporate icons, and the member committees of the World Muay Thai Council from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America ―UNITED AS 1.‖ These ambitious plans and followup issues never came to fruition. According to a former employee of the World MuayThai Council (WMC), Hovendove and the US contingent of the ―S.M.A.R.T. Team Global‖ took money from the WMC planned for subsequent issues of ―The Day the S.M.A.R.T. Team Got M.A.D.‖ and promptly left the country. Vol. 1, Issue 1 was the only issue of the ―series‖ that was ever published (personal communication, 2006). L. Craig Hovendove, a.k.a. Lyonell T. Craig a.k.a. Huwell Lyonell Craig is involved in numerous other ―edu-tainment‖ ventures including MC5 Global (a.k.a. MC5global.com), Port of Asia Inc. (a.k.a. PortofAsia.com with Roger Oriel and Byron Sy), and ―Kewlworld‖ (a Port of Asia spinoff) (Institute 2007). The circumstances and details of Hovendove‘s exit from Thailand with UBC funds earmarked for future ―S.M.A.R.T. Team‖ antiFigure 30: Hovendove (3rd from left) pictured with Privy Counciler, Prem (3rd from right – one of the key 2006 coup planners) at the "Big Books of Life" event.
drug comic books are difficult to discern. However, comments left
by visitors to various websites associated with his other web-based projects point to a trail of dissatisfied ex-clients and investors. The Port of Asia spinoff project ―K.E.W.L World‖ bears the hallmarks of Hovendove‘s ―vision,‖ and recycles many of the designs
198 and characters from the defunct S.M.A.R.T. Team comic. The Kewlworld website is now offline, but google caches reveals similarly grand plans that failed to materialize, or when startup capital did materialize, the grand plans were no longer necessary (Arusa 8 Dec 2005; Hoskins 19 Oct 2006; Hovendove 19 Oct 2003; 2005; Lexdon Business Library 19 Oct 2006).44
44
One Kewlworld Web Board thread begins, ―Hello, My name is Craig-Hovendove, I am the President of a new Edutainment network called Kewlworld… K.E.W.L. (pronounced cool) is an acronym for Kids Edutained With Love.‖ In one of the comments beneath this message, ―m.a. Foster‖ writes ―where is my money you crook!!!‖ (Hovendove 2005). Another commenter, signing as ―upset investor‖ wrote, ―I can‘t believe this site still makes money...‖ Cryptically, a commenter named ―doesntmatter‖ threatened, ―You will be found.‖ Nevertheless, projects connected to Hovendove continue garner royal Thai patronage. As CEO of ―UB Asia,‖ another Hovendove project, the GoodnetworkHQ, encourages web surfers to, ―Please enter our wonderful world of ‗E‘.‖ Using the familiar K.I.N.G. (―Knowledge and Information is Noble and Good‖) acronym, the GoodnetworkHQ is a nearly un-navigable array of online ―Pods,‖ cyber-cafes (with connections to Thaksin‘s IPStar satellite system), and seemingly non-existent schemes that promise to ―provide turn-key global market penetration.‖ One GoodnetworkHQ project that seems to exist (or was planned to exist) is the ―Big Books of Life.‖ Claiming to be the ―world biggest printed books,‖ this ―series of ―Guinness Certified WorldRecord‘ Over-sized printed and online digital e-books‖ was displayed in a Bangkok press ceremony on 18 December 2005, at Benjasiri Park. The press event was attended by Thai business leaders and Chairmen of the Privy Council, Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, who would become the Thai Prime Minister by military coup in 2006. The book project was reportedly ―designed to develop, produce and distribute "Real-World‖ information and Knowledge to the world beginning with the ―Tsunami Hope Project.‖ (Arusa 2005). Hovendove‘s ―Smart Team‖ logo appeared on a the costume of a mortarboard-bedecked frog, the mascot of the ―L.E.A.P. Smart‖ scheme. Like the anti-drug comic book from 2003, the ―Big Book of Life‖ project never appeared to materialize. Despite promises that, ―All the proceeds from the sale of these books will be given to children affected by the tsunami all over the world‖ (Ibid.), the Big Books appeared to be another Hovendove-spawned marketing scheme. Once the startup capital was generated, backed by patronage from the Privy Council, the grand plans quietly disappeared along with the money promised to Thailand‘s children affected by disasters, both natural or manmade. As Hovendove‘s ―SmartteamHQ.net‖ welcome page announces, ―It‘s time 2 play. It‘s time 2 get paid‖ (Hoskins 2006; Hovendove 2003a; Lexdon Business Library 2006). Meanwhile, Hovendove is now affiliated with another company, Buzz Technologies Inc., which won a 2006 contract with the Thai Military to supply a variety of software and hardware systems including
199
The Death of Chakkrapan Srisa-ard (a.k.a. Fluke) I stood on Saphan Khao, the White Bridge, over one of the last remaining Bangkok canals. Although many were paved over, these canals or khlongs used to snake through the entire city, giving it the moniker the “Venice of the East.” This bridge was the place where a botched drug deal lead to the shooting of a nine-year-old boy whose death drove the extrajudicial killings underground. It was here that the campaign shifted from a public spectacle to a hidden black list operation. I came to Lan Luang road where the incident occurred to interview shop owners and street vendors to see if anyone witnessed the incident. No one was willing to talk to me. I looked for signs of a makeshift shrine or some sort of remembrance, but found none. Life returned to normal quickly here on this typical wide urban street if it ever even slowed down. It was as if the killing of a child, which occurred only four days previously, had never occurred. As I stood looking over a river of dirty brown water cluttered with floating plastic bottles and bags, I tried to understand the story between the lines of newsprint and the numerous shape-shifting accounts issued by local authorities. A string of red flower petals suddenly floated by amid the pollution, a profound moment in my mind. Later, reviewing the video I took, the petals looked like white pieces of paper – merging with the routine flotsam on the dirty khlong. With public approval for the Drug Suppression Campaign at ninety percent, another short-term populist ―solution‖ of the Thaksin government seemed to be succeeding. Following an incident on February 24th, however, one death among hundreds radically altered government and media approaches and changed public Wifi, Wimax, and Instant messaging to the Thai Military Lanna Center, Chiang Mai, Army Unit 33, The Third Army Region (Hoskins 19 Oct 2006; Lexdon Business Library 19 Oct 2006).
200 opinion. In the early hours of Sunday, February 23rd, Sathaporn Srisa-ard and his wife Pornwipa Kerdrungruang drove their Honda Civic with their nine-year-old son, Chakkapan, to a commercial district of Bangkok on Lan Luang road. They parked near the Paris Theater to sell 6,000 methamphetamine pills to a dealer who, unbeknownst to them, was recently arrested. Three officers in the investigation unit of Bang Chan police chased Sathaporn when he got out of the car to make the sale, arresting him in an alley behind a nearby 7-11 convenience store. Upon seeing the police, his wife Pornwipa moved from the passenger seat to the driver side and began driving away. When the three officers fired, she fled the vehicle and escaped, leaving her son in the back seat. Seven bullet holes were found in the car: in the trunk, the rear bumper, left side-mirror and the windshield, with some of the bullets exiting on the driver-side door. Chakkapan Srisa-ard, nicknamed Fluke, was shot twice in the chest. One 9mm bullet penetrated his lung and another lodged in his heart. One witness, who was pushing her food vendor cart on Lan Luang road where the shooting occurred, saw the speeding Honda Accord pursued by a police pickup truck. She saw the Accord stop and a man flee to a nearby alley next to a 7-11. The witness said the car drove away towards Ratchadamnoen road as police fired at the car. She said, ―I was very close to the sedan and got hit in the left thigh. A piece of scrap metal hit me and I pulled it out.
Figure 31: ―Justice Ministry investigators led by Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, left, acting director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, examine a car in which a nineyear-old boy was killed during a drug arrest in Nang Loeng, Bangkok, on Sunday night.‖ Photo: Somchai Laopaisarntaksin
201 When I looked up, a man was running after the sedan and firing at it.‖ Following this, the Honda Accord again stopped outside the Paris Theatre. ―I didn't see any other vehicle but the police pick-up truck. And I didn't see anything more than this,‖ the witness said. At the nearby Mission Hospital where the woman went to treat her wound, the body of the boy killed in the shooting was placed in the bed next to hers. The vendor closed her business the next day, wishing to remain anonymous. ―People warn me to be careful. I could be silenced. Men are here asking for me. Police perhaps…I‘m scared. I don't want to give any statements. I don't want to be involved,‖ she said (Manop 27 Feb 2003). One metropolitan police station, at Nang Lergn, filed murder charges against three investigation officers from Bang Chan station, the jurisdiction of where the shooting took place. The initial story reported by police immediately revealed a number of internal discrepancies. Various spokesmen for the police including National Police Chief Sant Sarutanont, who donated 20,000 baht for the boy‘s funeral, backed the officers‘ claims that couple‘s gunmen escorts fired the shots into the car and that the officers merely fired warning shots into the air.45 The officers claimed that after seeing Mr Sathaporn‘s arrest, the alleged gunmen fired shots at the car in an apparent attempt to silence Chakkrapan's mother. Ballistics tests conducted by the police Forensic Crime Division did not match the .38 caliber handguns carried by the officers. Pol Maj-Gen Chakthip Kunchorn na Ayuthaya, deputy city police commissioner, admitted that the officers might have handed in different firearms for the ballistic tests (Manop 8 Mar 2003). Curiously, during the press conference announcing this, three other officers at the scene who were never mentioned in previous reports were also cleared of the shooting. 45
The police claim of firing ―warning shots‖ is immediately suspect: in Thai police academies, and in modern police training standards throughout the world, police are trained to shoot only at a person‘s ―central body mass‖ and never to fire warning shots or any shots intended to injure or incapacitate.
202 In addition to police claims of ―gunmen escorts‖ firing shots into the car, the National Police Commission spokesman Pol Maj Gen Pongsapat Pongcharoen claimed that the boy's parents used their son as a shield. This claim ignores the fact that the boy was in the backseat at the time with the mother in the front seats. This discrepancy was easily glossed over by the spokesman who claimed that Pornwipa admitted to using his son as a shield. Pongsapat said while he was laying a wreath from Pol. Chief Sant at the Wat Lat Plakao funeral, ―We talked to his father and he admitted that. He said he was sorry.‖ At the boy‘s funeral, the police spokesman said that this child‘s death would not deter the hardline stance of the Thaksin administration and that the government would continue to be ―tough‖ on drug traffickers. Human rights groups and members of the boy‘s family demanded an investigation that never came. The boy‘s uncle Chalermpol Kerdrungruang, said,
Figure 32: ―Sunan Yindee, 38, looks at the body of Chakkapan Srisa-ard, her nineyear-old nephew killed by police gunfire during a drug arrest on Sunday night.‖ Photo: Boonnarong Bhudhipanya
―The war on drugs is getting more violent every day…even a child was not spared‖ (Onnucha 25 Feb 2003). Nevertheless, the majority of the public continued to support the extrajudicial killings. Chakkapan‘s own grandmother voiced her support of the government‘s drug policies and violent campaign at the funeral. Three months later, when the boy‘s body was cremated at Wat Ladplakhao, the three inspectors involved in the shooting were still working, and were cleared of further investigation. Pol Maj-Gen Prachuab Pao-In, the chief of Metropolitan Police Branch 4 and supervisor of the Bang Chan police station, attended the cremation.
203 According to him, the three policemen were allowed to continue their duties because there was no evidence to prove them guilty of firing the multiple fatal shots at the car (Anjira 9 Jun 2003). Despite the obvious cover-up, the death of Chakrapan, was instrumental in driving the publicly-touted War on Drugs death statistics into secrecy. After this incident, the mounting death toll continued unabated, but the government no longer published statistics.
The Killings Go Underground The high-profile shooting of eleven-year-old Fluke changed the dynamic of the drug campaign. Thai state officials began adopting more defensive approaches in their controlled press events, although their policies and practices remained unaffected. A public relations display between the United Nations human rights arm continued as the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Asma Jahangir, declared ―deep concern at reports of more than 100 deaths in Thailand in connection with a crackdown on the drug trade.‖ This number revealed a conservative approach by the UN: a publicly-available Thai Ministry of the Interior report listed 596 shooting deaths between Feb. 1st and 16th. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Thaksin countered the UN ―concern‖ on Feb. 24th, Do not worry about this. The U.N. is not my father. We as a U.N. member must follow international regulations. Do not ask too much. There is no problem. They can come and investigate (Yuwadee & Achara 4 Mar 2003). Two days later, in an ―echo event‖ of Chakkrapan‘s (Fluke‘s) death occurred in Sa Dao District in Southern Thailand‘s Songkhla province (Human Rights Watch 7 Jul 2004). A 16-month-old baby, ―Ice,‖ was shot and killed along with her mother, who held her in her arms. The mother‘s older brother, an alleged dealer, was killed earlier. Due to this
204 ―connection,‖ Pol. Lt. Phakdi Preechachon, the officer in charge of the investigation, reported that the killing of the mother and infant were gang-related, and required no further explanation. The killer was never found. Tellingly, the same day these shootings occurred, on Feb. 26th, the Interior Ministry banned the release of statistics on drug-related deaths until the end of the drug campaign on April 30th (Temsak & Yuwadee 1 Mar 2003). The last reported statistics stood at 1,140 deaths. Regardless, Interior Minister Wan Nor again warned provincial governors, police and district chiefs, that they only had two days to cut the number of drug producers and traders on their blacklists by 25%, indicating that the blacklists which appeared to be driving the deaths in the campaign would still be enforced. The criteria for compiling blacklists remained unknown. Whether the lists were prepared by village headmen, volunteers, police or through collaboration was intentionally obscured. Many people who found themselves on government blacklists were seeking protection from the National Human Rights Commission (Bangkok Post 27 Feb 2003). In one of a series of public relations events designed to downplay the violence of the drug campaign, all foreign diplomatic missions were invited to a Foreign Ministry briefing. At the briefing, government officials stressed the ―transparency‖ of the drug war and claimed that the blacklists of drug suspects were drawn up for official reference only, not as a record of extra-judicial killings (Bangkok Post 1 Mar 2003). In a criticism belying his political position, opposition leader and former Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, worried how the drug campaign was affecting Thailand's reputation. Chuan‘s position was that ―ignoring human rights concerns while still taking drug suppression aid from overseas countries was hypocritical‖ (Bangkok Post 3 Mar
205 2003). What this position ignores is the broader hypocrisy of the UN and US human rights ―concerns.‖ These concerns create the appearance of an international moral high ground, while international drug suppression aid to Thailand continued unabated. Thus, in another example of informational control, the veneer of US and UN ―concern‖ provided a cloak of tacit criticism while both bodies funded drug suppression in Thailand and the murders continued.
Suwit Baison In one case in the village of Na Chaliang in Northern Thailand‘s Phetchabun province, a couple was killed on their way home from reporting to a police station on drug charges. After finding themselves on a police blacklist, reporting to the Na Chaliang police station and paying a 5,000 baht ($125 dollar) fine for ―marijuana use,‖ they were shot and killed in the street. Five minutes later, nine armed men raided the house of a neighbor, Boonyung Tangtong, who was taken to a bedroom and shot in the head and chest while his wife, children and two relatives were held with guns to their heads. In contrast to the broader secrecy of most of the
Figure 33: ―Suwit Baison, Channel 11 assistant cameraman, sits with his 17year-old stepsister, Anchalee Montha, and stepbrother Anond Montha, at the funeral of their parents in Phetchabun.‖ Photo: Tawatchai Kemgumnerd (in Temsak & Yuwadee 1 Mar 2003).
drug war killings, the story received publicity because the murdered couple were the parents of a 23-year old-national Thai television Channel 11 assistant cameraman, Suwit Baison, the oldest of five younger brothers and sisters. The day before she was killed, Suwit‘s mother called him to say she was being summoned to the police station to swear under oath that they were not connected to
206 drugs. Although many villagers in the area had taken similar oaths, Suwit urged her not to go: his stepfather occasionally mixed marijuana with cigarette tobacco. Local police had previously searched his parents‘ home three times for drugs and found nothing. In Nov. 2002, his stepfather was arrested taking a break in a rice field while smoking with a friend who was carrying 1.3 grams of marijuana. At the police station, officers taunted Suwit‘s mother by demanding that she bring them a single methamphetamine pill in exchange for her husband‘s release. She hired a lawyer and paid a 5,000 baht fine. Because they feared the government crackdown, the couple wanted to clear their names when they were summoned to the police station one last time. The day Suwit‘s parents were killed, a roadside fruit seller supposedly witnessed the murder, but was too afraid to come forward officially. However, in a later interview with Matthew Wheeler, the fruit seller described how a white sedan with no license plate followed Suwit‘s parent‘s motorcycle, drove up alongside and fired out of the sedan‘s open windows (Wheeler 2003). Later, a local journalist told Suwit that two 11-millimeter handgun shells were found at the scene, one in the tangles of his mother‘s hair. She was shot three times, once through her hand as she tried to shield her face. His stepfather was shot four times. A family friend who lived near the police station saw a white sedan with no license plate arrive at the police station following the murders (Ibid. 2). The day of the murders, Suwit‘s uncle, another television station employee told him, ―Go home and write everything down. Give the letter to the Prime Minister.‖ The uncle knew PM Thaksin would be at the Agriculture Ministry the next morning. Suwit wrote up the details, made ten copies, and went to the Ministry in Bangkok the following morning, Feb. 28th. He found one of the Prime Minister‘s officials, who assured him that
207 he would deliver the letter to Thaksin. Unsatisfied, Suwit told other journalists at the scene the story of his parents‘ death. The journalists waited until Thaksin‘s car pulled up, and when he emerged, they made way for Suwit. In their haste to push him forward, Suwit tripped and fell to his knees in front of Thaksin. As Wheeler describes, Suwit…sobbed as he told the Prime Minister that his parents had been shot and killed, apparent victims of the government‘s new anti-drug crackdown. This awkward encounter between the young cameraman and the Prime Minister, played out before a crowd of journalists, was the top story on the evening news. After the incident, the Prime Minister‘s Office official who had pocketed his letter spent several minutes with Suwit and gave him assurances that his parents‘ murders would be investigated. After the story made headlines, Suwit, in his grief, offered a rare on-air criticism of the drug campaign, the government blacklists that propelled it, and details linking the blacklists with the murders throughout the country. Suwit said, ―The most serious flaw of this policy is that parties must meet the 25% target. What follows then is a ‗clean-up team‘ which goes after those who surrendered to police‖ (Onnucha 1 Mar 2003). He is convinced that these teams are made up of police from neighboring provinces who ―exchange‖ killing teams, so local police are not implicated. In the case of his parent‘s murder, he suspects the Border Patrol Police, who often carry the military-issue handguns with the specialty 11-millimeter shells found at the scene (Ibid.). Arriving back at work, government agents called the director of the government-owned Channel 11 station where he worked, to ensure that Suwit would never encounter Thaksin again. Suwit was removed from the political beat to cover innocuous sports and entertainment stories. His bosses refused to allow him to be interviewed by an Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist. According to Suwit, the only reason he wasn‘t fired is that it would have kept the story in the news, and he wouldn‘t have to follow his bosses‘ orders to keep quiet.
208 Subsequently, he received hate mail admonishing him for ―lying to the Prime Minister‖ and telling him that ―his parents deserved what they got and that he should keep his mouth shut‖ (Ibid.). Suwit‘s neighbor, Boonyung, was one of ten people in his rural neighborhood who were killed after surrendering to police. Boonyung‘s son, 16-year-old Adirek, was also certain that the men who killed his father were police. He told news reporters, ―they (were) all were wearing name and rank tags around their necks, but they didn't look familiar. They could have come from other places.‖ Just prior to the shooting, Boonyung turned himself in to the Na Chaliang police station because he was on a blacklist. A year prior to his death, he surrendered to police and participated twice in government reform programs. His son, Adirek, pointed out the tragedy in this system, ―I don't understand why this happened. He gave himself in to police, joined the reform scheme, tried to prove he could be a good man…It‘s too late [to become a reformed man]. You'll only give yourself away when you report to police.‖
“Rehabilitation” Programs and Citizen Surveillance While killings and arrests were clearly the major coercive expression of the War on Drugs, policy papers dutifully listed ―rehabilitation‖ of addicts as a ―high priority.‖ In keeping with its name, in this war even treatment programs were mercilessly militarized. In the early days of the campaign, reports showed that the army was turning 37 military camps into ―rehabilitation centers for drug addicts‖ (Bangkok Post 9 Feb 2003). Addicts at these camps became part of the army-run ―Wiwat Ponlamuang‖ anti-drug school scheme. Once at these army schools, addicts received ―treatment‖ for 45 days and underwent training in ―military discipline.‖ Beyond these army-run facilities, nationwide, rehabilitation programs were contracted out to programs based in Western
209 medicine, which predominantly substituted tranquilizers and other medication to ―treat‖ addiction. In her 2003 summary of Thai drug policy to the Lisbon International Symposium, Dr. Pasuk described how the Thai government claimed to emphasize rehabilitation while its facilities remained extremely poor with low levels of expertise. She showed how patients at Thai rehab centers normally return several times and many began doing ―harder‖ drugs while there. Pasuk cited protection from the violence of the drug campaign itself as one of the main reasons for attendance at these centers. As an alternative to rehabilitation programs based on Western medicine and philosophy, other programs were based at temples and are supposedly linked to Buddhist religious training. The Temjai drug rehabilitation center in Ayuthaya‘s Wat Worachet temple, for example, ―rehabilitated‖ 153 patients at a time. It is a branch of a larger drug rehabilitation and Figure 34: ―A drug addict undergoing treatment at the Temjai rehabilitation centre in Wat Worachet temple, Ayutthaya province, sleeps while chained up‖ (Songthorn 19 Mar 2003).
AIDS shelter at Wat Bo Ngern in Pathum Thani. The Temjai center came under
media attention when it was revealed that addicts there were chained twenty-four hours per day for ten to thirty days during drug ―treatment‖ (Songthorn 19 Mar 2003). The sixty-five year old monk who runs the center, Phra Thawee Ayuwatthago, claimed that shackling addicts to their beds prevented them from going ―berserk‖ or causing damage to the temple during their withdrawal. He defended these practices, which an Ayuthaya public health chief called ―tantamount to torture,‖ by saying that staff always got the
210 consent of a parent or guardian before treating addicts. Phra Thawee said that after being chained for weeks on end, addicts at the center ―eventually stopped being violent.‖ They then underwent Buddhist training and herbal treatment for three to four months. The monk said he would unchain the patients if a proper building was built to hold the ―mad addicts.‖ To legislate these various programs, on the 3rd of March, thirty six provinces in Thailand began enforcing the ―Drug Addicts Rehabilitation Act.‖ The act introduced a system of forced rehabilitation programs for people who were arrested with small amounts of drugs (Assavanonda 3 Mar 2003). In connection with the first day of the act‘s enforcement, a mobile counseling unit, run by Thanyarak Hospital, went to the busy Central Department Store in Bangkok‘s Lat Phrao shopping center and distributed drugfree family guidebooks. Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan and Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana were there along with a team of twelve counselors. One of the addicts who had gone through Thanyarak Hospital‘s four-month rehabilitation, a 21-yearold woman with the cryptic moniker, ―Name,‖ offered a personal narrative typical of methamphetamine addicts in Thailand. She took them first because, ―I love trying new and trendy things.‖ After two years of using the pills, she was stealing from her family to get the money for a 3-5 tablet per day habit. She began to hallucinate, ―I often heard the television talking to me, and felt that I had more power than anybody else.‖ ―Name‖ believed that the drug campaign would fail as long as police were involved, and said that it was often police who gave drugs to her friends to sell (Ibid.). This police involvement in drug trafficking, the violent enactment of the drug campaign, the forced government rehabilitation programs, and the information
211 surveillance systems generated by these programs are intimately linked: various arms in a holistic system of social control. However, officials involved in each arm often do not recognize their role in the overall system. This cycle is exemplified by an Interior Ministry request, during the height of the violence of the drug campaign, for a new 300 million baht initiative aimed at addicts, which included rehabilitation, volunteer training, ―drug-free community awareness,‖ and information gathering programs (Temsak 16 Apr 2003). Deputy Interior Minister Pramual Rujanaseri said this program was scheduled to begin in May, immediately following the three-month drug campaign and cited a ―new‖ date when Thailand would be drug free, December 5th, the day before the King of Thailand‘s birthday. Pramual outlined how the campaign would run in this interim period, ―A village head and tambon chief will be held responsible if their village is still drug-infested. It will be seen as a gross negligence of duty‖ (Ibid.). Those who remained on police blacklist but who had not surrendered or placed under arrest, would be investigated to determine if they were still ―involved in drugs.‖ The National Centre to Defeat Narcotics would then be asked to remove people from the list who were proven to be ―free of drugs.‖ Paradoxically, according to Suwat Tonprawat in the interior permanent secretary's office, people targeted by the government blacklist might also remain on the list for five to ten years for further investigation. ―There shouldn't be any problem because the list is protected and off-limits to the public,‖ he claimed. These comments reveal how the blacklist system, supposedly a temporary method of coordinating the drug campaign, was immediately linked to long-term government surveillance programs. One such program, the ―People‘s Power Network‖ boasted 2.7 million volunteers by
212 November 2003, and was equivalent to a national ―neighborhood watch program‖ to monitor suspected drug trafficking. In a similar state surveillance program, people could send anonymous drug tips to PO Box 1234, a government-monitored address which reportedly received thousands of tips in 2003 (Wheeler 2003). All of these information gathering and surveillance systems were linked to the blacklist system, effectively mirroring the Miller‘s ―Destruction Process‖ (described earlier in this chapter) at every step from identification to concentration and annihilation (1996). The Thai army received hundreds of complaints by local leaders and village officials in Northern Thailand that villagers on governement blacklists were arrested or killed after participating in rehabilitation programs and quitting drug activities. Kamnuan Chaiya, a village headman from Mae Hong Son's Pang Ma Pa district, for example, personally convinced many relatives and friends to stop their involvement in the drug trade and join rehabilitation programs. Despite their cooperation and participation, many of these villagers were gunned down or arrested (Wassana 23 May 2003). Upon identification, people who were ―rehabilitated‖ or ―reformed‖ could neatly be converted into arrest and death statistics in the service of relentless government blacklist
Figure 35: 1-2-3-4 informant box advertisement at a bus station (Wheeler 2003).
213 goals. State secrecy, one component of the construction of order through informational control, made these statistical conversions possible.
Opposition and Human Rights Abuse Claims Prominently featured among the numerous voices criticizing the drug campaign, former prime minister and democratic party leader Chuan Leekpai often used his weekly ―Chuan Online‖ program to express politically-acceptable dissent. He exposed the convenient utility of the campaign‘s ―street justice‖ approach: it could be used as a cover while ―certain elements‖ eliminated economic or political rivals (Bangkok Post 3 Mar 2003). Furthermore, he remained suspicious of the decline in the number of drug-related deaths that were reported in the second month of the campaign. ―It is worth noticing here that had the ‗silencings‘ been ordered by the drug bosses as claimed by the government, the high rate of killings reported over the past month should have continued over the past week,‖ Chuan said. The killings apparently could be turned ―on‖ or ―off‖ at the will of the Thai government. He said, ―The criminals [reportedly behind the killings] should not have acted as if they were taking orders from the government. But the facts show, as many have said, that the silencings - although some really were committed by drug gangs - were carried out by police, who were given a green light by the government. That green light has resulted in the loss of more than 1,500 lives in a short period of time (Nation 17 Mar 2003). Upset at the negative press coverage his ―the UN is not my father‖ comments caused (Yuwadee & Achara 4 Mar 2003), Thaksin declared the following day that he would no longer take political questions from reporters at Government House. From then
214 on, questions were to submitted to the government spokesperson, Sita Divari,46 allowing Thaksin to decide whether or not to address them, to assign them to a subordinate, or to ignore them entirely (Bangkok Post 5 Mar 2003). This was the same day a seminar was held by law experts and human rights activists at the traditionally-progressive Thammasat University in Bangkok titled, ―Extra-Judicial Killings and the Killings by Drug Gangs: Problem of Human Rights and the Thai Judicial System.‖ Secretary to the Thai supreme court chief justice, Jaran Pakdithanakul, a panelist at this diplomatically-titled seminar stated simply, ―The campaign is unsuccessful because there is still supply of and demand for drugs,‖ and pointed out how the border factories producing millions of methamphetamine pills were still operational (Preeyanat 5 Mar 2003). At the Thammasat seminar, forensic expert Pornthip Rojanasunand called for substantive investigations into all of the deaths resulting from the drug war. She said that justice was impossible as long as the police themselves remained in charge of collecting evidence and conducting autopsies. Also in attendance was Thailand‘s Human Rights Commissioner Pradit Charoenthaithawee, who had received numerous death threats after he reported the high number of Drug War deaths to the UN. Amnesty International issued a statement on the day of the seminar urging the Thai government to protect Dr. Pradit and to begin an immediate investigation into the death threats he was receiving (Bangkok Post 6 Mar 2003). Several weeks later, PM Thaksin refused to meet with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). He was upset that the NHRC had reiterated Dr. Pradit‘s claims by telling the UN that the government was violating human rights in its drug crackdown (Ampa 17 Mar 2003). Thaksin called Pradit a ―whistle-
46
This spokesman bears the name of the wife of Rama in the Hindu Ramayana epic, ―Sita,‖ the seventh avatāra of Vishnu, a notable choice for a male name with gendered mythological connotations.
215 blower‖ and claimed that his actions were ―sickening.‖ According to Pradit, the NHRC received many ―abuse of authority‖ complaints as a result of the anti-drug campaign, with the largest number coming from Mae Chan district of Chiang Rai. In Mae Chan, sixteen people complained that they were unjustifiably placed on drug blacklists. These supposedly confidential blacklists were leaked to junior officials and used to intimidate and harass the ―suspects‖ listed.
The Militarization and Centralization of Drug Suppression The numerous critics of the drug campaign‘s violence failed to publicly identify two major trends that the three-month campaign was designed to radically accelerate: continued militarization of drug control and bureaucratic centralization of power. In 1973, when he was made head of the new Anti-Narcotic Centre, Pol Maj Gen Pao Sarasin47 warned against continued centralization of drug suppression powers due to the vast profits of the drug economy making abuses of power nearly inevitable (Vitoon 16 Apr 1978). As discussed previously in this chapter, the day before the drug campaign began, ignoring these decades-old warnings, the National Centre to Defeat Drugs was created as a coordinating centralized agency for drug intelligence, operations and enforcement during and after the War on Drugs. Thus, in March, the drug suppression efforts of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, Regional Police Bureaus 1-9, the ONCB and the Anti-Money Laundering Office were centralized into one headquarters headed by Deputy Prime Minister Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh under his command at the new bureaucratic powerhouse. As part of this centralization, the National Centre to Defeat Drugs would now ask schools and local leaders to gather information (Yuwadee 16 Mar 2003). Also part of this centralization, the role of the ONCB was expanded to include the 47
Again not to be confused with the infamous Thai Police General, Phao Sriyanond.
216 coordination of asset seizures. The intelligence-gathering powers of the ONCB were also increased, and the bureau was put in charge of compiling information about drug suspects who surrendered. Along with this centralization and expansion in powers, joint military cooperation with Burma also expanded. Much of this cooperation was justified in the name of fighting the Shan State Army and United Wa State Army, who operate along the Thai-Burmese border. Thus, in addition to the domestic use of Thai military units in operational capacities surpassing even those of the communist insurgency period of the 1970s and 80s, the Thai Third Army and the Burmese military began conducting joint drug suppression patrols (Wassana 24 Mar 2003). The Third Army commander who orchestrated these joint operations, Maj-Gen Picharnmet Muangmanee, was a new appointee of the mid-year government reshuffle which favored Thaksin‘s police academy classmates and business associates. Picharnment was also a classmate of the Assistant Army Chief, Gen. Chaisit Shinawatra, who attended the same class at the National Defence College and had close ties with Payap Shinawatra, the prime minister's younger brother.
Statistics, small-time dealers, and government officials The numbers are the most important thing. We must have a blacklist. Then we must do our duty. We must show we have done our duty through statistics. Our bosses want good statistics for our district: high arrest totals, large amounts of drugs, money, weapons seized. It‟s the same in the US. All of the work we do moves up…the other numbers especially move up. Pol. Cpl. ―Samaachik‖ at a Bangkok police station, May 2003
By mid-April, two-and-a-half months into the War on Drugs, official arrest and seizure statistics revealed the campaign‘s massive scope. One billion baht in assets was
217 seized. Five million methamphetamine pills were confiscated. More than 50,000 people were arrested. Of these 50,000, police claimed 430 were ―drug producers,‖ 1,548 were members of ―major drug networks‖ and 13,584 were ―major dealers‖ (Bangkok Post 17 Apr 2003). The criteria differentiating ―major dealers‖ from the majority of the arrests, the remaining 34,438 drug users or minor dealers, was not provided. Along with the arrests at that time, 2,275 were killed in drug-related shootings throughout Thailand. Officials claimed that 51 of these shootings were by police, and that every one of these was ―in self-defense.‖ Along with these deaths, seven police officers were killed and 20 others injured ―in gunfights with drug suspects‖ (Ibid.). Each day, Thai-language newspapers and media reported stories released by the police media office such as ―A Policeman Was Almost Killed by Crazy Drug Addict‖ (Daily News 23 Apr 2003). A US DEA official confirmed these statements, ―100 percent of the killings targeted small scale street dealers…only a minute handful of mid-scale manufacturers or traffickers were sought out‖ (Asif 2004:72). The DEA official also postulated that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreaks and the beginning of the war in Iraq were used as distraction events by the Thaksin administration to provide cover for the drug war. ―Without these other major stories to hide behind, the tactics Thaksin used would probably find him indicted by the International Court for Human Rights he would have never gotten away with it‖ (Ibid.). The official went on to say that, contrary to Thai human rights group claims that provincial police authorities were responsible for the killings, they were actually carried out by Thai Narcotics Control Board (NCB) squads, a group he said were mostly ―professional assassins.‖ He was ―absolutely positive‖ that the version of the drug campaign presented to the public by the Thai government was
218 ―pure disinformation.‖ Furthermore he said that the US knew from the beginning ―exactly what was going on, but decided to turn a blind eye…Sacrifices were made here‖ (Ibid. 73). In an interview, Somchai, a 22-year veteran of the NCB, said that the official numbers released by the government were far lower than the actual number of those killed. He said that to accomplish his job during the War on Drugs he received weekly short lists from which he ―fixes problems quickly‖ (Ibid. 76-77). Pasuk concurs that the actual perpetrators behind the killings were the government-hired ―professional assassins‖ the DEA official and the NCB agent discuss, The government‘s claim that the killings were not the work of the police has to be considered in context. There is a very, very fine line dividing the police from unofficial means of enforcement. Thailand has a lot professional gunmen. They are organised into units controlled by powerful figures…Some policemen moonlight as members of these units. Also, the authorities sometimes contract these units to take care of problems which are difficult to manage through open police methods… (24 Oct 2003). Pasuk and Baker reiterate, ―Some police (and military)…retire to this profession. Some senior officers run gangs of gunmen‖ (2004:162). Pasuk and Baker go on to draw links between these gunmen and similar squads used to kill communists and their sympathizers in rural Thailand in the 1980s. They cite anthropologist Andrew Turton, who wrote about these emergent groups in 1984, A more recent development is the appearance of ―death squads‖ (also known in some localities as ―hunter killer units,‖ ―ruthless hunter units,‖ ―death squad infernal units‖) set up by provincial police authorities to pursue criminals without due process of law. There are indications that these units have been responsible for a number of deaths and disappearances…villagers in many areas recall innocent farmers being killed in fields and swiddens by government troops literally ―headhunting‖ for bounty and preferment…Also most of the killings and shootings, at close range, and by such a third party, and frequently with military
219 weapons such as the M16 and AK47 automatic rifles…Extra-judicial killings include those of persistent offenders carried out with the approval sometimes of whole communities, which are tolerated by the police; those carried out by the police themselves, other than with legal sanction…In this case the victim is often someone who has been critical of local power interests, and whose death is passed off as being that of a communist suspect or alternatively, as having been caused by communists. (1984:56-8 quoted in Pasuk and Baker 2003, 162-3) These direct parallels between the drug campaign gunmen and the anti-communist hit squads are echoed by similar continuities in leadership. General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh was involved in the communist suppression campaign as was General Thammarak Issarangkura na Ayuthaya (in southern Thailand). These two generals, as deputy prime minister and defense minister respectively, were directly involved in implementing the drug suppression campaign in 2003. To hold a position of leadership during the War on Drugs meant deference to its deceptions. These leaders had to verbally condone the thinly-veiled ―silence killing‖ cover story, while simultaneously ignoring intentionally-flawed suppression strategies, such as criminally-inefficient border control. In the years leading up to the War on Drugs, border troops were routinely commanded to stay away from major trafficking operations coming out of Burma. Third Army Commander, Lt. Gen Wattanachai Chaimuenwong was in charge of the unit who patrolled border areas in Northern Thailand. Gen. Wattanachai told Thai radio that he couldn‘t take action against most drug trafficking on the border because of connections to Thai business and politics. He said, ―I can‘t arrest them because we are not authorized to, even though we know who they are and what they are doing…Narcotic trafficking is a multibillion baht business involving hundreds of people and networks…politician(s) need money from them to buy votes‖ (Asif 2004:91).
220 In Dec. 2002, only a few months prior to the War on Drugs declaration, PM Thaksin complied with demands from the Burmese junta to cease operations of Task Force 399, which was established in 2000 as a drug interdiction unit on the Burmese border. In addition to dismantling task force 399, Thaksin also removed former Thai Army Chief, and current Thai PM, Gen Surayad Chulanont as well as Gen Wattanachai. These actions prompted former military intelligence chief for the Thai 3rd Army region, General Anu Sumitra to write an open letter proclaiming ―The Defense Minister and the Prime Minister have business interests in Burma. To protect those business interests, they are even prepared to sacrifice the dignity of our army‖ (Bangkok Post 2002). With information like this, government involvement in drug trafficking, as part of the public record, the government and media officials knew that they had to address this common knowledge. The campaign had to be conducted without disrupting major profitable networks run by high-level government and military officials. The solution was relatively simple: publish lists of arrests of officials who were low-level dealers or competitors of more powerful protected individuals. Thus, headlines such as, ―Over 500 Govt Officials Listed as Suspects‖ (Bangkok Post 19 Mar 2003) created the impression that the majority of government officials involved in the drug trade were being weeded out in the campaign. Closer examination of the details of these actions reveals the smallscale activities of most of those arrested as well as the cosmetic ―disciplinary‖ measures taken against them. In another story, local residents of Koh Samui reported names of police ―involved with drugs.‖ In this case, the commander of the Koh Samui Police Station, Police General San Sutanon, ordered the arrest of 12 policemen who were accused drug involvement (ThaiRath 23 Apr 2003). ―Drug involvement‖ in this case,
221 meant that urine tests of officers tested positive for drugs indicating that the arrested officers were users, not necessarily dealers. Thus, local and national media gave the appearance of a widespread crackdown on government involvement in drug trafficking that, upon closer examination, only affected officials who are at the very bottom of the drug trade pyramids. This pattern expressed itself repeatedly in stories involving mid-level dealers as well. For example, Bang Khwang prison is a notorious site for methamphetamine and heroin trafficking both into and out of prison (incredibly, large amounts of drugs are routinely transported out of the prison). On April 30, 2003, the Bangkok Post released a story, ―Court Condemns Two Warders, Police Officer,‖ which described how two prison officers and one police officer were sentenced to death over possessing 800,000 methamphetamine pills with intent to sell. The two warders were arrested on October 20, 2000 for possession of 200,000 speed pills. These warders pleaded guilty and provided information leading to the arrest of the police officer (who was already sentenced by the Nonthaburi Provincial Court to life on charges of murder and robbery) and three others leading to an additional seizure of 600,000 speed pills (Bangkok Post 30 Apr 2003). In this case, several midlevel dealers are sentenced to death or life in prison, creating the appearance of a major drug bust. Meanwhile, the larger picture of how these 800,000 pills were allowed into the prison system in the first place was ignored. Moving higher up the drug trade chain, larger busts show how the drug campaign conveniently removed competition for government-sanctioned involvement in drug trafficking. In one high-profile arrest, eighty police officers stormed the home of notorious drug head Suparb Seedaeng, or Siam Sapvorasit, also known as ―Parp 70 Rai.‖
222 Suparb was listed as one of the key leaders in the Khlong Toey slum methamphetamine distribution network (Bangkok Post 27 Mar 2003). Suparb‘s arrest highlighted some of the political and police connections necessary to operate such a network. TV cameras showed the massive police raid of his house in the Prawes district, as more than 20 million baht in cash, jewelry and cars were seized (nothing ―illegal‖ was Figure 36: ―Suparb Seedaeng appears after his arrest early yesterday by CSD and Narcotics Suppression police.‖ Photo: Boonnarong Bhudhipanya
supposedly found). Pol. Lt. Cpl. Pluempiti Kramolmanit, attached to the Thong Lor
police station, and Pol. Lt. Cpl. Damrongchai Sroysont, of the Central Investigation Bureau, were at Subarb‘s residence at the time of the raid and were held in connection with the drug investigation. These two officers‘ involvement was indicative of Subarb‘s numerous political and police connections that were necessary to operate a major methamphetamine trafficking network. However, their mid-level rank and their compromised location at the time of the raid indicates that they were sacrificed obscure higher-level involvement. Tellingly, Sunant Ungsongtham, a Bangkok Metropolitan Administration council member, met with Suparb in police custody and immediately proclaimed his innocence. Suparb once served as Mr Sunant's election campaign aide. Suparb's brother Somkiat Seedaeng was the Thai Rak Thai party councillor for Klong Toey district. Subarb‘s distribution network relied on patronage and protection from local police. His connections to a police general were highlighted, but importantly, the name of this
223 general was never mentioned in press coverage. Subarb owned gambling dens within Klong Toey which were used to launder money along with his connections to Thaiowned casinos operating on the Cambodian border, in which he owned business shares. Police Director General Sant announced that 48 million baht from Suparb‘s bank accounts were seized as well as assets from Sapsaksit, a finance firm which Suparb chaired. Dir. Gen. Sant said that Suparb‘s relations with a police general were being investigated (Ibid.). Unsurprisingly, after his arrest, no other information about this relationship was made available. Suparb‘s arrest is an important example of the government and media-crafted illusion of the few ―major dealers‖ arrested in the drug campaign. The arrest and dollar amounts of assets seized were highlighted, but not how Subarb obtained tens of millions of pills or was able to operate for years with police protection at the highest levels. In another case, on 4 May, 6 million pills of amphetamine were found in a police Lieutenant Colonel‘s house in Bangkunnon District, Bangkok. This seizure prompted Pol. Dir. General Sant to again imply that the death penalty could be used on police officers involved in drug trafficking, ―We must eliminate police involvement in drug trade, if they are found to be involved, the complete elimination of those officers must occur‖ (DP 5 May 2003). However, with this threatening rhetoric, no explanation was offered for how such widespread drug trafficking occurs among the mid and lower ranks of police officers. They take orders and filter profits upward to higher ranking police officers who, through this system, are isolated from any direct involvement.
224
The Interim False “Victory” Declaration From its inception, the three-month campaign was obviously planned to continue well beyond the original ninety day ritual. On March 11th, when daily body counts were silenced, the three-month deadline was quietly extended (Pasuk & Baker 2004:165). On that day, Thaksin announced a second stage where officials would use the thousand names collected to go after ―major drug traders.‖ Thaksin‘s orders for death became more direct, ―In the first three months, the police did very well…The enemy are weakening. Kill them off - don‘t leave a trace behind, because they are threatening society‖ (Pran 2004:232). With the confusing logic characteristic of the Thai Rak Thai administration, Deputy PM Chavalit said on the 11th of April that ―the government initially planned to declare victory on Aug 12th, Her Majesty the Queen's birthday. However, since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wanted the drug war to be concluded by year‘s end, the date was changed to Dec 2‖ (Yuwadee & Temsak 12 Apr 2003). Continuing the series of pre-emptive ―victory‖ declarations, Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha announced in April that in August ―up to 25 provinces are expected to be declared drugs-free.‖ Wan Nor said another round of victory declarations would be made on Oct. 1st and a final one on Dec. 2nd, three days before the King‘s birthday. For these provinces to be declared drug-free they had to be ―100% free of pushers, addicts and drug-running state officials, and provide rehabilitation for addicts‖ (Ibid.).48 . Despite the numerous new ritual end dates, on May 1st, 2003 (on Beltane or ―May Day‖) Prime Minister Thaksin declared ―victory‖ in the war on drugs, as expected.
48
In the same briefing, Wan Nor made the link between the state enemies of drugs and terrorism explicit. He said that, ―in addition to drug trafficking, the ministry is concerned about security and has asked the authorities in charge to keep a close watch on suspected terrorist movements‖ (Yuwadee & Temsak 12 Apr 2003).
225 During the three-month period, a total of 1,612 people were reported to have died in drug-related killings, with police claiming responsibility for the deaths of an additional 37 suspects. This is roughly an average of 19 deaths per day, a statistic that seriously calls into question the official accounts of dealers killing dealers. However, with government control of productivity within the meticulous blacklists (along with specific names, addresses, etc.), the statistics are more understandable. Reportedly, 43,012 drug producers and dealers were arrested, along with 870 state officials. 736 state officials were dismissed from their positions although these statistics do not detail whether they were fired or simply re-assigned.49 Thirteen provinces met government-imposed targets for arrests50 with the lowest ―success‖ rates in Nakhon Sawan (79.2%), Lampang (80.69%), Samut Prakan (80.81%), Suphan Buri (82.30%) and Prachin Buri (83.14%) (Cheewin & Temsak 2 May 2003). Paradoxically, a second phase of drug suppression was immediately announced at the same time; a crackdown on the ―dark influences‖ which aid the drug trade. This declaration, along with the 300 million baht requested by the Interior Ministry for antidrug information gathering programs (Temsak 16 Apr 2003), show that the three-month campaign was never meant to successfully ―rid drugs from every square inch of Thailand‖ as originally declared. The ―Dark Influence‖ campaign (discussed in Chapter 5) was planned to be conducted much in the same way as the drug campaign: the Narcotics Control Board and the Anti-Money Laundering Office would jointly compile 49
In the case of the article ―Over 500 Govt Officials Listed as Suspects‖ (Bangkok Post 19 Mar 2003), of the 500 listed, forty-six were metropolitan police officers who were being investigated for drug involvement. While under investigation, these officers were transferred to the Border Patrol Police where their movements would supposedly be monitored. After investigations, those officers cleared by police investigation panels would return to work with the Metropolitan Police. 50 Kamphaeng Phet, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, Nakhon Ratchasima, Nan, Phichit, Lamphun, Loei, Si Sa Ket, Surat Thani, Kalasin and Nong Bua Lamphu.
226 lists of influential figures in every province who supported drug rackets. Interior Minister Wan Nor specifically used the phrase, ―the axis of evil‖ to describe the target of the new campaign (Bangkok Post 1 May 2003).
Interim evaluation: declaration of the campaign‘s failure Upon the initial victory declaration of the three-month campaign, state officials and Thai mass media began evaluating its success. There were also wide pronouncements of the drug war‘s failure from human rights groups and academics, both domestic and foreign. Many of the reports and evaluations focused on how the street value for methamphetamine pills was temporarily inflated during the campaign, which prompted dealers and users to switch to other drugs, or to simply wait for police attention to shift elsewhere. New drug routes, perhaps inevitably, surfaced in locations outside of the primary zones of suppression. Kitti Limchaikij, head of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), said in January 2004 that sea-based drug trafficking increased since border controls were stepped up. ONCB and naval intelligence showed that drug traffickers were simply shipping their goods through the Andaman Sea to avoid the suppression efforts on the Burmese land border. In Kitti‘s estimate, fishing boats carrying drugs primarily came from Burma's southern-most province, Kawthaung (opposite Ranong) and stopped in Ranong and Phuket before heading further into Thailand and Singapore. Temporarily, the underground economy of drugs in Thailand was altered; methamphetamine was temporarily replaced by other drugs. Several days after the conclusion of the three-month campaign, regional Border Patrol Police chief, Pol MajGen Thanakorn Siri-at, said that the northern office of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau was observing a heroin production resurgence in the wake of the crackdown on
227 methamphetamine (Cheewin & Temsak 2 May 2003). In addition to these official indications of alterations in drug production, drug consumption patterns changed as well. The Bangkok Post reported that in Udon, ―Alprazolam tranquiliser is the new craze among student drug users…‖ The article details how police informants claim, ―students who stay at rented apartments usually take the pill with drinks to get high‖ (Bangkok Post 19 Jul 2003). These tranquilizers were sold at many schools for 10 to 50 baht a pill. Reports and seizures of another hallucinogenic tranquilizer, ketamine hydrochloride, also increased (Nation 19 Jan 2004). These indications of modified trafficking trends and the renewed popularity of tranquilizers mirrored reports in Khlong Toey. In this depressed Bangkok neighborhood, former methamphetamine users were switching to cheaper options such as inhaling paint thinner, solvents, glue, etc. In addition to these reports of users and dealers switching to other drugs as a result of the three-month suppression, there were widespread condemnations of the campaign and its failure to reduce drug consumption. Nittaya Promphochuenbun, a staff member of the Duang Prateep Foundation said, ―Business is as usual in Klong Toey as far as illicit drugs go. They are still delivered to the area continuously and without disruption,‖ (Onnucha & Charoenpo 5 May 2003). Duan went on to describe how people in her neighborhood live in a continual state of fear, even while in their own homes. Fifteen people were killed in Klong Toey since the war was launched - allegedly members of Suparb's network. Duang went on to say, ―but many dealers at Suparb‘s level have been unaffected. Even some members of his network are still hanging around. Shortage of replacements never exist here, even if they are killed.‖ She didn‘t want to elaborate as to why some dealers remained untouched, for fear of her own safety, but
228 said, ―They include the big bosses and those well known to the authorities and already on the government‘s blacklist (Ibid.). Duan‘s indictment of the drug campaign in Klong Toey, Thailand‘s methamphetamine ground zero, reiterates similar evaluations of the campaign‘s performance in public schools. In May, Chulalongkorn University Education Faculty associate professor, Somphong Jitradab, said that the drug problem in schools was downplayed by school administrators now that interim ―victory‖ was declared. Similarly, Kanchanaburi provincial governor, Rungrit Makornphong, said that school administrators did not want to risk their reputations by revealing the scope of drug problems within schools (Anucha 7 May 2003). Several school teachers I talked to said that school administrators refuse to reveal the full extent of drug dealing and use within their schools, which makes it impossible for them to provide a drug-free environment to students. One teacher said, In the school, they want to say that we don‘t have drugs here. The problem has not gone away. Students still use drugs here. People from outside even sell them here still. Nothing has changed. But because of the drug suppression (praappraam yaasepdit) there are ‗no drugs.‘ So we say we are drug-free. ―Aon,‖ a Bangkok high school teacher, interview May 2006
The Hypocritical US and UN ―Human Rights Record‖ These local assessments of the three-month ―victory‖ as a clear failure were much more accurate than the disingenuous official reaction of the United States and the United Nations. As blacklists were compiled and murder scenes multiplied, both of these powerful governing bodies continually provided financial assistance to Thai anti-drug operations, making their calls for ―justice‖ in the campaign‘s thousands of unsolved murders seem particularly schizophrenic. In early May, the United States, through its
229 embassy, ―expressed serious concern‖ about the murders in Thailand‘s War on Drugs. An American Embassy spokesman said, ―The Royal Thai Government needs to thoroughly investigate these cases and prosecute the killers in full accordance with the law - and in a fast and transparent manner.‖ Unsurprisingly, the spokesman gave no possible consequences if the Thai government failed to comply with the embassy‘s reported letter of reproach or demarche, which requested an explanation for the killings (Nation 7 May 2003). Since 1997, under the ―Leahy Amendment,‖ United States‘ legislation provides a means to prohibit US funds for foreign security forces who have committed gross violations of human rights. However, a key loophole in the legislation is that it relies on the Secretary of State (Colin Powell held this position during Thailand‘s drug campaign in 2003) to determine and report ―that the government of such a country is taking effective measures to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.‖ Since the US Secretary of State, and not some other independent body, determines whether violations occurred or not, it comes as no surprise that the Leahy amendment remains largely un-enforced among the US‘s numerous strategic drug war allies. Furthermore, the relatively diffuse language of the amendment allows significant room for interpretation as to what constitutes ―effective measures‖ to stop abuses. In the case of the Thai drug war, who are the ―responsible members of the security forces‖ when the entire state apparatus from the Prime Minister‘s cabinet to the gunmen themselves were complicit in the campaign‘s brutality and its deceptive ―dealers killing dealers‖ cover story? Similarly, in Columbia, where compliance with the Leahy provisions is seriously questioned, the US Southern Command and the DEA, ―continues
230 to cultivate a very close relationship with the Colombian military‖ (Isacson 1998). This is a major indication of the hypocrisy of US drug policy throughout the globe: legislation like the Leahy amendment supposedly prevents US security assistance to the brutal ―antidrug‖ warriors (who are often drug profiteers themselves) it continues to fund. Similar international hypocrisy was revealed in the May 2003 reaction of the United Nations, whose funding for Thai drug suppression continued despite the agency‘s ―concern‖ for the high death toll. Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations‘ Office for Drugs and Crime was satisfied at Thai efforts to deal with the drug problem, but was ―worried about the high number of victims‖ (Bhanravee 13 May 2003). Costa was quoted as saying, ―we hope the Thai government will investigate all cases and abide by its laws‖ (Ibid.). On these lofty hopes, the UN appeared to provide mere lip service to its proclaimed interest in the protection of human rights. Hina Jilani, the special representative of the UN secretary-general on human rights, visited Thailand at the conclusion of the three-month campaign, and said specifically that she was not there to look into extra-judicial killings. She said, ―My mission is to deal with the roles of human rights defenders, and their ability to raise the issues is certainly my mandate‖ (Bangkok Post 20 May 2003). Jilani visited Thailand for ten days and clearly said it was not her mandate to investigate the drug campaign deaths. In her meeting with PM Thaksin and Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai she said numerous times that she had no intention of ―stepping out of her mandate‖ (Ibid.). Clearly, the official UN stance was that the thousands of extra-judicial murders during the drug campaign were a problem best left to local human rights groups. This situation offers insight into what Fiona Terry
231 calls the ―paradox of humanitarian action,‖ namely, ―it can contradict its fundamental purpose by prolonging the suffering it intends to alleviate‖ (Terry 2002:2).
Media support of state violence, social control, and royalism In the interim between the first declaration of ―victory‖ (following the threemonth drug campaign) and the second planned ―victory‖ in December, media outlets dutifully reported the government messages of fear and death. These messages were directed physically at drug dealers, but also psychologically at the broader Thai public. During this period, there were many reports of arrests and killings of ―major dealers.‖ A typical Thai-language newspaper report described how Chiang Mai Border Patrol Police ―assassinated‖ (
– wisaaman) two ―major‖ heroin traffickers. In this case, the
BPP set up an undercover purchase of heroin and when the sting became apparent, the two dealers supposedly shot at police officers, prompting their death (DP 21 July 2003). In another Thai language story in Thai Rath, the Chiang Mai Drug Suppression Unit killed another ―major drug dealer‖ by ―tricking‖ the dealer with an undercover operation and offering six million baht for 300,000 yaa baa pills. When the dealer realized the trick he, predicatively, ―tried to escape and fired his gun.‖ Conveniently, the police officers ―had to fight back‖ and killed him (ThaiRath 24 July 2003). Story after story reproduced cases like these with no investigations on the part of police or journalists as to whether these thousands of deaths were justified. The Thai queen's birthday on August 12th served as an important date in this interim period. As discussed previously in this chapter, this date was initially considered as a war on drugs ―victory‖ day until it was delayed to December (Yuwadee & Temsak 12 Apr 2003). Although it no longer served in this capacity, the day was used as an opportunity for continued publication of summary arrest statistics and numerous stories
232 of a populist campaign of ―progress‖ linked to the monarchy. Thus, this was an important interim date for the drug campaign providing a popular nationalist benchmark. Numerous pro-monarchy rituals, multiple media showcases, and dramatically-lit photos of the Queen were displayed on major streets and promenades throughout the country. This public holiday is celebrated nationwide as Mother's Day (wan mae heng chaat -
). The
Queen is considered the symbolic mother of all Thai people and thus, Mother‘s Day is an important nationalist pro-monarchy holiday in Thailand. As Thongchai documents, nearly all of the
Figure 37: Monumental display for "Mother's Day" (the Queen's birthday, August 12) at a Bangkok traffic circle
―traditions‖ associated currently with the monarchy in Thailand were strategically introduced as the result of modern reinvention by royalist factions, usually within the last half-century (1994; 2005; 2006). Military dictator, General Phibunasongkhram, first introduced Mother's Day to Thailand in 1950 (originally on April 15th). In 1976, April 15th was replaced by the queen's birthday on August 12th. Thus, when the Interior Ministry announced on August 11th that 53 provinces could now be declared ―drug-free‖ it conveniently and consciously tied the drug campaign to this popular holiday of nationalism and reverence to the monarchy.
233 Other similar declarations repeated this strategy. Newspaper readers were assured that, ―action would continue to make the remaining 23 provinces free of drugs by Nov 30, in time for His Majesty the King's birthday celebrations on Dec 5‖ (Bangkok Post 11 Aug 2003). This particular article goes on to describe how nationwide ceremonies on the queen's birthday were planned, in which an estimated ten thousand drug addicts ―would take an oath to turn over a new leaf by taking a rehabilitation course‖ (Ibid.). The same day, the police announced the national results of the anti-drug campaign from the past six months. They reported that over 27 million amphetamines were destroyed, 1,636 million baht was seized, over 70,000 drug dealers were arrested, 129 drug dealers were assassinated and 26 police officers were killed in the line of duty (DP 11 Aug 2003). Thus, Mother‘s Day Figure 38: A royalist "Mother's Day" ritual at a Bangkok wat.
2003 was an important ―mirror
event,‖ a harbinger of the inevitable final victory declaration on the King‘s birthday in December. In this way, the War on Drugs gained strategic legitimacy through convenient and constant links to national and pro-monarchy ritual ceremonies. For many Thais, support for the drug suppression campaign was synonymous with support for the monarchy. Also during the month of the Queen‘s birthday in August, the Bangkok Post ran an article which idealized the village of Ban Pareh in the southern province of Pattani as a
234 model for ―innovative‖ drug-free approaches. In this community of 1,186 people, mostly employed as small-scale fishers, near-total social control on a local level was used to enforce a drug-free environment. The article, ―Religion, Rules Turn Village into Peaceful Haven,‖ began with the claim ―rehabilitation programmes do not guarantee an end to the influence of drugs, but strong communities and religion can help keep communities safe.‖ When six villagers were found ―addicted to marijuana‖ in 2001, community committees established strict rules of conduct: They agreed not to gather outdoors after 10pm. If they went downtown, they had to return to their village by 11.30pm. Secret gatherings of more than two people are banned in daylight hours. Young villagers must pray at least twice a day. They must attend weekly religious sermons. Young viewers of live-broadcast football matches must gather only at the village's cafe, where they are supervised by the zones‘ anti-drug volunteers. Young villagers are banned from staying overnight in public pavilions, mosques or at friends' houses. Young guards must come under the supervision of the chief guards. Royalee Nimaming, head of the Ban Pareh village claimed, ―Today our village is free of drug traffickers and the six addicts have been cured and rehabilitated‖ (Onnucha 25 Aug 2003).
Asset seizures, faked reward payouts and covert drug operations While glowing reports such as these touted the effectiveness of community social control, other articles revealed the massive economic gains garnered during the drug campaign. Clearly, the drug war was good for government and government-owned businesses. New asset seizure laws, enacted for the campaign through a radically expanded Anti-Money Laundering Office, brought record amounts of wealth from arrests and raids. In May, fifty police officers arrested Panom Sap-anek, the provincial administrative organization (PAO) councilor representing Muang Lampang district, at a
235 Chiang Mai resort along with two of his aides (Somsak 3 Sept 2003). Panom was charged with drug trafficking, money laundering and bribing police. The bank accounts of his sister-in-law, his mother and wife reportedly were filled with ―huge sums of money‖ as well. Following the arrest, AMLO and the police seized assets worth one billion baht including a traditional wooden house valued at 100 million baht, 18 cars, and more than 200 ten-wheel trucks (Ibid.). In a Sept 17th press conference, AMLO secretary-general Pol Col Peerapan Prempooti, announced that the house complex (containing twenty-one Thai-style wooden houses and considered to be the world's largest traditional Thai house complex) was to be given to Lampang provincial authorities. The Lampang Governor said a private company would manage the complex, which was likely to be developed as a tourist attraction (Somsak 18 Sept 2003). In a similar raid in November, a hundred person anti-drug squad raided the home of Soodjai Boonman in Pak Tho district. There, they seized 50 million baht worth of assets ―suspected of being obtained with illegal income‖ (Bangkok Post 28 Nov 2003). These included 10 ten-wheel trucks, two pick-up trucks, a BMW sedan, cattle, gold necklaces and a mansion. These massive asset seizures preceded by spectacular police raids were local enactments of wider national reward systems for drug arrests. The drug reward system bonuses created for the anti-drug campaign were also increased for a number of highprofile seizures. In one case, in Tak province, forty-three sacks of yaa baa were found on the Thai side of the Moei River in Mae Sot district. The territory across the river was controlled by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), an armed militia controlled by the Burmese military. This ten million pill seizure was rewarded with a thirty million
236 baht bonus on top of the five million baht payment given through the ―5 baht per pill‖ reward system (Nation 12 Oct 2003). When PM Thaksin flew to Tak inspect the haul, more than one hundred anti-narcotics officials split the reward. Thaksin attributed the stash to a Wa splinter group from within Burma, ignoring its proximity to juntacontrolled DKBA territory. According to the government, the reason the pills were found on the Thai side of the river bank was that, ―the drugs might have been moved across the river to evade an inspection by Burmese military‖ (Ibid.). An equally plausible explanation would be that the Burmese military simply dropped the pills off through their intermediary, the DKBA, where they were promptly picked up by Thai border patrol police couriers. The ―reward‖ payment to Thai narcotics police was made in public in PM Thaksin‘s ―inspection‖ ceremony. This seizure was, after all, the largest since February‘s declaration of war and demanded an appropriate celebration. During his appearance, Thaksin told the crowd of police officers and press, ―Drug gangs from across the border might try to flood the market, because they expect a lapse in border security in view of the upcoming APEC meeting. The seizure has proven them wrong‖ (Ibid.). This was an important statement, directly linking the rituals of drug suppression with the massive APEC state order rituals that followed. With so much reward money offered by the government, faked reports and seizures seemed inevitable. Conveniently, for drug war planners, it wasn‘t until July 2004 that the Narcotics Control Board reported falsified 43 drug seizures in Metropolitan Police Bureau Division 5. The office demanded the return of its 3.6 million baht reward payout when, according to NCB litigation chief Supap Suangtho, ―The scam broke after
237 the audit of 43 drug bust reports‖ (Nation 7 Jul 2004). In one of these cases, Metropolitan officers received a reward payout for a high-profile drug seizure of 200,000 methamphetamine pills in which the suspected drug trafficker, Tee Klongtoei, was killed by police during the raid. The officers then filed and received a second round of payouts on the same raid and seizure, noting again that Tee was shot dead in the raid. Former Division 5 officer Colonel Thassanai Sirisonthi, who was in charge of drug suppression in 2003, filed a complaint that his signature was faked in the payout of the rewards only after NCB declared the cases fraudulent. The accused officers denied the charges, choosing to blame ―a policewoman whose initial was ‗J‘,‖ who handled all the reward paperwork (Ibid.). Despite these faked reward payouts (hidden from the public at the time), the drug campaign and its public police reward ceremonies provided the justification for increases in secret budgets of other government suppression campaigns as well. In September, the Bangkok Post ran an article, ―B30 million set aside for secret war‖ (Pradit 17 Sept 2003). This article detailed how Thaksin‘s cabinet ordered the anti-narcotics committee to set aside thirty million baht from its 2003 budget for secret operations against ―the underworld‖ (in Thai, ―people with influence‖). Earlier, Thaksin expanded the enemies of the anti-narcotics committee, headed by Deputy Premier Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, to include organized crime as well as drugs. These ―influential persons‖ figured prominently in the War on Dark Influences, and now could be used as the reason to devote large amounts of the anti-drug budget to secret operations. Like Thaksin‘s APEC references, this is an important link between the two three-month campaigns, a link that was not made public until several months after their supposed conclusion. The thirty
238 million was supposed to be primarily spent on intelligence gathering ―to facilitate resolute suppression later‖ (Ibid.). Fifteen ―criminal types‖ (Siegel 1998) were targeted in this effort, …drug gangs; those who rig bidding contests for state projects; extortionists who victimise public transport drivers; extortionists who cash in on factories, shops and enterprises; gangs that smuggle in goods like fuel oil, palm oil, cigarettes, and liquor; operators of gambling dens, football gambling, underground lottery, gambling machines; prostitution gangs; human smugglers; crooked job brokers; tourist swindlers; gunmen; violent debt collectors; illegal arms traders; public land encroachers and exploiters of natural resources; and extortionists who run unauthorised operations on streets and public land (Pradit 17 Sept 2003). Along with the expanded state enemies, jurisdiction and budget, the bureaucracy of the anti-narcotics committee was also expanded and nine new sub-committees were created. Five sub-committees were set up for centralizing intelligence in each province. Gen. Chavalit, Defence Minister Gen. Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya and Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha each headed one of the sub-panels. Four sub-panels were to suppress human trafficking, tourist scam operations, labor export frauds, and ―other missions.‖ Like the ―secret war‖ described in the title of the article, the nature of these missions was left to the public imagination.
Consolidation of border trade and demonization of ―tribal‖ enemies Thus, drug suppression efforts underwent rhetorical and operational intensification in the interim months between the various preliminary drug war declarations of victory and the final victory declaration. These intensifications occurred especially in the border regions of Northern Thailand. A conversation with a tour company driver in early August revealed that the operations occurred as far south as Chiang Mai. The driver noted a special police unit operating on Sankampaeng Road, a road connecting the Thai-
239 Burma border with a reputation as a drug supply route. ―Police are really busy because of the drug suppression campaign,‖ he said. The intensification of operations in Northern Thailand and on the border was obvious to anyone familiar with the local patterns of trafficking and suppression. The driver said, ―People who live on that road have been hearing gun shots almost every night‖ (Interview 10 Aug 2003). In August 2003, nine Wa militia members were killed in a shootout with Thai border police in Huay Sala Village in Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district. A half-hour gun battle occurred at 5:30am after undercover police staged a deal with smugglers to deliver one million pills for 16 million baht (Nation 21 Aug 2003). Pol Lt Col Anurak Sutsom of Border Patrol Police Region 3, said that Thai police were fired on by Wa militia members while police waited for the delivery of the 500,000 pills. Nine militia members were killed during the subsequent gunfight. Thaksin immediately used the opportunity to threaten to conduct Thai military operations within Burma to destroy drug production facilities (Ibid.). He specifically cited pill factories within twenty kilometers of the Thai border. Thai-Burmese relations regarding Wa (pro-Rangoon) production of methamphetamine were tense since a Thai offensive against the Wa in May 2002. During that time, former army chief and current PM General Surayudh Chulanont approved Thai military raids of Wa positions along the border. Subsequently, Surayudh was transferred in the annual re-shuffle by Thaksin who said that the troops had ―overreacted.‖ Reversing this earlier position, the day after the August border clash, Thaksin threatened that if Burma didn‘t do something about the Wa trafficking, ―the Thai government would deal with the issue itself.‖ Thaksin then announced that Thai border
240 security forces would now have ―shoot to kill‖ orders when encountering Burmese drug traffickers within Thailand. Thaksin reportedly also wrote a letter of complaint to Lt-Gen Khin Kyunt, first secretary of Burma‘s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), asking for more Burmese involvement in drug suppression. Lt-Gen Khin Kyunt immediately responded by arresting Chang Lin Lieng, 25, a ―drug baron‖ of the Kokang hill tribe along with seven other Kokang people who reportedly shipped the pills seized within Thailand on August 22nd. With this arrest, the SPDC included information that the Kokang tribe‘s drug production base was in Lao Tai, in northern Burma. The Burmese military emphasized that the Kokang produced drugs in northern Burma, not within Thailand, and that Wa soldiers were hired to deliver the drugs to Thailand. Thus, the junta contended that the drugs were not produced by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), but by Kokang tribesmen. In this SPDC peace offering, a merchant‘s substitution worthy of King Minos,
Figure 39: ―Bodies of suspected drug traffickers lie on the road beside the car they were travelling in.‖ Photo: Subin Khunenkaew
a small group of structurally-vulnerable ―tribesmen‖ were offered in the place of the estimated 20,000-strong politically and militarily-useful UWSA. Thai Police DG Sant said, ―They also admitted there still were drug plants and storage points along the border run by unruly Wa soldiers who were bucking the orders of their superiors. Burma told us we could get rid of these soldiers on sight and they would do likewise.‖
241 With these new ―shoot to kill‖ orders in place on both sides of the border, within days more gun battles between the now-expendable low-ranking courier teams of Wa militia and Border Patrol Police occurred throughout the Northern and Western provinces. In one case, drug suppression police attempted to stop and search a Honda near Mae Sa waterfall in Mae Rim district (Subin & Wassana 25 Aug 2003). When the Honda did not stop, a car chase to Chiang Mai ensued which ended when the Honda skidded off Chiang Mai‘s ring road and rammed into the Thanawan housing estate security fence. Three men left the car and fired on pursuing police with AK-47s. After a twenty-minute gun battle, all three were killed. Police found five military backpacks in the vehicle‘s trunk containing about 500,000 yaa baa pills, another AK-47 rifle and, conveniently, two UWSA uniforms. DG Sant said that two of the dead Wa soldiers were captains, specifically mentioning that none of the men were Thai (Ibid.). The ―tribal‖ non-Thai nature of drug traffickers was showcased in the many press accounts that followed. An article bearing a title reminiscent of the Vietnam War era, ―Special Force Units to Scour Tribal Hamlets,‖ discussed the declaration of a three-week special forces operation by two units of the Pha Muang task force at border villages in Chiang Rai (Subin 9 Sept 2003). The commander of the task force, Maj. Gen. Manas Paolik, said drug traffickers were using border villages to take shelter, particularly in Muser tribal villages. He claimed that the after the Thai crackdown, there were fewer Thais involved in drug trafficking. With the non-Thai tribal nature of the drug enemies established, more deaths in drug suppression operations were easily justified. In a pre-dawn sting operation on September 8th, Yutachai Sae-sim, 39, was killed by a joint military-police squad when he
242 attempted to sell 2 million methamphetamine pills to undercover narcotics agents (Wiwatchai 9 Sept 2003). Yutachai was touted as ―kin‖ of a senior UWSA commander Wei Hsueh-kang because the ONCB claims he is the adopted son of Wei's younger brother, Wei Hsueh-long. Wei Hsueh-kang was convicted in absentia by a US Federal Court for heroin trafficking, and the DEA continues to offer a US $2-million (Bt81.5million) reward for information leading to his capture. Sources within the Thai Army claimed that said Yutachai owned several front companies in order to import precursor chemicals from China for methamphetamines and heroin labs around Burma's Shan State. Thus, Yutachai had business connections to the UWSA and several Kokang-Chinese drug lords, including Kokang People's Liberation Army founders Pheung Kya-shin and Kya-fu (Ibid.).51 The Kokang were not the only hill tribe group to be implicated as a target in drug suppression efforts. In August, Chinese Haw groups were also particularly demonized as a dangerous ethnic minority. In yet another August police sting operation involving three Chinese Haw ―gang members,‖ a shootout occurred in a deserted building of Bang Mot hospital, in the Chiang Mai provincial town of Chom Thong. Police set up a buy there for 160,000 methamphetamine pills. The three men ―resisted arrest‖ and were killed by police officers (Manop 29 Aug 2003). The same day as this typical drug sting, the governor of Mae Hong Son met with residents and leaders of Ban Rak Thai, a Chinese Haw village in Mae Hong Son province. He threatened to revoke Thai citizenship of anyone involved in the drug trade. This threat was specifically directed at Chinese minority people and was in response to a joint military/BPP seizure of 1.4 million speed
51
Shortly after the KPLA was founded the in 1968 it was merged with the now defunct Communist Party of Burma.
243 pills which were found in a jungle near the village. Earlier, another million yaa baa pills were seized from the village. Police attributed the drugs to Kokang smugglers (Bangkok Post 29 Aug 2003). A Bangkok Post editorial two days later implicated the UWSA and ―various Wa, Shan, Kachin and Kokang groups‖ who ―continuously target and bombard Thailand with their products.‖ The editorial cited army sources who claim that drug dealers had a one billion baht pill sales goal for Thailand in 2003, and promoted a UN-approved ―name and shame‖ policy for exposing and identifying drug traffickers. The article laments how Thai state officials rarely implicate drug traffickers within Thailand by name. For example, Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana told the media in June that he was going to tell Thai authorities (presumably AMLO) to speed up the asset freezing of 18 suspected drug ―kingpins.‖ However, Pongthep refused to name any of these suspects, continuing the condition of anonymity for major drug traffickers within Thailand. The editorial then uses (presumably) United States‘ lists of drug traffickers to implicate Wa leaders, Burmese traffickers in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (with Kokang Chinese), the Eastern Shan State Army, the Kachin Defence Army as well as ―a well-connected businessman and alleged money launderer of the Olympic Construction Company and Asia Wealth Bank‖ by name. The editor concludes that in Thailand, ―drug traffickers are free and, arguably, protected in many ways by the government policy that keeps them anonymous‖ (Bangkok Post 31 Aug 2003).
Final Countdown: “Sixty Days for His Majesty the King” As the intensification of violent border shootings indicates, over the course of 2003, the violence of the War on Drugs created a escalating police culture of excessive force. In September, a Metropolitan police officer killed a 40-year-old man on a
244 pedestrian bridge on Bangkok‘s Sathorn Road. The incident occurred when a Metropolitan Police Division 8 squad was patrolling the area after a series of pedestrian bridge muggings near Srinakharinwirot University's Prasarnmit campus. Prophetically, new banners for the then-upcoming October APEC Figure 40: ―City workers remove a signboard publicising next month's Apec meeting from a pedestrian bridge on Sathorn road yesterday. Large signboards are believed to provide screening for muggers, eneblingthem to attack victims on pedestrian bridges without being noticed.‖ Photo: Vinai Dithajohnepa
meetings provided concealment for the pedestrian bridge muggings. Commissioner Wasant Panich of the
Thai Human Rights Commission publicly questioned the incident along with forensic expert Khunying Pornthip Rojananan who said ―it was known police sometimes covered up or fabricated evidence‖ (Ibid.). On September 11th, 2003 the Thai government announced that the final twomonth drive for a ―drug-free‖ nation would begin in October. Narcotics Control Board secretary-general Pol. Lt-Gen. Chidchai Wannasathit that narcotics suppression during this final countdown would be ―intense‖ (Temsak 11 Sept 2003). During this announcement, the temporal ‗logic‘ of the state‘s drug campaign was finally described, ―The first stage of the government's war on drugs ran from Feb 1 to April 30, and focused on law enforcement and rehabilitation of addicts. The second stage, from May 1-Oct 2, concentrated on strategic adjustment. The final 60 days was the countdown to Dec 2.‖ Chidchai assured the press and public that, ―the problem was no longer as serious and methamphetamine pills were now expensive and in short supply (Ibid.).
245 While officially announcing this sixty day countdown, PM Thaksin returned to the intentionally naïve rhetoric of the earlier stages of the campaign when he again said that ―every square inch‖ of Thailand would be scrutinized. In this surreally inaccurate address, Thaksin claimed that ―remaining drug dealers and traffickers had to be brought to justice‖ (Anucha 2 Oct 2003). Progress in the campaign neatly coincided with state plans. According to Thaksin, ―Although only 20% of the drug problem remains, this mission will not be easy for the authorities.‖ He reiterated that state agents would have to perform as dictated, ―Those who performance (sic.) well will be rewarded. Those who do badly will be punished‖ (Ibid.). The countdown was given a name, ―Sixty Days for His Majesty the King.‖ In this way, Thai media who reproduced this state-mandated title linked the final campaign to the monarchy. The countdown would end on Dec. 3rd, two days before the King's birthday on Dec. 5th. Accompanying the countdown, more antidrug posters appeared in buildings and public areas throughout Bangkok. Unlike the images of death, violence and chaos depicted in anti-drug posters discussed previously in this section, these posters emphasized national unity. They depicted officers of Thailand‘s military and police waving a Thai flag and standing on top of burning yaa baa pills. The poster‘s caption read, ―Do not think about, sell or be involved in drugs. Everyone should realize this is what the nation wants‖ (Fig. 41, 13 Sept 2003).
Figure 41: An anti-drug poster at a BTS elevated train station.
246 Beyond its message of nationalism and conformity, the irony of the image is that it depicts the nation‘s preferred method of smoking yaa baa: the poster‘s state agents would no doubt be inhaling copious ATS fumes from the giant burning pills. During the sixty day ―final countdown‖ period, the inevitable cycle of commodity-based competition between government and drug producers continued.
In
October, a 68-year-old woman and her cousin were arrested at their home in Ayuthaya with 1,996 methamphetamine pills. One half of these were typical orange-colored pills, but the other half were the new odorless, dark-purple version. The woman told police and the press that drug suppliers were switching to this new pill because they would be harder for police to detect (Nation 13 Oct 2003b). She said that the new pills sold at 100 baht each and that, ―my supplier said it [the pill] would counter the government‘s new campaign against drugs, and it has attracted huge interest from my customers‖ (Ibid.). These comments, along with the title of the article, ―Odourless answer to second round of anti-drug offensive,‖ show an interesting direct competition between the governments‘ highly publicized campaign benchmarks and drug suppliers‘ strategies. In October, the foreign minister of Thailand informed the US State Department that 2,593 homicide cases occurred in the country since the previous February, roughly double the normal level of about 400 homicides per month. This report, of course, did not stop the US from increasing aid for drug suppression. The previous month, the United States pledged and additional increase in aid of US$7.4 million (294 million baht) for anti-drug operations (Bhanravee 23 Sept 2003). This aid was pledged in a pact signed by US ambassador Darryl Johnson and Pradap Phibunsonggram, director-general of the Department of Technical and Economic Cooperation. In the agreement, $1.6 million was
247 earmarked specifically for drug law enforcement, $800,000 for operations against human trafficking and the remainder for ―tackling demand for drugs, measures against money laundering and intellectual property rights crimes, opium poppy crop control, regional drug and crime control cooperation, an international law enforcement academy, measures against corruption and a special investigation department‖ (Ibid.). Thus, despite the supposed US concern of human rights abuses during the drug campaign, anti-drug aid and law enforcement cooperation with Thailand continued to expand. Within one year, US ―concern‖ for human rights abuses in the Thai drug suppression campaign vanished completely, and the United States officially removed Thailand from its list of major drug-transit or major illicit drug producing countries (Don 18 Sept 2004). Thailand was removed from the list of twenty-two countries52 because, according to the US statement, it ―can no longer be said to be a significant direct source of illicit narcotic or psychotropic drugs or other controlled substances significantly affecting the United States and Thailand is no longer a country through which such drugs or substances are being transported to the United States‖ (Nation 20 Sept 2004). This report is an excellent example of how, for the purposes of US-Thai political and economic relations, Thailand‘s domestic drug consumption problem and its is not an issue of concern. Adding to these statistical manipulations and outright deceptions, Defense Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhya returned from a November meeting in Rangoon proudly announcing that ―Burma backs Thailand's war on drugs‖ (Sermsuk 29 Nov 2003). In Thammarak‘s meeting with the SPDC, Burmese head of state, Than 52
Included on the US list of major transit and/or production countries: Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela and Vietnam (Don 18 Sept 2004).
248 Shwe, blamed ―some Burmese ethnic groups‖ for the trafficking of drugs at the ThaiBurmese border. Although he did not mention the group specifically, he seemed to be referring to the UWSA. Defense Minister Thammarak stated, ―Gen. Than Shwe said Burma had suffered many casualties from its decades-long drug fight…from now on we will walk hand-in-hand to tackle the problem.‖ Tellingly, the drug war was to be fought with the goal of transforming border areas into peaceful areas for development. One Burmese general said, ―one day we could see new era of economic development in the border area once the fighting ends‖ (Ibid.). With these new developments heralding Burmese-Thai security cooperation, the countdown continued.
An interview with “Dr. Death” (Khunying Phorntip) Just only the superficial…It‟s a problem of the system in Thailand. Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand (Interview Nov 2003) In November 2003, during the final sixty-day countdown, Picha and I went to the to the Forensic Science Institute (FSI) in Bangkok to interview Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunand. Pornthip is a forensic pathologist,who works as the acting deputy director of FSI within the Thai Ministry of Justice. This structural position within the Thai bureaucracy allows the FSI to conduct investigations independently of, and often in opposition to, the Royal Thai Police‘s Office of Forensic Science. As the author of a number of popular books, an outspoken human rights activist, Pornthip is a Thai celebrity with an honorary royal title and a flamboyant appearance. Perhaps because of these latter factors, she came to the attention of the international media, most recently in her efforts to identify victims of the 2004 tsunami (Goodnough 16 Jan 2005; O'Donnell 5 Jan 2005). A New York Times article is a typical example of this lurid coverage: If the body on the stainless steel table inside had somehow awakened for a moment, it might have jumped, too, with shock. Bending over it,
249 with hungry fascination, was a woman whose head was covered with dark red spikes, whose lips were the color of dried blood, whose gloved fingernails, as she prepared to slice the body open, were encrusted with spangles. Or perhaps the body would have said, as a dying accident victim once did, ―Oh, hello, Dr. Death.‖ Once someone has seen Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand, 47, the country's most famous pathologist, on television or on the cover of one of her bestselling books, it is impossible to forget her. She may be the strangest looking woman in Thailand. Outlandish outfits. Platform shoes. Hair that seems to say, ''Surprise!'' in orange, rust, scarlet, mauve, chestnut. And, most unnerving, an absolutely straight face. But Dr. Pornthip has earned her nickname not only through her flamboyance -- and this is not a nation of flamboyant people -- but also through her professional innovations and her straight talk about crime and social issues. (Mydans 13 Apr 2002) The Forensic Science Institute occupies a portion of the Ministry of Justice building. Inside, a support staff composed almost entirely of women wear tailored jumpsuits and jackets reading ―FSI‖ in embroidered yellow. As this fashionable staff worked feverishly and office phones rang ceaselessly, I asked Dr. Porntip about extra-judicial killings. She said, When (FSI) started last year, no cases of extra-judicial killings came to our institute…but in February of this year, or maybe in January, there were a lot of death by shooting cases dealing with drugs. There were many cases in only one area of the police station in Phatumthani – every night, at the same place. And when I went to the crime scene I saw a lot of…‗decorations‘ – something changed – not in the real place, maybe the gun or maybe the drug packages. After that I told one of the chiefs of police that I want the police to move all of the cases out of my area because I have to tell the truth to the public. And after that the extrajudicial killing cases disappeared (interview Nov 2007) ―In a lot of those cases,‖ I said, ―bodies were typically found with usually two hundred methamphetamine pills…almost specifically. Is there a significance for this
250 number? Is it linked to a particular drug possession law or is there a reason why…it seems like possible evidence tampering or planting of evidence…‖ ―I don‘t know about the number of drugs,‖ she answered, ―but I…saw something ‗arranged‘ with the drug packages, or the guns, or the position of the bodies – someone moved (these pieces of evidence).‖ I asked, ―…out of the more than two thousand people killed during that campaign, how many do you think were killed extra-judicially?‖ ―I don‘t know,‖ she said. ―I don‘t know the exact number…out of the cases nearly two thousand cases - they are not really extra-judicial killings by the police. It‘s a murder…something like murder, but dealing with drugs. So the question is whether the police are behind these cases.‖ ―You were indicating in one of your books that the people responsible for the campaign – police, prosecutors, lawyers, judges – are possibly the same people involved in drug trafficking themselves,‖ I said. ―Do you have specific examples of what led you to believe that that is the case?‖ ―In one series,‖ she said, ―the first case involves local people. On the second day it‘s the motorcycle-taxi driver, and on the third day the owner of the motorcycle team. It‘s serial. Many cases are serial cases. Not a serial murder, but the series of the people in the same place.‖ ―The drug campaign is going to be declared over in December. Is there any source that you would recommend to find out more about the drug suppression campaign?‖ I asked.
251 ―I don‘t think that you will be able to find anyone because no one tried to talk about this after February…‖ she said. I asked, ―During the (drug suppression) campaign were there any cases that came to your office that were directly linked to the campaign, or did your office stop receiving requests?‖ ―…There were no cases from this campaign (where agencies) wanted our institute to investigate….‖ She said, indicating the shroud of state secrecy surrounding the state‘s War on Drugs.
Chaiyo: “Victory” I am proud to be Thai. I would die for my king. Restaurant owner, 2 Dec 2003 (Thaksin) thinks he is a god. Street vendor, 2 Dec 2003 On December 2nd, 2003, Thaksin again declared ―victory‖ in the war on drugs. Thaksin had long planned to declare victory as a ―birthday gift‖ to the King of Thailand, who had expressed his displeasure at Thaksin‘s handling of drug problems in the country in his annual birthday speech on December 3rd, 2002. The subsequent victory ritual was televised on stateowned Channel 11, and included a ceremony involving 70,000 government officials and citizens at the Royal Plaza. At this massive spectacle, after Thaksin
Figure 42: ―Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra holds the national flag high as he walks past thousands of people gathering at the Royal Plaza to witness the government's declaration of victory in the war on drugs…‖ Photo: Sarot Meksophawannakul
252 paraded to the podium with an impossibly large Thai flag, he presented 112 cash awards to agencies and officials who participated in the campaign. ―Effective‖ agencies received 200,000 baht, 100,000 baht or 50,000 baht, depending on their performance and commitment to winning the campaign. ―Outstanding‖ awards went to the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, the Third Army‘s anti-drug center, the Provincial Administration Department's anti-drug center, the Thanyarak Institute, the Interior Ministry's anti-drugs center, and the Revenue Department. The Government Lottery Office, the Narcotics Control Board, the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Internal Security Operations Command, and the ―To Be Number One‖ project53 were given awards as well. Thaksin also presented payouts to sixty-seven individuals, including officials injured in the course of drug suppression (awarded 50,000 baht) and children of those killed in the campaign (awarded 100,000 baht). Contradicting the stated goal in the verbal rhetoric of the campaign, he said that, while drugs have not disappeared, ―[w]e are now in a position to declare that drugs, which formerly were a big danger to our nation, can no longer hurt us‖ (Nation 2 Dec 2003). In a USA Today-style infographic entitled ―Mission Accomplished‖ accompanying the Bangkok Post‟s coverage of the victory ritual, curious statistics emerge. First, the ―target number‖ of state officials involved in drugs, 1,257 is the exact number listed as the ―operational result,‖ a convenient fulfillment of strangely exact state goals. This phenomena is also evident in the number of ―ex-producers and dealers giving up drug dealing,‖ with a projected initial target of 31,220 and an operational result of 31,224 (details and descriptions of the unlucky extra four were not available). Second, the ―operational result‖ of ―drug addicts going through rehabilitation‖ was more than one 53
This anti-drug project associated with Princess Ubolratana had 21 million members at this time.
253
hundred thousand people over the projected target, numbers which perhaps are meant to be received as compassionate overkill from a state under scrutiny for the approximate 2,300 ―suspects killed in connection with drugs.‖ During the ―victory‖ ceremony, yet another (third), ten-month phase of the drug war was announced. Thaksin also predicted victory in his new anti-poverty campaign which Thai-language newpapers characterized as kui fung or ―bragging‖ (4 Dec 2003b). In his speech, Thaksin declared, ―anyone who fails to cooperate will be regarded as an enemy of Thailand.‖ These comments were directed both at Figure 43: Thakisin at the Drug War "victory" ceremony, 2 December 2003
neighboring countries as well as citizens. He
254 reiterated that any state official or citizen involved in the drug trade would be regarded as a public enemy (Nation 4 Dec 2003). ―State officials or other people who conspire with drug traders are regarded as enemies of the nation. I am ready to get rid of them by any means‖ (Bangkok Post 4 Dec 2003). In addition to these militarized depictions of ―enemies,‖ he also used medical metaphors to depict this threat, ―Like our body‘s immunity, if we're weak, germs will regenerate and return to attack us.‖ Along with these threats, the ―unity and determination‖ of the Thai people and their devotion to the monarchy was stressed. Thaksin directly made reference to the opening ceremony of the campaign, ―On January 31, we gathered at this plaza to declare the war against drugs after we heard about His Majesty‘s concern over the prevalence of drugs in Thailand‖ (Ibid.). Throughout the victory declaration, Thaksin made reference to the king, saying that later that day he would formally tell His Majesty the King that the cause of his concern was gone. The campaign was successful, he said, because of the king‘s merit and the public‘s loyalty to the king. ―We have joined forces to fight for our King,‖ Thaksin proclaimed (Bangkok Post 4 Dec 2003). As with previous national displays, the victory ceremony in Royal Plaza occurred simultaneously with similar ceremonies throughout Thailand, which were chaired by provincial governors. Ten million people in other cities of Thailand held simultaneous ceremonies, and the day was recorded as one of Thailand‘s ―historical days.‖ Loyalty and
Figure 44: ―Governor Samak Sundaravej adds his signature to a cloth containing 20,000 other names of people who vow to unite to eradicate drugs, at the city hall yesterday.‖ Photo: Jetjaras Na Ranong
255 national unity was thus ritually stressed, amplified by press accounts. In a statement echoing their rumored origins as part of the US intelligence apparatus, the Bangkok Post claimed that this victory ―was made possible by the people‘s contribution of physical and spiritual forces, and even their lives, to protect their society‖ (Yuwadee & Supoj 2 Dec 2003). During these ceremonies and the press events surrounding them, the informationgathering capacity of the Thai state was celebrated. Office of Narcotics Control Board secretary-general Police General Chidchai Vanasatidya noted how more than 40,000 people with drug-trade backgrounds were now registered with his office and pledged to help the government. The expanded powers of AMLO were showcased as well. AMLO secretary-general, Pol. Maj. Gen. Peeraphan Prempooti said, as a result of the campaign, 20,000 people volunteered to become ―spies for the AMLO‖ (Nation 2 Dec 2003). Thailanguage newspapers reported that there were ―99,999‖ AMLO spies who were working together to get rid of ―bad people‖ (kon chua) (ThaiRath 4 Dec 2003a). This government program offered cash rewards to civil spies of up to 15% of the assets seized if the information provided lead to an asset seizure. Unsurprisingly, government officials who provided similar information would receive rewards of 20% of the assets seized. In contrast to the laudatory victory ritual, critics pointed out the campaign‘s ineffective emphasis on supply at the expense of demand. Thai Senator Kaewsan Atibodhi said, ―With a supply-oriented crackdown, the drug scourge could flare up again whenever government officials become tired‖ (Ibid.). Opposition deputy leader, Jurin Laksa-navisit, vocally criticized the campaign as a failure, and said that ecstasy and methamphetamine were still smuggled into the country in huge amounts. He claimed that
256 the government‘s victory was only a ―triumph on the TV screen‖ (Ibid.). He also demanded investigations into the deaths of thousands of people during the anti-drug crackdown, and the evidence that many of them were innocent people without links to the narcotics trade. Jurin said, ―The government must investigate and find out the truth [why these people were killed] or else the issue will remain a black spot on the war on drugs. The campaign with such a spot should not be linked to His Majesty the King in any way.‖ At an address in Ubon Ratchathani, Democrat Party deputy leader Abhisit Vejjajiva echoed these criticisms. Abhisit said that although methamphetamine trafficking was down, transit and use of other drugs was still out of control. He said, ―The victory claimed by the government was just an announcement made through the media. The [drug] problem remains deep-rooted‖ (Nation 4 Dec 2003). Wasant Panich, Thailand‘s human rights commissioner who continued to receive death threats throughout the campaign, issued his agency‘s own sharply critical final report. He said, ―The lists of drug suspects were hastily compiled. The names were put forth at meetings of grassrootslevel authorities and those listed could have easily been subject to a witch-hunt‖ (Bangkok Post 3 Dec 2003). Wasant criticized the lack of oversight or validity of the government blacklists as well as the government‘s obsession with arrest statistics, prompting police to scapegoat the innocent while fabricating evidence. Khlong Toey was just one of the communities where these criticisms were abundantly represented. Sinsamut Prada, 57, head of the community‘s drug rehabilitation center said that while some dealers were forced to leave Khlong Toey temporarily, other dealers were simply storing their supplies elsewhere and planned to resume selling after the declared victory (Manop & Wassayos 3 Dec 2003). Sinsamut
257 said, ―The current situation seems calm, but it is like a sleeping person who is about to wake up. We believe police and officials will let up after the government‘s victory declaration‖ (Ibid.). The police response to these criticisms of the Khlong Toey situation predictably cited arrest statistics to prove the effectiveness of the drug campaign. Tha Rua police chief Pol Col Kasipong Kingsakklang said that 2,022 dealers and users, and 1,053 solvent addicts were arrested between Feb 1st and Dec 1st. Arrests from his station were the largest numbers in Bangkok. In other poor communities in Bangkok, whole families were now imprisoned for drug use and low-level dealing. In a misleadingly-titled article, ―Slum community‘s drug fight pays off,‖ community leader, Banjong Sae-ung, of the Kong Khaya (―Garbage Pile‖) slum in Nong Khaem district, said that local people there were cracking down on drug use over the last two years (Anucha 3 Dec 2003). He said, ―In some cases, both the parents and children are addicts. We have about 100 people behind bars for drug offences. Children whose parents are behind bars have to live with relatives, grandfathers and grandmothers.‖ As part of an ―educational campaign,‖ children were taken to see their relatives in prison, which served community social control in two ways. Banjong explains this ―compassionate‖ state control, ―We take turns visiting them at the prison every week. This makes them feel they are still wanted.‖ In addition, ―the visits also served as a lesson for young people that drugs could make their lives a misery, just as it had hurt their parents‖ (Ibid.). This prison visit program and educational campaign is run by family members themselves, a clear example of the self-policing of the poor. Despite PM Thaksin‘s and Army chief Gen Chaisit‘s insistence that the drug problem was now under control, Gen Wattanachai Chaimuanwong, former head of the
258 Third Army region, in charge of security along the Thai-Burmese border in the North, provided an opposite assessment. He cited how fewer than 50 million speed pills were seized during the campaign in contrast to the estimated production of 700-800 million pills (Wassana 4 Dec 2003). ―Where are the missing hundreds of millions of pills?‖ he asked. Wattanachai said drug trafficking was only reduced in large metropolitan areas where high-profile campaigns were ordered by PM Thaksin. ―In outer areas,‖ he noted, by contrast, ―there are buried speed pills waiting to be smuggled in.‖ The Burmese government, for its part, did not destroy ATS factories within its borders. Gen Wattanachai did not see any evidence to prove that drug production moved out of the northern border region as claimed by the Thai government, and instead cited evidence that UWSA production facilities within the area were still operating. Beyond the public skepticism of certain ex-government officials, the Thai Human Rights Commission, academics, community leaders, and members of the media, there were other demands for explanation of the killings during the drug campaign. One such demand was issued by the king of Thailand himself. In his annual address on the eve of his 76th birthday, the King warned PM Thaksin ―[If] the prime minister is in charge of everything, he has to be responsible for everything, and that means he has to take criticism. [If] one is the only big man, or the only one who gives orders, he will get fingers pointed at him…When newspapers say the government did it the wrong way, or too violently, they must be heeded. Read those newspapers. Let them write. When they criticise, listen to them. Thank them when they said the right thing, or tell them to take it easy when they give wrong criticism‖ (Nation 5 Dec 2003). The address was given at
259 Chitralada Palace where Thaksin sat in the front row, nodding humbly. At the same address in 2001, the King denounced ―intolerance of criticism‖ by people in power.
Figure 45: ―AN OUTPOURING OF DEVOTION: His Majesty the King is seated on Phuttarn Kanchanasinghas Throne in the Grand Palace's Ammarintara Vinichai Throne Hall as HRH Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn reads out a message wishing him well on behalf of the Thai people, during yesterday's royal ceremony to celebrate his 76th birthday.‖ Photo: Royal Household Bureau Note the placement of the image division in this photo, which is preserved as it appeared online. The division is placed directly under the head of the Crown Prince, a bizarre and symbolicallymeaningful choice of layout given the Thai belief that the head is sacred and the feet are profane.
―Lies, damned lies, and statistics‖: The Royal Probe In response to the king‘s address, Pol DG Sant ordered a probe to investigate the 2,500 deaths which occurred between February 1st and April 30th. The investigations were to occur in a period of seven days, perhaps vying for some sort of murder investigation world speed record. From the beginning of the probe, including the king‘s supposedly critical comments, these investigations were apparently not to waiver from the official government narrative. Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchiyudh and other officials continued to claim that of the 2,500 killed, only fifty were killed by
260 officers after resisting arrest and firing first. Chavalit said, ―The rest are ka tad torn, or silence killings‖ (Nation 6 Dec 2003). The day after the king‘s address, Thaksin instructed his bodyguards that he would refuse comments to the press by saying, ―today [the king's birthday] is an auspicious day and he [the PM] does not want to say anything.‖ The probe prompted Deputy Attorney General Prapan Naiyakowit, chairman of a government-appointed panel to investigate the killings, to declare that the committee‘s work was over. According to Prapan, 2,000 of the murders had been ―solved,‖ but all of these were the result of ―silence killings‖ involving drug dealers (Ibid.). By contrast, Narcotics Control Board secretary-general, Pol Gen Chidchai Wannasathit, numbered the drug-related killings at 2,300. He said that the variance, two hundred deaths under original estimates of 2,500, ―was the result of the cessation of official tallies in the middle of the campaign ―due to protests from human rights groups‖ (Wassayos 7 Dec 2003). Pol Gen Chidchai also reported a different amount of ―solved‖ murders, saying that of these 2,300 deaths, 1,300 were proven to be drug-related. This left 1,000 cases uninvestigated, double the number of the government-appointed panel lead by Dep. Attorney General Prapan. In his weekly radio address on Dec. 6th, Thaksin announced the panel investigation and said, ―His Majesty is worried about how we are perceived, so we must explain everything. In fact, we have constantly provided explanations, but the doubts remain…For those still trying to understand, there is no problem, because drugs are harmful to the nation…It is impossible to bring drugs under control without serious action, otherwise the problem would have been solved 20 years ago‖ (Ibid.). Thailand‘s Human Rights Commissioner, Pradit Charoenthaithawee, was quick to point out how the
261 secrecy and state-involvement in the drug campaign made any sort of real investigation nearly impossible. Pradit said, ―We have been asking the police for information, but they always cite ‗state secrets‘ to shut us down‖ (Napanisa & Saowalak 8 Dec 2003). Similarly, Human Rights Commissioner Charan Ditta-apichai noted how only a few of the murder cases ever reached court, included forensic analyses, or autopsies. He also demanded an investigation into the tens of thousands of arrests during the campaign (as many as 91,000), which were based on questionable or non-existent evidence. He said, ―Recently, relatives of a university graduate came to us to complain that he was arrested simply because he has a hilltribe name.‖ He pointed to the 329,000 people on government blacklists as an indication of the haphazard nature of how the War on Drugs was conducted (Wassayos 11 Dec 2003). Finally Charan said that the commission saw a pattern in many of the ―drug-involved‖ shootings: an envelope with a few hundred pills and a handgun was usually found next to the bodies. According to Charan, drug dealers would try to deliver more pills than a few hundred (Ibid.). In addition to these complaints, National Human Rights Commissioner Wasant Panich said that the police investigation focuses only on the 2,500 ―drug-related‖ murders. These numbers, (including the ―judicial killings‖ listed in graphic below), did not include the hundreds of deaths of people on government blacklists with no history of drug dealing (Bangkok Post 8 Dec 2003). That same day, PM Thaksin claimed that only 1,600 deaths of the estimated
262 2,500 people killed were drug-related. Of these, he said that one thousand could have been killed either by police or other drug traffickers. Thaksin said that in the 1,600 killings, some were caused by police, but were ruled by the attorney-general as justifiable extra-judicial killings. He admitted that many of these deaths did not have autopsies performed on them (Yuwadee 9 Dec 2003). The inquiry led to a series of complaints by family members of people who were
killed. One such person was Sunant Uthensut, who owned a family vegetable and meat sales business in Nakhon Ratchasima. During the height of the drug campaign, the Kon Buri district office summoned him to their station by mailing him notification that he was blacklisted on drug suspicions. When he went to the office he participated in a holy water oath-taking ritual saying he would stay free of drugs. A week later on March 14th, his twenty-six year old son Nikom was delivering fresh produce to a local market when a group of men fired on the vehicle he was driving, killing him instantly. The family described their son as ―kind and
Figure 46: ―Sunant Uthensut, 46, holds pictures of his son Nikom, 26, who was killed in March during the government's war on drugs. The man said although no one in his family was ever involved in the drug trade, the police crackdown forced him and his wife Vanida, right, to flee their home in Nakhon Ratchasima.‖ Photo: Boonnarong Bhudhipanya
gentle…a non-smoker and never drank - not even socially - he did not have a girlfriend and still slept in his mother‘s bedroom before he died‖ (Piyanuch 11 Dec 2003). The police said Nikom was killed in another ―silencing murder‖ – other drug dealers killed him to prevent exposing their network.
263 His father countered, ―I have every reason to believe the murder of my son was to augment police achievements in the war on drugs.‖ He suspects that the gunmen were looking for him, and shot his son by mistake because of their physical resemblance. Soon after his son‘s death, Sunant asked police what progress was made into the murder investigation. At which point, ―he was told to watch his step and warned he would meet the same end as his son if he returned home‖ (Ibid.). After receiving these threats, he and his wife fled to Bangkok, and their twenty-year old daughter had to leave the university to run the family business. The family thinks they were on the blacklist as a result of taking out a recent home improvement loan, leading jealous neighbors to suspect that the Uthensut family amassed quick wealth by drug dealing. Sunant said he has official letters from the Justice Ministry and the Narcotics Control Board certifying that he has no background in drug dealing (Ibid.). In addition to stories like these, the National Human Rights Commission received more than thirty similar hand-delivered complaints, mostly from families in provinces outside of Bangkok. In many cases, the complainants were harassed by local police after learning that the families traveled to Bangkok to file their complaints. As a result, the commission sent out investigators to look into the murders. Commission member Wasant Phanit said, ―Some of them were killed in daring attacks amid dozens of witnesses in markets or shopping malls (Nation 12 Dec 2003). Wasant said many of these victims were killed without any evidence linking them to drug dealing, ―We found that this was the case only with suspects who had been killed without witnesses. No drugs were found on suspects who had been killed in front of witnesses. Police failed to arrest the murderers in those cases‖ (Napanisa 13 Dec 2003). The countless asset
264 seizures of the victim‘s belongings, without orders from AMLO or the Narcotics Control Board were also criticized by Wasant who said, ―they seized rice-cookers and refrigerators despite the fact that there was no evidence to suggest that those items were linked to the drug trade‖ (Ibid.). In response to the complaints from the Human Rights Commission, Thaksin said in his weekly radio address, ―We can‘t let innocent people who were mistreated by state authorities continue to suffer and must help them. Those who believe their fathers, husbands or mothers had been unjustly killed under the pretext of extra-judicial killings can simply send petition letters by registered mail directly to me. I will look into all of them‖ (Bangkok Post 14 Dec 2003). However, Thaksin also used this opportunity to threaten anyone filing such a petition. He said that if the victims were found to be involved in drugs that harsher penalties and asset confiscations would be issued. Thus, Thaksin‘s invitation for family petitions, reminiscent of the famous Ramkamheng stele which invited any of the king‘s citizens to ring a court bell with complaints, functioned simultaneously as a veiled threat against further investigation into the murders. The king‘s birthday address represented a similar inversion of popular Thai conceptions regarding the compassionate justice of the monarchy. Following this address, in which the king said that the death toll should be broken down into categories, the figure quoted by Thaksin decreased to 1,600. Police later reduced the number as low as 1,200, cutting their initial and widely-quoted figures (2,900) by more than half (Bangkok Post 13 Dec 2003). On December 15th, the police investigation committee headed by Pol Lt-General Nawin Singhapalit claimed that there were 1,329 drug-related homicides since February 2003, of which 72 were killed by police. The reduction from
265 2,921 to 1,329 happened because the remaining 1,529 were suddenly ―unrelated to drugs‖ (Nation 19 Dec 2003). In an act of statistical acrobatics, the police report highlighted that the seventy-two deaths by police were part of ―only fifty-eight cases of extra-judicial killing,‖ because the seventy-two deaths occurred in fifty-eight separate incidents. Of these incidents, fifteen people were killed by police in twelve incidents ―unrelated to drug suppression‖ (Ibid.). In a follow-up conference on December 19th, Pol. DG Sant released similar figures to Nawin‘s report, but did not provide names or supporting evidence. These omissions, of course, made cross-checking and independent investigation impossible. With the government maintaining strict control of information, Sant promised to update the public every 60 days. Sant‘s numbers further reduced the number of deaths to 2,849 (reduced from 2,921) and again highlighted ―incidents‖ rather than individual number of deaths, reducing the apparent numbers. Sant also claimed that 1,329 deaths were drugrelated, and that 1,422 were unrelated to drugs. Of these unrelated murders, half of them were supposedly solved, with 1,024 suspects arrested (Nation 20 Dec 2003). Sant quickly pointed out how the public should analyze these numbers, ―You can see that drug-related murders were fewer than other cases.‖ He normalized the deaths by pointing to the murder average of 450-500 cases each month in Thailand. Providing further justification, he said, ―I admit that during the war on drugs the number of people killed in drug-related [incidents] rose because we were waging a war and police stepped up their crackdown, prompting the gangs to kill their own members to cut [their] links to them. I anticipated this kind of silent killing even before we started the war‖ (Ibid.). Wassayos Ngamkham of the Bangkok Post apparently agreed with this assessment, ―The extra-
266 judicial killings were justifiable because suspects had a history of dealing in drugs‖ (20 Dec 2003). In yet another death toll reduction, Sant now claimed that there were only 46 cases and 57 dead in extrajudicial killings by police. Intentional confusion resulted between the use of the word ―cases‖ and numbers of people actually killed. One article in The Nation initially cites the figure of 57 people killed by police, but a few paragraphs later reports, ―He said the remainder of the slayings, other than the 46 extrajudicial killings, had not been carried out by police‖ (Nation 20 Dec 2003). He said, ―No police would bring trouble on themselves by killing innocent people. This is because when murders take place, doctors, public prosecutors, Interior Ministry officials and officials from the Scientific Crime Detection Division take part in inspecting the scenes, and police investigators cannot control these officials.‖ This statement is notable since the investigative checks and balances he referred to were not employed in most of the murder scenes during the drug campaign. In the majority of cases, no investigations occurred, or were allowed to occur (Ibid.). Following the release of the ―final‖ drug war tallies, the new 3rd Army commander Lt-Gen Picharnmeth Muangmanee claimed that 3rd Army inspection teams were reporting an 80% decrease in opium plantations in the Northern Provinces (Wassana 21 Dec 2003). This is the area of Thailand routinely claimed by both Thai and US drug agencies to not be producing any opium since the drug wars of the 1980s. Nevertheless, Lt-Gen Picharnmeth touted the new statistics in a press conference, ―This is not only because the military has destroyed more than 4,000 rai of opium fields but also because of the tough anti-drug policy which has scared the hilltribespeople from growing opium
267 poppies.‖ The Third Army had begun its own three-month campaign against drug crops a few days earlier on December 18th. Production in Laos and Burma continued unabated, despite the reduction in Golden Triangle heroin production from eight hundred to six hundred tons per year. Meanwhile, production in Afghanistan increased from 3,400 tons of heroin to 4,000 tons per year in 2003.54 The ―solution‖ to the global production of heroin for area officials remained crop substitution programs. The Doi Tung project in Pauk town in northern Burma was touted as a model of success in this regard. PM Thaksin visited this project on Dec. 26th, 2003. Thus, a shift in focus, and a new campaign of distraction, now re-centered on heroin and opium production after the novelty of methamphetamine suppression grew thin. The day of Thaksin‘s visit to the Burmese crop substitution programs saw the first public appearance of UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang, with 3rd Army commander Lt. Gen Picharnmet at the opening of a Thai-funded hospital. Taking advantage of the renewed focus on opium eradication, Bao insisted that the 20,000 soldiers of the UWSA were not shipping yaa baa into Thailand. Also according to Bao, ―the chemicals required to manufacture methamphetamines were produced abroad and that his people did not have the expertise to control such a trade.‖ He said, instead, he was committed to eradicating opium production in UWSA controlled areas by 2005 (Napanisa & Don 27 Dec 2003). The message from both the Thai 3rd Army commander and his ―enemy,‖ UWSA Commander Bao was clear: we‘re united together on eradicating opium, please stop paying attention to all the methamphetamine crossing our mutual border. Other drugs were now the new menace. This allowed PM Thaksin to engage in a new round of rhetoric and demonization in the new year. On January 9th, 2004, he called 54
1,400 of the 4,000 tons of heroin produced in Afghanistan came from Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
268 a foreign journalist ―idiot scum.‖ The day after, in his weekly radio program cited a recent survey which claimed a 96.5 per cent satisfaction rate with the war on drugs. He said, ―I have summoned narcotics suppression officers, warning them to keep an eye on the smuggling of cocaine by foreigners, particularly those ai mued, literally ‗the dark‘ (Nation 11 Jan 2004). This racially-derogatory term was used strategically and was followed by arrests of African men on cocaine possession charges. A cartoon-like picture of the drug trade was painted by Lt-General Watchara Prasanrajakit, commissioner of the Narcotics Suppression Division: ―African drug smugglers, mostly from Nigeria and Zimbabwe, run garment-export businesses as fronts…They rely on their Thai wives for contacts with local drug dealers and money laundering‖ (Nation 21 Jun 2004b). Promptly after making this statement, two men from Zimbabwe were arrested separately in Bangkok possessing small amounts of cocaine. Unsurprisingly, police and media highlighted they were with two Thai women (Ibid.). In a similar scenario, The Nation reported in the same article, An Iranian man and three Laotians - two of them women - were among the other suspected foreign smugglers arrested. The Iranian was nabbed on Thursday in the Sukhumvit area in possession of 3.6 kilograms of heroin while allegedly handing the drug to a police agent posing as a dealer. Also on Thursday, the three Laotians were arrested in a police sting operation in Mukdahan allegedly in possession of more than 17,000 methamphetamine pills. (Ibid.). Thus, the picture is of foreign drug smugglers dealing cocaine and heroin, using Asian women for logistical support, even though the evidence reveals, in the case of the two Africans, only possessed ―small amounts of cocaine.‖ In the case of the Iranian, the article at first gives the impression that the Iranian man was selling heroin with two Lao
269 women. When the ―evidence‖ is examined, however, the Lao women were arrested possessing yaa baa in an unrelated sting in Mukdahan province rather than Bangkok. Along with new arrests of heroin and cocaine dealers, ketamine arrests began making headlines in January 2004 as well. That month, in the border province of Tak, a Burmese man was arrested by the 4th Infantry Division with 13,000 bottles of ketamine. The drugs were found on a search of a long-tail boat at a pier in Mae Sot district. During the search, two men jumped off the boat and swam ―back to Burma‖ across the river (Nation 19 Jan 2004). Several days later, one of the men was arrested by Thai soldiers after returning to Mae Sot. In a press conference announcing the arrest, the Tak governor said ―the drug, which goes by the name K, was stored in 16 boxes. It has a street value of Bt13 million.‖ Army Commander-in-Chief General Chaiyasit Shinawatra also said at the press conference that ―the soldiers were tipped off about the shipment by Burmese authorities.‖ Underlining and justifying the switch in drug suppression focus from yaa baa, Pitthaya Jinawat, director of the northern office of the Narcotic Control Board, said ―it was time for police to change their drug-suppression strategies. The crackdown on the methamphetamine trade had prompted traffickers to shift to other drugs, including ketamine‖ (Ibid.). In February 2004, the US State Department issued a report stating that Thailand‘s human rights record had ―worsened with regard to extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests.‖ The report stated that ―[t]here was a significant increase in killings of criminal suspects‖ in 2003 and that press reports indicated that ―more than 2,000 alleged drug suspects were killed during confrontations with police during a three-month war on drugs from February to April.‖ Somsri Hananuntasuk, chairperson of Amnesty International
270 Thailand, said the report was not nearly specific enough. She said, ―It's based on secondary sources and is not significant. I don't see how it will help solve the violations‖ (Subhatra & Pravit 28 Feb 2004). In response, on February 27, 2004, Thaksin called the United States an ―annoying friend‖ and ordered what The Nation referred to as ―a second round of the war against drugs‖ (Nation 29 Feb 2004) which resulted in the arrest of 839 people in Bangkok in one day (no details of the arrests were given). Because, Thaksin said, ―Young people might fall prey to drug peddlers during their holidays‖ he announced this new campaign directed at schools in Bangkok and other major cities. The rhetoric of governmentsponsored death was to continue into schools and he urged authorities to ―go for the kill‖ (sam hai tai) against drug networks (Pasuk & Baker 2004:167). The ―Anti Drug Centre‖ was created as a task force by the Basic Education Commission for the government‘s new campaign. This social control strategy is especially deceptive when the stories of the hundreds of children orphaned by the drug war began revealing that war‘s intentionally hidden costs. In one district, Thali in Loei province, one in eight children (31 out of 238 Grade 1-9 students) were orphaned by drug murders (Nation 21 Jun 2004a). A school teacher there said, ―Some children have become very hard in their personalities after losing their parents…Some witnessed their parents being shot dead in drug-related violence‖ (Ibid.). Although the article in The Nation said that these children‘s‘ parents died in ―drug-related incidents,‖ clearly, many were killed in 2003 as well as in the drug war‘s historical precedents.
271 Two days later, a story by Kamol Sukin revealed the details of more than a decade of violent drug suppression strategies in the Thaili district of Loei, a province best known for its masked parade of pii thaa khon, an agricultural fertility festival. The district is a transit point for yaa baa due to its proximity to the Mekhong river bordering Laos and its connection to other underground economies such as timber, marijuana and automobiles. A local teacher, Rampai Kakaew, explained the drug‘s popularity from the early to late 1990s, ―People from 11 year-old kids to 60 year-old grandmas deal within the yabaa cycle. Some are addicted to it, some sell it and many take and sell it…Yabaa trading was done openly at that time. Dealers would show (drug) money proudly in the fresh market. At weddings and community fairs, the drug was given to participants to make them keep on dancing all night long.‖ Another teacher, Panjaphol Jampanil said, ―Mothers give it to their kids so the boy can help sell it, like it was a family business.‖ One local source explained, ―the drug comes from the North and is transferred through Uttaradit before being sent to Laos, then back to Thali before distribution to nearby provinces and Bangkok‖ (Kamol 23 Jun 2004). The source also said, ―Eight years ago the police launched a series of tough suppressive measures in the area, and there were some homicides…neither police nor those in the drug circle were the killers and murderers were never caught.‖ A teacher in the district revealed that the deaths were the result of government-hired gunmen and described the atmosphere of fear created by the government drug crackdown in the area in the 1990s. ―The death could happen directly in front of the court…People feared the court, not for fear of testifying. But fear of being killed after walking from court‖ (Ibid.).
272 Another teacher Somsamorn Khanyoo said, ―We were living with fear. Good people could not go out after dark. You could not be sure the people you dealt with were not involved a yabaa circle.‖ Those accused of drug dealing ―were hunted one by one, although on some days police would take in three‖ (Ibid.). In 1997, 22 villagers in the district were killed and more than two hundred were arrested. Samai Kosriwong, a school director said, ―That means we have a total of sixty essentially orphaned students in school now. Twenty-five of them had one or both of their parents killed while the parents of the rest were broken‖ (Ibid.). Given this history of drug violence and secret state killings, it was not surprising that the renewed violent drug suppression campaign was useless in the area. Pol Col Yuttana Palanitisena, deputy commander at the regional police office in Loei said, ―We could efficiently stop yaaba trafficking to nearby provinces and Bangkok, but its spread within the community is difficult to end completely‖ (Ibid.). He described the same situation officials admit on the Burmese border: more than a million tablets stashed on the Lao border as distributors wait to bring them through Thali and other border areas in Loei after state drug suppression displays once again fade in the public imagination.
―The Empire Never Ended‖55: Bungled SWAT Raid at Ayuthaya Despite the futility of this endless cycle, the rhetoric of death and violent government operations continued. At 1am in the morning of July 8th, 2004, fifty officers from the Crime Suppression Division‘s Arintaraj SWAT team surrounded the house of seventy-year-old Nisai Satakurama in Ayuthaya. Inside, Nisai‘s wife, Udom Sutakurama, her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law‘s one-year-old son were asleep.
55
From Valis (Dick 1987)
273 Crime Suppression Division Commander Kosin Hinthao who authorized the raid, but supposedly was not there initially, claimed that the occupants of the house fired first. Udom, a sixty-five year old woman, heard gunfire outside, assumed the house was being robbed, and returned fire with four shots from a pistol. Police outside then fired over two hundred rounds into the house over the space of twenty minutes. Commander Kosin later claimed that these shots were fired to threaten the ―suspect‖ in the house and were not trying to harm its occupants. He said, ―We saw four or five people escape out the back of the house, so we decided to fire back‖ (Nation 8 Jul 2004). Udom claimed the police never announced their intention to raid the house and fired first, ―the trajectory of the bullets came at the level of our heads and bodies, and some of the bullets were shot into the floor.‖ Her husband, Nisai, was shot in the right arm. After the shooting stopped, SWAT teams raided the house and ordered everyone to a central room. Police searched the house and brought in a drug-sniffing dog, but found no drugs or drug production equipment; the object of the raid according to a warrant issued on July 6th (Bancha 15 Jul 2004). The warrant requested that CSD Pol Captain Manoo Sethajinda be allowed to search the house for illegal items or activities and was released at midnight on July 7th, the night of the raid (Nation 22 Jul 2004). On the warrant, the owner of the house was identified as a thirty-year old man ―Kopung,‖ with no last name, not 70-year old Nisai (according to Thai law, if a warrant contains an incorrect name, the search is not authorized). In initial reports, Thaksin‘s Secretary-General Yongyuth Tiyapairat supposedly ―led‖ the raid itself, and he initially claimed he was at the scene. According to Songkhla MP Wirat Kanlayasiri, spokesman for the House committee on justice and human rights, CSD Commander Kosin later insisted that Yongyuth was not
274 present at the raid, contradicting Yongyuth‘s claim that he was there at 8am and Udom‘s claim that he was there at 4am. MP Wirat postulates, ―So, it means Yongyuth lies and Kosin tries to distort the facts in favor of the political sector as well as justifying the police‘s action‖ (Ibid.). According to The Nation, Udom said that at the raid, Secretary-Gen. Yongyuth ―asked her where she got the money to build a big house.‖ She told him it was from a twelve million baht sale of land at Wat Samiannari in 1987 (Nation 8 Jul 2004). Udom was estranged from her son, Army captain, Sorakom Intawattana, but on the morning of the raid, he said, ―At 4am…my sister called me, saying burglars were attacking the house, so I went straight to the home.‖ He said an hour later at 5am, he met CSD Commander Kosin while commandos who were still surrounding the house. He called his parents and told them to let the police search the house. After the search yielded nothing, police removed shell casings, bullets, and a bullet-riddled refrigerator, which some of the family used to shield themselves from incoming automatic weapons fire. Then Capt. Sorakom was taken to a police station in Ayuthaya where he was offered compensation for damages. Sorakom said, ―I cannot accept this. Police accused my mother of being a drug producer and storing war weapons‖ (Ibid.). Sathit said Yongyuth orchestrated the assault based on anonymous information in Thaksin‘s 1-2-3-4 complaints box which was forwarded to Yongyuth (Nation 22 Jul 2004). According to the complaint, ―five people in the house were producing amphetamine tablets, using four machines each with a production capacity of 1,500 tablets a day‖ (Nation 8 Jul 2004). Yongyuth claimed that, the raid was based on a Crime Suppression Division tip from an ex-prisoner who ―said he used to work in the house
275 filling bags with amphetamine tablets‖ (Ibid.). Finally, because the owners of the house knew of the tip-off, the raid was supposedly necessary to protect the informant‘s life. The government response to the bungled raid shows an attempt to create state order through informational control, including the use of deception and relatively savvy media manipulation in the subsequent aftermath. Yongyuth blamed press coverage on the day of the raid, ―Today the movement to discredit working people got worked up. From now on, no one will have the courage to check corruption and public oppression. It is not that I work to earn fame. It is not me. Whenever there is a news leak, work cannot be done effectively. We always use small groups of people and report to the press only when work is completed. We know what we are doing and we do not harass anyone. We want to give morale (sic.) support to working people‖ (Nation 8 Jul 2004). Two days after the raid on his father‘s house, Adisorn Satakurama, who was serving a term in Bangkok Special Prison on a theft offence (not to be confused with the ex-prisoner who supposedly supplied the tip) died of what a police-ordered autopsy ruled was respiratory-system failure. Nissai was not close to his son and saw him only once a half-a-year prior to his death. Nissai did not know his son was in jail until he saw coverage of his death on television. Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana insisted Adisorn died of an immune-system failure, ―Whether he was silenced in prison, I couldn't say: we are still probing to find the truth. But the fact of the matter is he died of disease, and there is proof of that.‖ Kanittha Satakurama, Adisorn‘s sister, said her family asked the Forensic Science Institute to conduct its own autopsy after seeing his body. She said, ―There were several suspicious points. His hip bone seemed to be broken‖ (Piyanuch 11 Jul 2004).
276 The next day, Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunand, deputy director of the Forensic Science Institute conducted a second autopsy and blamed the cause of death on an inflamed wound to his heel, which eventually led to low blood pressure, irregular breathing, a seizure, and respiratory failure. Adisorn‘s mother, Udom, no longer suspected foul play behind her son‘s death, but ―wanted an explanation from the Corrections Department about why the prison failed to treat his wound in a timely manner‖ (Piyanuch 11 Jul 2004). That day, Defence Minister Chetta Thanajaro ordered a probe into the recent transfer of another of Udom‘s sons, Lieutenant Sorakhom Intawat. The day of the raid, Sorakhom was transferred from the Armed Forces Security Centre to the Permanent Secretary for Defence‘s Office (Ibid.). As a result of the raid, Sathit Pitutecha, secretary of the House Justice and Human Rights panel demanded Secretary General Yongyuth‘s resignation. Sathit also wanted police who participated in the raid to be charged with destroying evidence (removing bullets and cartridges). He urged the media, ―Don't let the case become silent like the cases of the 2,500 people who died during the drug crackdown‖ (Nation 22 Jul 2004).56 A week later, CSD Commander Kosin admitted that the police were at fault in the Ayuthaya raid, but only for firing on the house without proper orders. He claimed that the incident wouldn‘t have happened if he commanded the operation (Nation 22 Jul 2004). No explanation was given by Kosin for the numerous media reports that he was at the scene at the early morning raid. After Sept. 14th, when Kosin presented checks for 2.5 million baht to Nissai and Udom Satakurama, Sathit‘s plea to the media to not let the
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Responding to the debacle, acting police DG Sunthorn Saikwan talked tough: ―Police involved will be questioned if they can be charged for attempted murder even though the damaged party has not yet filed a complaint with police‖ (Nation 16 Jul 2003).
277 case go silent failed. The raid was never mentioned again in the press (Nation 15 Sept 2004).
“Warre of every man against every man”: The Endless Drug War When the US removed Thailand from its list of major drug-transit or major illicit drug producing countries in September of 2004 (Don 18 Sept 2004), Thaksin had official confirmation that US ―criticism‖ of his War on Drugs was nothing more than window dressing. The stage was now set for a new campaign, which the Prime Minister chose to declare at a speech in front of 2,000 residents of Din Daeng district in the National Housing Authority flats. Never growing tired of violent diatribes, Thaksin declared yet another ―all-out war‖ on drug dealers from October 2004 to October 2005. He said, ―Nobody will be able to help them if they continue dealing in drugs. If they want to see the Prince of Hell, let me know‖ (Nation 4 Oct 2004). The month that followed resulted in one of the largest yaa baa seizures of the year (Priyakorn 18 Oct 2004). The one million pills found at a house in Bangkok‘s Suan Luang district indicated that speed pills, arrests, and enemies of the state were all limitless. Similarly endless were the continued reports of police involvement in drug trafficking and the official denials of that involvement. When Wichen Puapan was arrested 6 November 2004 with 480,000 methamphetamine tablets, he told police the deal was planned to help a friend in the Special Branch Police (Santibaan) looking for a staged drug seizure and promotion. In return, he was going to get ten million baht from the dealer who would later be arrested. Head of Narcotics Suppression Bureau, Pol LtGeneral Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit dismissed this by saying, ―We had been trailing him before we made the arrest. It‘s clear he was not hired just for this shipment,‖ (Nation 9
278 Nov 2004). These grounds for dismissing Wichen‘s claim that he was delivering drugs on behalf of a Santibaan officer are particularly illogical: the NSB seems to be claiming that because Wichen was delivering drugs to multiple sources, one of these multiple shipments couldn‘t possibly be to a police officer in the Special Branch. This incident offers yet another example of constructing state order through informational control, and could serve as a case study in how state involvement in drug trafficking can be covered up through media-amplified deception. Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said the continued drug war was clearly successful as indicated by Thailand‘s current ratio of ―three drug addicts per 1,000 people.‖ He said, ―But we will work harder to achieve a ratio of one drug addict per 1,000 people.‖ In an interesting moment of déjà vu, he also said that the government planned to declare victory in the war on drugs on 3 December 2004 (Ibid.). In this seemingly inexplicable claim, Chavalit gave no reference to the numerous similar victory declarations of 2003. Thaksin, in his weekly radio address assured listeners that the second round of the drug war was much more successful than the first. He cited familiar ―new‖ statistics as evidence, numbers of addicts, arrests, and seized drugs which represent only a small fraction of their 2003 counterparts (Nation 5 Dec 2004).57 A key part of the new ―success‖ was the public support generated through Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya‘s ―To Be Number One‖ program which 26.5 million people had joined. ―Apart from the project, 3.3 million volunteers are informing the government about drug abuse around country,‖ he said (Ibid.).
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Thaksin declared, ―We found more than 7,000 drug addicts, and 4,000 of them are already receiving treatment. We also arrested more than 2,800 drug dealers and seized assets from 22 of them worth nearly Bt 19 million, and we burnt 3,500 kilograms of drugs‖ (Nation 5 Dec 2004).
279 By comparison and contrast, the prescription drug market in Thailand was operating at record profits, revealing an important aspect of construction of state order through economic and political control. In the legal economy, an alliance of state and private interest assured that a centuries-old state method of acquiring economic and political legitimacy remained profitable. The political economy of state-sanctioned drugs was confirmed in a report from Adisorn Muakpisai, a lecturer at Thammasat University, which indicated a massive alliance between the government and the pharmaceutical industry. For one, Adisorn examined how, even to a greater extent than its US equivalent, most Thai FDA officials worked for drug companies on the side (Sathien 3 Dec 2004). Some worked as advisors to drug companies, making nearly all of the specially appointed sub-committees that propose drugs for approval rubber-stamp processes. He said, many FDA officials also set up other companies which act as agents for companies seeking approval. In addition, when Health Ministry executives retire, they switch to highly-paid consultant jobs with pharmaceutical firms. Furthermore, ―new‖ drugs can easily be registered even though they are clearly copies of established brands. Thai drug companies sponsor medical conferences and recruit ―tame‖ doctors to prescribe their drugs (Ibid.). With legal drug profits soaring, Thaksin continued to service the illusion that the suppression of drugs is effective in preventing drug use and trafficking. Asset seizures through AMLO were highlighted as a way to ―teach drug lords a lesson,‖ along with the threat of state-sanctioned death. In a December 18th press conference, Thaksin reveled in ―the confiscation of ill-gotten wealth‖ from 320 drug cases (totaling Bt2.6 billion). He said, "My government will not allow the illegal drug trade to thrive in Thai society, and
280 traffickers will end up having their drug money taken away before facing capital punishment‖ (Nation 19 Dec 2004). The Prime Minister was also celebrating the Dec. 17th court sanctioned seizure of Laota Saenli's assets. Laota was a former secretary to Shan drug warlord Khun Sa (who died the week of Halloween in 2007), and was working his way through the Thai court system on a variety of heroin and amphetamine trafficking charges. The two million baht seized by AMLO, according to that organization‘s secretary-general, Peeraphan Prempooti, was only a small percentage of Laota‘s assets. Preeraphan said, ―Laota buried most of his money in his home across the border from Chiang Mai, and Burmese authorities could not assist in tracking it down because the location was under the control of a minority group‖ (Ibid.). Preeraphan also parroted government accounts that the ―new‖ drug threat was coming from ethnic minorities from Burma, who had ―replaced‖ Thai couriers due to the effectiveness of the drug wars. He said, ―Because of the suppression campaign, the recruitment for drug couriers has become difficult and drug gangs are turning to the Burmese minorities.‖ The going rate for drug courier jobs from Burma (Preeraphan referred to this as ―the North‖) to Hat Yai was six Baht per pill.
SECTION CONCLUSION: The Inexhaustible Chaos of Drugs Thus, asset seizures were an increasingly profitable way for the Thai state to assert economic dominance. Since the burgeoning powers of AMLO supposedly serve as a deterrent to drug dealers who operate in the same profitable demand-based markets, the drug war asset seizures created another façade of crime ―prevention.‖ The movement of pills and digestible, injectable, smokable chemical escape from the reality of Thaksin‘s Thailand continued to provide an endless excuse for domestic ―war.‖ In a typically
281 bloody day from 2005, three separate incidents resulted in the deaths of nine ―suspects‖ (Nation 2003). These incidents continue to occur to the present day - unceasingly; inexhaustibly; endlessly. Despite coup leaders promise to investigate the drug war deaths, Gen. Surayud‘s panel examined only four of the thousands of cases. Royallybacked martial law appeared to be no solution to the chaos of drugs or their endless suppression. With Thaksin loyalists back in power, in April 2008, the Samak government declared a six-month drug suppression campaign, including a thousandperson blacklist. Interior Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung vowed that the new war on drugs would not infringe on civil liberties. Nevertheless, Chalerm cautioned that people should stay away from drugs: ―If you don't want to die, don‘t walk down that road‖ (AP 2008). This rhetoric of threatened violence deliberately invokes the thousands of 2003‘s extrajudicial drug-related murders, which joined other coercive performances including mass arrests, compulsory rehabilitation, and similar threats of physical force. These performances of violent coercion were one aspect of spectacular ritual display of the drug suppression campaign. The ritualized displays of night club raids, black magic curse ceremonies, mass anti-drug oaths, combined with the drug war deaths to form a state death ritual. This death rite was linked to royal legitimacy with an elaborate ―victory ceremony‖ that temporally tied it first to the queen‘s birthday, and then to the king‘s. Furthermore, the ritual displays of the drug suppression campaign were linked to state assertions of economic dominance through the legalized AMLO asset seizures, which are underwritten by the Egmont group‘s global network of FIUs; the international legitimacy of the UNDCP, DEA, Interpol, etc.‘s global prohibition regimes; and the profits of the
282 criminal justice industrial complex, which are exemplified in Biosensor drug detection technology. These legal economic assertions are reinforced by their illegal equivalents. State-makers who covertly profited in drug trafficking benefited from the Drug War‘s deliberate elimination of competing transit routes and the high-profile arrests of a handful of maverick ―major dealers.‖ Finally, the drug campaign attempted to create state order through informational control, both overtly through the anti-drug public service announcements, billboards, comic books, CDs, and muay thai matches, as well as covertly through nation-wide citizen spy networks and secret blacklists. All of these drug suppression campaign techniques of state order rely on the chaos and disorder resulting from drug prohibition. The illegality of drugs ensures endless cycles of underground traffick, crazed yaa baa addicts and ―tribal‖ drug producers. Furthermore, drug prohibition rationalizes the chaotic violence of the drug deaths themselves, supposedly perpetrated as ―silence killings‖ by the state‘s drug trafficking enemies. Just prior to the 2003 War on Drugs, Thai economists estimated that the total number of pills consumed per year was 188.3 million at a price of 70-80 baht per pill. Following the violent drug campaign, pill prices peaked at approximately 400 baht in 2003 before government pressure waned. Stores of pills cached on the border until after the public ―victory‖ in Thailand‘s War on Drugs were slowly released back into the massive demand-based economy of ATS. The simple supply-focused suppression efforts of Thaksin‘s war caved easily to market pressures. Beginning in 2004, prices lowered continually and, according to ONCB officials in 2006, ―Millions of methamphetamine tablets and thousands of kilograms of other illicit drugs are hidden at locations around the country awaiting distribution by dealers‖ (Praditpong 20 Jun 2006). Drug profits
283 continued unabated after the coup. Thus, even under the velvet glove of royalist military rule, the sound and fury of yet another drug war were muted in the din of massive profits and unquenched demand for ―the crazy drug,‖ yaa baa.
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SECTION III: THE WAR ON DARK INFLUENCES From the Asoke Station BTS train platform, I don‘t remember seeing any of the one hundred fifty odd tourist-oriented businesses in the Sukhumvit Square Night Entertainment complex - mostly bars, go-go clubs, pool halls, and lounges. But I specifically remember the complex‘s absence. One day, a few weeks after my arrival in Thailand, the entire block was simply gone. It was completely leveled at 4:00am one Sunday morning, 26 January 2003. I distinctly remember the rubble-strewn absence in its place, and was amazed that such destruction could occur literally overnight. ―Persons of influence‖ (khon mii itiphon), Thai mafia figures, built it through front companies (Nickel, Sukhumvit Stars, etc.). It was eventually revealed that the same mafia and military-connected interests destroyed it using a crew of hundreds (literally, moonlighting soldiers, police and security guards) with heavy equipment. The operation was extensive, clearly indicating government complicity: generators, welding equipment, towers of lights and a convoy of trucks to carry away massive sections of concrete and steel, escorted without incident through the Bangkok night. Several months later, it was the Sukhumvit Square demolition, and the arrest of Chuwit Kamolvisit which would eventually derail the Prime Minister‘s War on Dark Influences. Through deft media manipulation, Chuwit, the self-described ―sex tycoon,‖ created a media display and spectacle to eclipse the state‘s own.
Chapter 5 - Dark Influence and Massage Parlor Magnates I understood the police. And they understood me. Our relationship was like the body and the coffin. We went together. Silently. But then it started to go mad. Chuwit Kamolvisit (Scott-Clark & Levy 21 Feb 2004).
285 Who are persons with dark influence (“khon mii itthipon”)? These motorcycle bosses? Yes, but…much bigger. Who controls them? Pol. Col. ―Khrueng,‖ Metropolitan Police Bureau (interview Jun 2003)
Thailand’s Covert Netherworld This chapter is primarily informed by McCoy‘s conception of the ―covert netherworld‖: At its core, this covert netherworld is an invisible interstice, within both individual nations and the international system, inhabited by criminal and clandestine actors with both the means and need to operate outside conventional channels. Among all the institutions of modern society, only intelligence agencies and crime syndicates can carry out complex financial or political operations without leaving any visible trace. While the illegality of their commerce forces such syndicates into elaborate concealment of membership, activities, and profits, political necessity dictates that secret services practice a parallel tradecraft of anonymous membership, off-the-shelf financial transactions, and covert operations (McCoy 2006: 2). It is important to provide some historical context for Thailand‘s covert netherworld. On 3 Mar 1949, four former cabinet ministers killed by the Police General Phao Sriyanon‘s ―Knights‖ (asawin) (Thak 1979:48). As Ben Anderson notes, ―it is almost beside the point to ask whether the murders were committed by the state or by private individuals‖ (Anderson 1990:33-48). As political murders give way to vote-buying supposedly ―largely divorced from national political issues‖ (Callahan & McCargo 1996:376-92), it is clearly evident that, as James Ockey writes, ―in Thailand, the current set of political parties and factions has created a system where corruption is an integral part of the political process‖ (1994:251). Finally, in Pasuk and Sangsidh‘s landmark analysis, provincial godfathers or ―jao pho‖ are key actors in Thai cultural, economic, and political structures, making a war against ―persons with influence‖ a paradoxical act of political suicide. Jao pho are described by Pasuk and Sangsidh as ―influential provincial businessmen who may accumulate wealth by legal or illegal means, but who are rich
286 enough and possess sufficient itthiphon (influence) that they may sometimes flaunt the law, or protect others from it‖ (1994). The broader system of patronage, favors, and clientism is intertwined within the ―influential figures‖ model, although it is emically removed from the conceptual systems of most Thais. This system is deeply entrenched in Thai bureaucracy, especially in the military and police. As discussed previously, Thaksin, like nearly all Thai politicians, created a nationwide support network based on patronage and favoritism, and was especially deft at promoting his former police academy classmates to create a postmillennial reincarnation of Phao‘s Knights of the Diamond Ring (described in Chapter 2). However, relying on former academy classmates for a variety of favors and bureaucratic wheel greasing is so widespread in Thai bureaucracy that it is not linked conceptually with influence (itthipon) and the continuum of corruption.58 The esprit de corps of Thailand‘s military and police academies fosters a variety of social obligations and benefits. An interview with a police major with a military background, ―Bonlung,‖ offered insight into the structural similarities between the two bureaucracies. My unit has good relationships with the military because I knew the commander personally: we studied at the same military academy…Most people try to find connections especially from military schools because so many people study from there and are transferred – everywhere you go you can find a friend from the school you studied in. At this point in the interview, a woman came in to bring photos of various police stations and showed him to ask opinions of which ones he liked for an upcoming
58
For example, common euphemisms to describe a ―non-official payment to an official‖ in Thai range from sin nam jai (―gift of good will‖) to kan nam ron nam cha (―tea money‖) to kan khorrapchan (―corruption‖) in a conceptual moral system from ―least severe‖ to ―most severe‖ (Pasuk & Sangsit 1994:135).
287 public relations publication. The wheels of bureaucracy turned as we spoke as Bonlung said, I have to ask in a formal way first – to create paperwork. After that, I can go to my friend privately. Just to remind him ―this is what we need, I already made out the paperwork.‖ Bonlung speculated that connections in the military are better than those in police. For example, he wasn‘t wearing a uniform currently, by the rules he should wear the uniform (2005), but he said he wanted ―to create an easy-going image with the public.‖ It was clear from this conversation that the system of friendship and favoritism was entirely removed from the system of ―dark‖ influence that was the target of Thaksin‘s second three-month campaign of 2003. The recent historical contexts of the War on Dark Influences involve a continual interaction between corruption, ―persons with influence,‖ and the state. For example, as late as the end of January 2003, PM Thaksin supported the creation of a new casino, horse track and amusement park in the popular beach town of Pattaya. This project symbolized a renewed government interest in legalized gambling in Thailand, and an attempt to reap a share of the massive profits of illegal gambling businesses, which reportedly see cash flows of five hundred to eight billion baht within Thailand and an additional 71-84 billion spent by Thais in the casinos of neighboring countries (Klima 2002).59 This spending represents an underground revenue flow that represents nearly forty percent of the local economy, with an additional estimated six to thirteen billion baht being paid to the police in protection fees (Nauvarat 31 Jan 2003). Somchai Khunpluem (a.k.a. Kamnan Poh), the Bang Saen beach mayor in Chon Buri province,
59
Much of this Thai gambling expenditure occurs in casinos just across the border in Cambodia, most of which are owned by Thais.
288 was an important influential backer of the proposed Pattaya projects, was (Ibid.). Kamnan Poh is the father of Sonthaya Khunpluem, the Tourism and Sports Minister who was reportedly pressured to switch allegiance to Thaksin‘s Thai Rak Thai party. Within months of the Pattaya casino announcement, and within weeks of the declaration of the War on Dark Influences, Kamnan Poh was arrested for the murder of Chon Buri kamnan, Prayoon Sitthichote (Bangkok Post 18 Apr 2003). The arrest prompted reports that no less than forty MPs were using their parliamentary status to post the 10 million baht bail to secure Kamnan Poh‘s immediate release (Wassayos & Wassana 17 Apr 2003). Thousands of supporters of the popular tambon mayor flocked to Chon Buri to show their allegiance to Somchai. The arrest prompted Internal Security Operations Command deputy director Gen Pallop Pinmanee to deny links between his aide Maj Manas Sukprasert and Kamnan Poh. Gen Pallop said of Manas, ―He knows Kamnan Poh but he has never worked for him. He is my subordinate‖ (Ibid.). As described in Section IV Chapter 8, Pallop was accused in 2006 of directing subordinates with a carload of timed explosives to PM Thaksin‘s residence in an apparent assassination attempt. Beyond these immediate historical contexts of the War on Dark Influences, the campaign must be placed in the broader context of the War on Drugs that immediately preceded it. As a performance of semi-covert coercive force by the state, the drug suppression campaign was extremely effective in creating fear and suppressing dissent, key components of constructing state order through informational control. Anticorruption ―crusader‖ Rosana Tositrakul argued in a March 2003 panel that examining state power was ―near impossible‖ now that the government‘s War on Drugs was such a
289 seemingly totalizing perfomance: public resistance to high level corruption seemed futile. Furthermore, Rosana said, monitoring corruption was difficult due to alliances between the Thai state and business elites. Sungsidh Piriyarangsan was convinced that only the United Nations could free Thais from the environment of fear the government created. Democrat MP Abhisit Vejjajiva remarked that the Thai state controlled most monitoring mechanisms, including the media, through a process of ―intervention, infiltration and acquisition‖ (Ampa 5 Mar 2003). In short, through informational control, the coercive performance of the Thai War on Drugs successfully asserted economic dominance, a condition which carried over to the next ―war.‖ It is again important to note that the War on Dark Influences was announced in the context of the War on Drugs. The hypocritical reaction of the US State Dept to Thailand‘s now questionable ―human rights record,‖ which was supposedly marred by the drug war, angered PM Thaksin. Furthermore, the State Department‘s report that corruption was commonplace in Thailand shaped Thaksin‘s upcoming War on Dark Influences, which was meant largely as another public spectacle in service of correcting Thailand‘s public image as a corrupt state (informational control). Thaksin said the State Department report threatened the US anti-terror alliance and that, ―The US should quit acting like a big brother‖ (Yuwadee 3 Mar 2003). So it was in the context of US criticism, that the war on dark influence was announced. In the same article, ―We Are No Lackey of US Says PM,‖ the Bangkok Post announced, ―the government would undertake a serious campaign to get rid of corruption after the three-month anti-drugs crackdown ended this month‖ (Ibid.).
290 Importantly, the original State Dept. report from 2003 made no mention of the drug suppression campaign, highlighting the soft nature of the supposed US criticism. The report released in 2004, did discuss the drug campaign deaths (U.S. Department of State 2004). Nevertheless, ―corruption‖ and ―influence‖ are featured heavily in the report, which according to Saritdet, characterized Thailand as ―saddled with corruption and bribery, especially in the civilian bureaucracy and ‗some units‘ of the security forces‖ (Saritdet 2 Apr 2003). One telling example of the intersection of corruption with Thai drug suppression was reported at the end of February, during the height of the drug campaign. After being linked to an extortion scheme involving three ―Burmese drug suspects,‖ five Chiang Rai police officers were transferred to inactive posts. However, due to their ―impressive drugs suppression record,‖ the five officers were not suspended from duty. According to police officials, ―local police would otherwise lose their morale if they were suspended‖ (Subin 7 Feb 2003). Reportedly, six border patrol police, an immigration officer, a customs official and a tourist policeman in the Mae Sai area were also transferred ―for the same reason‖ (Ibid.). In the War on Drugs, the state used performances of violence to threaten Thai citizens with its capacity for coercive force. In the War on Dark Influences that immediately followed these performances, the threats were turned more inward still, and were increasingly leveled on state agents themselves. Using coercive rhetoric, Thaksin threatened to ―slash‖ thousands of positions, sack officers, and transfer underperforming police generals. Speaking at the annual meeting of the police association, Thaksin told his fellow police colleagues, ―Police are like doctors who do not know how to protect themselves from infection. Ethics are important. Some persons [police officers] contact
291 drug dealers by turning a blind eye to what they do or even helping them‖ (Wassayos 31 Mar 2003). Nevertheless, these internal threats and surface performances did not stop the Prime Minister from continually promoting his relatives, friends, and former classmates into positions of power. For example, when creating yet another bureaucratic apparatus, the new Special Investigation Department to ―investigate serious, complex and sophisticated crime,‖ Thaksin ensured that Pol Maj-Gen Wichienchote Sukchoterat was first in line for consideration. Wichienchote attended the police cadet academy two years ahead of Thaksin. The two became friends in the academy, a relationship that was further cemented when Thaksin and Wichienchote attended graduate school at Eastern Kentucky University (Bangkok Post 24 Apr 2003).
Leadup to the Dark Influence Campaign In the weeks prior to the declaration of the War on Dark Influences, all of the main elements of the planned campaign were meticulously highlighted by the government, and subsequently amplified by the media, manufacturing public awareness in the classic dialectical mode of state-building (Problem: corruption, Reaction: war on dark influence, Solution: apparent ―elimination‖ of corruption). The major public focus of the campaign was to be the ―mafia types‖ extorting money from the motorcycle taxi cues servicing the main streets of Bangkok. In yet another example of deft informational control, the Bangkok Post and other publications then created the impression that the public was urging the government to tackle the passenger van issue, even though a government agency was responsible for these calls, several weeks before the campaign‘s declaration. Subsequently, the National Economic and Social Advisory Council (NESAC) ―urged‖ the government to expand its campaign against mafia control of
292 motorcycle taxis to the estimated ten thousand passenger vans passenger in Bangkok as well, which were operated by ―mafia types and people in uniform‖ (Apiradee 2 May 2003a). The vice-chairman of the NESAC, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, even admits that ―The problem is more serious than motorcycle taxis, as the government loses billions of baht a year to extortionists running the queues‖ (Ibid.). In one publicly-touted case, van drivers who paid a 25,000 baht registration fee and 3,900 baht per month in ―guard fees‖ to the Sam Peenong (―Three Brothers‖) Travel Company approached the NESAC to ask for an investigation. One of the drivers, ―Charan,‖ told the council that the company supposedly ensured protection from mafia and police harassment, and suspected that ―people in uniform‖ as well as the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) received a share of these fees. The BMTA claimed, however, that the 1,000 baht license fees were not paid for any of the van drivers since 2001. The drivers, who made an estimated 10,000 baht per month driving vans were unable to pay the total back fees demanded by the BMTA (24,000 baht or more), and instead demanded an investigation. According to Charan, ―The government should focus on passenger vans rather than motorcycle taxis. There're a lot more mafia involved‖ (Ibid.). Editorials similarly urged an expansion of the scope of the War on Dark Influences beyond police ―tea money‖ for motorcycle taxis, entertainment venues, and gambling dens. Executive Editor of the Bangkok Post, Kowit Sanandang, asked, ―(H)ow fair is this to the rank and file?‖ Kowit described the structural constraints I observed in the police, ―Junior officers are always dumped with the dirty work of collecting illegal payments at the -- verbal, never put down on paper -- order of their superiors. They are
293 given certain targets to meet, otherwise their career prospects with the force could be in jeopardy‖ (Sanandang 3 May 2003). Kowit decried the narrow War on Dark Influences focus on motorcycle taxi payments to police, which he acknowledged is a well-known problem, and suggested that the campaign be expanded to the tourism industry, specifically tourist extortion (in jewelry shops and beaches), and illegal encroachment on public land and national parks. He cited beach encroachment at Hua Hin, where fifty different businesses illegally occupied an area obviously protected by ―some sort of influence‖ (Ibid.). Similarly, Chulalongkorn University's professor of economics, Sungsidh Piriyarangsan, stated that because of government fear, the underground lottery was ―temporarily on hold,‖ but cautioned that the government campaign was ―not a long term solution to the problem of dark influence.‖ Prof. Sungsidh reported that the government simplistically targeted both small and large lottery operators, which temporarily closed. This temporary enforcement operation caused people to switch to government lottery ticket purchases and to gambling more money at casinos outside of Thailand‘s borders (Apiradee 2 May 2003b).60 Sungsidh cited a centuries-old history of underground lotteries in Thailand which demanded the a form of gambling legalization rather than simplistic suppression and enforcement (Ibid.). Pol. DG Sant later disagreed with Sungsidh‘s comments, denying that police took more than 10billion baht a year from the underground lottery. Sant, citing support from Thaksin, proposed a system of online lottery vending machines to be housed at police stations. Police could maintain these
60
According to Sangsidh, the shift to government lottery tickets caused a ten percent rise in their costs (Apiradee 2 May 2003b).
294 machines while ―cracking down‖ on illegal lottery operations, in an attempt to cement further state economic control (Bangkok Post 3 Jun 2003). As the War on Dark influence continued, the ongoing investigation of the Sukhumvit Square demolition, and the subsequent arrest of Lt-Col Himalai Phiewphan and Maj Chalermchai Matchaklam brought increasing public scrutiny on ―mafia military officers.‖ Defence Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya asked military intelligence units to ―keep watch on military officers behaving like mafia figures‖ (Wassana & Yuwadee 12 May 2003). Gen. Thammarak specifically cited motorcycle taxi management as an ―improper job‖ for military officers. Commander of the Air Force, Kongsak Wanthana stated that he suspected seventy to eighty officers (who worked part time as security guards, motorcycle-taxi drivers or entertainment complex guards) of mafia involvement. Under this internal scrutiny of the military, and in the face of public attention, police were supposedly taking over protection rackets at nightclubs, specifically in the Ratchadaphisek area (Ibid.). As previously mentioned, throughout the War on Dark Influences, there was direct continuity between the policies, structure, and execution of the War on Drugs. Thaksin discussed both campaigns simultaneously in weekly radio addresses, and made the unbelievable claim that all gunmen nationwide were identified in police blacklists (Ibid.). Just as in the drug campaign, the government was preparing lists of targeted individuals, identifying ―influential figures.‖ Anti-drug and anti-money laundering operations were combined with the new campaign, providing another structural continuity from the drug war. These continuities were made explicit when the National Center to Defeat Drugs, led by Deputy PM Gen. Chavalit, was picked to lead the new
295 campaign in order so that it would not be ―sitting idle‖ (Anucha 22 May 2003). Just as in the drug war, the Anti-Money Laundering Act was again expanded to include five more crimes for which assets could be seized by the state: gambling, arms trafficking, human trafficking, abuse of natural resources and intellectual property violations (Yuwadee & Temsak 14 May 2003). Incredibly, along with the ambiguity of the official opening date of the campaign (now listed as May 20th), Deputy PM Gen. Chavalit said the center first needed to define what was meant by ―influential figures,‖ admitting to the state ambiguity (Ibid.). A day later, following the announcement that blacklists were being drawn up, PM Thaksin announced that police had completed a list of eight hundred gunmen and gangsters, and that the army had another list of an undeclared number of mafia soldiers. The article which contained this announcement declared that, ―Tackling dark influence would not take long because the government already had the names of the people it wanted…‖ (Bangkok Post 15 May 2003). Gen. Chavalit affirmed that the campaign ―was not aimed at eradicating influential figures, merely forcing them to stop breaking the law‖ (Ibid.). The following day, Chavalit admitted that the eight hundred names on the police list were drawn up ―some time ago,‖ accounting for the unbelievable speed between the list‘s announcement and its execution. The National Intelligence Agency also sent PM Thaksin a list of ―influential figures‖ in every province. Armed with these lists Thaksin declared, that ―by Dec 2, 2003, Thailand would be free of all dark influence‖ the same day that Thailand was to be declared drug-free - a further operational link between the two campaigns. Using the new blacklists, provincial governors and police chiefs were to
296 give ―the listed people a chance to behave‖ or to ―face tough action‖ in the future (Bangkok Post 16 May 2003). Obviously, relying on the leadership of provincial governors and police chiefs assumed that these officials were not complicit in the ―influential forces‖ affecting their respective provinces; a meaningful ―flaw‖ in the campaign‘s planning. On the eve of the ―official‖ declaration date of the War on Dark Influences, a Thaksin-led cabinet meeting in Pattaya, brought more than a thousand police and military guards to the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel (Yuwadee & Pradit 19 May 2003).61 The heavy security was supposedly a reaction to warnings from the US Embassy, the National Security Council and the National Intelligence Agency that Thaksin was under threat from overseas drug syndicates affected by the drug campaign. Despite the danger, or perhaps utilizing it for dramatic effect, Thaksin declared, ―When the whistle blows on the 20th [tomorrow], ―A government security officer uses a mirror to check underneath of one of the buses used to transport cabinet members to a special meeting in Pattaya.‖ Photo: Pattarchai Prechapanic
everyone must give up [illegal activities], or they will face serious consequences‖ (Ibid. ). In contrast to earlier comments that ―tackling dark influence would not take long‖ (Bangkok Post 15 May 2003), Thaksin said the campaign would be time-consuming, since ―influential people‖ are harder to catch than drug dealers.
Nevertheless, Thaksin continued to depict his new campaign with a simple populist equality, ―Everything will be carried out under the law and we will not make any exceptions‖ (Yuwadee & Pradit 19 May 2003). 61
As discussed previously, the Pattaya meeting was in the same province, Chon Buri, where influential ―Godfather,‖ Somchai ‗Kamnan Poh‘ Khunpluem, was recently released on bail after being arrested for murder and conspiracy (Yuwadee & Pradit 19 May 2003).
297 Undeterred by Thaksin‘s proclamations, suspicion was mounting that the new campaign was, according to some commentators, ―a ploy to further strengthen the Thaksin power base‖ (Anucha 22 May 2003). Critics such as former Thammasat University political science lecturer and Democrat party deputy leader, Anek Laothamatas, declared that the types of crime associated with ―influential figures‖ were not yet defined by the government. Without a close definition of ―dark influence,‖ critics stated, the campaign against it could be used politically to boost Thaksin‘s popularity, create scapegoats, and benefit mafia and influential forces who benefit Thaksin‘s side while cracking down on oppositional forces (Ibid.). Democrat party deputy secretarygeneral, Thavorn Senniam cited the political agenda of the arrests of two influential figures as evidence. The first arrest, was discussed in this chapter previously, was Somchai, a.k.a. ―Kamnan Poh,‖ whose son, the Tourism and Sports Minister, was reportedly being pressured to switch political allegiance to Thaksin‘s Thai Rak Thai party (Ibid.). Second, telecommunications tycoon Poosana Preemanoch, with close ties to the Democrat party was charged with embezzling several hundred million baht from, the company he co-founded, Total Access Communication, now DTAC (Ibid.). Poosana was supposedly planning a new political party to oppose Thai Rak Thai, and thus was considered a political threat (Ibid.). Echoing these critiques, Chiang Rai's people network representative Tewin Akrasilakul, at a meeting of 170 participants from the northern provinces, ―expressed concern the government might get rid of only people who opposed it, leaving influential figures on its side unchecked‖ (Preeyanat 20 May 2003). Chiang Rai‘s Niwat Raengkaew went so far as to propose that the dark influence campaign would create
298 ―supermafias‖ organized for ―policy-oriented corruption.‖ Leaders in Klong Toey expressed similar doubts about the campaign citing a decades-long problem with mafia activity in the community that is often supported by government officials (Anucha 20 May 2003). Other critics of the campaign questioned the government‘s strategy to give influential figures warnings to cease their activities as purposefully ineffective (Farrow 21 May 2003). Perhaps responding to these criticisms, the government finally announced the groups who would be targeted as ―influential people‖ in the campaign, a list that included ―opinion leaders.‖ Police DG Sant said ―those with influence on politics, finance, trade, and public opinion‖ would be targeted for suppression (Bangkok Post 21 May 2003). This announcement immediately sparked outrage among activists and NGOs who viewed it as an attempt to stifle government dissent and criticism of Thaksin‘s Thai Rak Thai party. Coordinator of the ―Friends of the People‖ NGO, Nititrat Sapsomboon, asked, ―If social and environment activists are defined as mafia, what about an influential person like the Thai Rak Thai‘s chief adviser Sanoh Thienthong? Has Mr. Thaksin put his name on the list?‖ (Ibid.).
Declaration of the War on Dark Influences In the face of this widespread criticism, the War on Dark Influences was officially declared on May 20th, 2003 targeting, according to Thaksin, ―Encroachment on public land and forest reserves, graft in bidding contests and underground lotteries‖ (Yuwadee & Pradit 20 May 2003). PM Thaksin used the declaration to assure his long-term future leadership in the social imaginary (Taylor 2004) by saying that he would strengthen the ―disabled‖ drug and dark influence enforcement system over the next five to six years
299 (Ibid.). Planned amnesty for turning in firearms to state authorities was also announced for the first time. This state disarmament would make up a large part of the final days of the campaign. In addition to disarming the public, the new campaign was also used as a pretext for the forced relocation of northern hilltribes. This was justified in order to ―prevent them becoming dupes of ‗dark influences‘ which might induce them to claim land rights over forests to take advantage of the government's asset conversion programme‖ (Pradit & Porpot 21 May 2003). The popular Thai misconceptions and misrepresentations of swidden agriculture were employed in the service of this mass relocation: ―Shift cultivation was considered a channel for criminal groups to manipulate hilltribe people into encroaching on forests on behalf of influential figures‖ (Ibid.). To counter this possibility, relocations were planned in the Mae Kong Ka refugee camp which houses 20,000 mostly Karen refugees. The announcement prompted Surapong Kongchantuk, at the Karen Studies Centre to point out more continuities between both state campaigns against drugs and dark influence, ―When the government wanted to curb selling of illicit drugs by relocating hilltribes, there were more drugs after the relocation because sellers could reach them more conveniently‖ (Ibid.). More comparisons between the two campaigns became apparent when two ―suspected arms traders‖ were shot dead in a police sting operation in Bangkok‘s Rat Burana district. The 5am shootout with undercover police posing as weapons buyers netted two automatic weapons (an AK-47 rifle and a carbine), ammunition and 180 yaa baa pills (Bangkok Post 23 May 2003a; Veera 26 May 2003). The editor of the Bangkok post wrote, following this event, ―The bloody start to the campaign, with two men
300 already dead, might provoke an uproar among human rights groups that this well-justified war on dark influence could follow the same course as the controversial drug campaign‖ (Veera 26 May 2003). Demonstrating the comparison further, Forestry officials raided an illegal rubber plantation and two rubber sheet factories (presumably linked to the illegal economy of ―dark influences‖), conducting mass arrests of workers in the first week of the War on Dark Influences (Bangkok Post 23 May 2003a). Despite these initial similarities, the majority of government and media attention in the beginning of the campaign against dark influence was, on motorcycle taxi cues, fees and jackets. As planned, removing gangsters from the motorcycle taxi business was characterized as ―the first undertaking‖ of the campaign (Yuwadee 27 May 2003). After police issued a warrant for Narong Unpaet, a.k.a. Klom Bang Kruai for illegal control of motorcycle taxi drivers in the Charansanitwong and Pinklao areas of Bangkok (Ibid.), this as the key issue in the campaign, subject to an inordinate amount of official attention. The first in a series of public rallies held by various groups of motorcycle taxi drivers happened at the Crime Suppression Division headquarters when two hundred drivers arrived to complain about their exploitation. All the drivers worked on Soi Charansanitwong 45 road paid ―protection fees‖ of twenty baht a day to a married couple who controlled the queue. In addition, they paid 13,000-15,000 baht each for their queue vests which were changed twice a year at an addition fee of five hundred baht each. One of their extortionists supposedly offered a million baht if they group did not go to the CSD to report him (Bangkok Post 16 May 2003). So began the motorcycle taxi sideshow of the war on dark influence, a catalyzing distraction event, which usefully shifted public interest away from the high level
301 corruption known to affect all branches of Thai government and business. Similar rallies followed, and it is difficult not to be affected by the pleas of impoverished exploited motorcycle drivers that are so visible on every street in Bangkok. On the 22nd of May, one hundred motorcycle taxi drivers drove to parliament to show their support for the campaign. They parked their bikes in front of parliament and sat on the road. Their controllers demanded they pay up to 10,000 baht to start work as a motorcycle taxi driver, and 40-100 baht a day after that, they said. The drivers showed documents giving details of their financial obligations. The protest ended when a senior police officer spoke to them and convinced them to go back to work (Bangkok Post 23 May 2003b). These stories prompted media and government obsession with a particular and easilyidentifiable costume, the ubiquitous taxi vests. The drivers from soi Kamnan Man, for example, paid up to 120,000 baht for their jackets, or rented them for 3,000 baht per month in addition to four hundred baht monthly ―guard fees.‖ A glamorous evening gown may be worth less than the weather-beaten, rag of a jacket worn by Bangkok motorcycle taxi drivers….The sleeveless, loosely textured jackets can be bought or rented from the mafia-boss in charge of the queue. The jackets ensure the drivers are able to earn their keep without getting into trouble with the mafia or the law… The Kamnan Man jacket is blue with white trim. It has two front buttons, two zippers, one for each front pocket, and a ‗Sor‘ (S) embroidered above the right pocket. The names of jacket sponsors appear above the ‗S‘. The jackets may be replaced if they are torn and each queue had its own design (Wassayos & Manop 26 May 2003). It is important to emphasize that this highly publicized motorcycle rally was a pro-government event in support of the War on Dark Influences. One driver said, reinforcing the protective populist message of the campaign, ―Who is going to look after us after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra leaves office?‖ (Ibid.).
302 In typical style, Thaksin used the dark influence campaign and the ―threats‖ against him as an opportunity to stage various public provocations and performances. Attempting to create the illusion that his warning to influential figures on government blacklists was in fact an ―ultimatum‖ rather than a deliberately ineffective strategy, he ―challenged mafia-types to step out and take him on‖ (Yuwadee 27 May 2003). Perhaps longing for a cowboy hat and six-shooters to match his words, Thaksin said, ―I dare (the ‗mafia-types‘) to stand up to me if they think they‘re any good.‖ His harangue continued, ―It‘s high time they faded out. To me they are the ‗evil enemy‘ of the public (Ibid.). He blamed ―lawless elements‖ for poverty in Thai society and declared, ―We must go for drastic action, not soft options.‖ At the press event where Thaksin made his challenges, police DG Sant revealed the plan for ―police or other officials‖ to step in to manage the motorcycle taxi queues after the ―motorcycle mafia‖ was expelled (Ibid.). This profitable solution was announced the day after eight hundred motorcycle taxi drivers from six different street groups staged a rally at Crime Suppression Division headquarters. They came to CSD, not only because their extortionists included soldiers and police, but also because their request for registration at a Bang Na district office referred them to the districts disaster relief volunteer chief, Chaiwat Amsakul, a.k.a., To Bang Na who forced them to pay 4,000 baht jacket
―Taxi motorcyclists stage a sit-in outside Crime Suppression Division headquarters, demanding an end to extortion by gangster‖ Photo: Pattanapong Hirunard
303 rental fees and forty baht protection fees. They also claimed they were subject to surveillance and intimidation by To Bang Na‘s aides (Thip-osod 27 May 2003). Internal police documents reveal how seriously the motorcycle taxi extortion suppression effort was taken by police. When asking about the campaign, I was given several strategic flowcharts which included: 1. Reorganization of the Motorcycle-Taxi business system. 2. Procedures and directions for taking legal action against people of ―Dark Influence‖ involved in extortion cases involving motorcycle-Taxi drivers. 3. The way of receiving crime reports involving Motorcycle-Taxi business through the traffic police booths. 4. Charges and Penalties for extortion cases involving motorcycle-taxi drivers. 5. Directions for taking legal action against people of dark influence in urgent cases. 6. Suggestions for managing motorcycle-taxi business. (Royal Thai Police 2003)62 Despite this genuine and highly-detailed attempt to deal with the problem, the extortion racketeers were able to subvert the police strategies with great flexibility. Motorcycle groups began reporting that their street bosses, unable to charge for vests due to police scrutiny, simply demanded that they pay ―rent‖ for parking spaces while waiting for passengers (Wassayos 9 Jun 2003). One driver said that his group was able to negotiate with police and his bosses to lower the rent, agreeing to six hundred baht per month. However, the drivers were still expected to pay eight hundred baht in practice (Ibid.). Furthermore, just as the drug campaign targeted small-time dealers to fill out the vast majority of its blacklists, small-time ―entrepreneurs‖ who made a living buying taxi vests from street controllers and then renting them to motorcycle drivers were treated as figures of dark influence (Ibid.). Following the government registration scheme intended to ―crack down on black market racketeers,‖ to which more than one hundred thousand 62
To foster citizen-based state surveillance, this War on Dark Influences flowchart claims that protection of motorcycle taxi drivers is necessary because ―the Metropolitan Police use them as informants‖ (Ampa 5 Mar 2003; Royal Thai Police 2003).
304 drivers had registered, motorcycle taxi drivers found themselves paying both their extortionists as well as the government (Supoj 12 Jul 2003). Confusing statements from the military regarding regulations governing soldiers in employment outside the military as motorcycle taxi drivers and night club bouncers compounded this exploitation of the rank-and-file. Army chief Gen. Somdhat Attanand initially said soldiers could work in these areas of employment and could supervise motorcycle taxi queues, but could not work as debt collectors. For Somdhat, military control of taxi queues was beneficial for state order. He said, ―Many of our soldiers make extra income as taxi motorcyclists because that is not illegal. Queues that have many soldier-cum-taxi motorcyclists are controlled by soldiers for the sake of order‖ (Bangkok Post 23 May 2003b). Several weeks later, these statements were confusingly reversed and a crackdown on moonlighting soldiers began. Maj Gen Prin Suwannadhat, commander of the 11th Army Circle in charge of military police, announced on 4 June that ten teams of five-person Military Police teams would patrol every Friday at Hua Lampong railway station, the Mor Chit and Ekamai bus terminals, and numerous entertainment venues. The teams were to look for soldiers leaving Bangkok for weekend jobs. Contradicting Army chief Gen. Somdhat‘s earlier statement, Maj-Gen Prin said that soldiers could not have jobs as bouncers, debt collectors and motorcycle taxi queue controllers. Army spokesman Col Somkuan Saengpatranet backed this statement by announcing that soldiers could moonlight as taxi motorcyclists, but could not supervise motorcycle queues (Wassana 5 Jun 2003). The numerical performance of the dark influence campaign progressed in the Thai Interior Ministry‘s detailed blacklist (unavailable to the press or public), which claimed
305 that of the more than eight hundred influential figures listed outside of Bangkok, ―32 of the 75 provinces are free of dark influence‖ (Temsak 10 Jun 2003).63 Predicting inevitable victory, at a speech to five hundred Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) agents, PM Thaksin called ―mafia types‖ part of the ―axis of evil‖ (Wassana 20 Jun 2003b). ISOC was tasked with monitoring the behavior of persons with influence. ISOC Deputy Director, Gen Pallop Pinmanee, was in the process of reviewing the dark influence blacklist provided by the Interior Ministry, led by Wan Muhamad Nor Matha. Pallop, who would be arrested in 2006 for allegedly directing soldiers in a bombing plot against Thaksin, said the list included many members of the military (Ibid.). According to Thammasat political scientist, Orathai Kokpol, police investigators appointed to assist corruption inquiries are often corrupt, intentionally delaying investigations. He said, ―(Police) are sacked or investigated after joining the probe team. The investigation is suspended until a new team member is appointed‖ (Supawadee 15 Jul 2003). By mid-July, observers of the campaign were critical of four major issues. First, those asked to enforce the campaign and generate blacklists were often part of the ―dark influence‖ network themselves. The government and criminal elements routinely work as part of the covert netherworld or, as one commentator described, ―the close compacts forged between state authorities and the mafia‖ (Pradit 18 Jul 2003). Second, the campaign was seen by many critics as an ―ill-disguised assault‖ on the political 63
―Kanchanaburi had the largest number of influential figures, 92, followed by Nakhon Si Thammarat, 70; Mukdahan, 55; Trang, 49; Chiang Rai, 45; Nong Bua Lamphu, 39; Sa Kaew, 38; Trat, 37; Lop Buri, 36; Ayutthaya, 35; Songkhla, 33; Roi Et, 28; Nakhon Phanom 26; Uttaradit, 22; Saraburi, 21; Mae Hong Son and Narathiwat, 20 each; Chumphon and Nakhon Ratchasima, 18 each; Buri Ram and Surat Thani, 14 each, Samut Prakan and Prachuap Khiri Khan, 10 each. Others had less than 10. The 32 provinces declared mafia-free were Krabi, Kamphaeng Phet, Khon Kaen, Chanthaburi, Chachoengsao, Chon Buri, Chai Nat, Tak, Nakhon Nayok, Nakhon Sawan, Pathum Thani, Phang Nga, Phatthalung, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Phetchabun, Phrae, Phuket, Yala, Ranong, Rayong, Ratchaburi, Lamphun, Loei, Si Sa Ket, Sing Buri, Sukhothai, Nong Khai, Ang Thong, Uthai Thani, Ubon Ratchathani and Amnart Charoen‖ (Temsak 10 Jun 2003).
306 opponents of Thaksin‘s Thai Rak Thai party (Ibid.). Third, the campaign was focused on small-time criminals rather than highly influential politically-connected figures (Ibid.).64 Finally, influential figures enact the patron-client system and are often seen as ―saints‖ and ―saviors.‖ People often rely on those with powerful connections for protection and necessary favors (Ibid.). It was at this point, in mid-July 2003 that one influential figure, through the creation of his own media displays, altered the terms of the dark influence campaign and turned that state‘s gaze inward on itself.
Chuwit Kamolvisit The saga of Chuwit Kamolvisit, a.k.a. Davis Kamol, and the subsequent derailment of the War on Dark Influences into a sideshow of often comical political theater, began with the destruction of the Sukhumvit Soi 10 entertainment complex. Chuwit later admitted his involvement in the 3am destruction of the hundreds of small businesses there using bulldozers and a crew of six hundred, many of whom were in the Military Corps of Engineers and the police. However, for many months, the parties behind the razing were a public mystery, although ―men in uniform‖ were immediately suspected. Despite the nearby presence of a police station, visible two hundred meters away from the complex, police did not intervene during the nine hours of demolition. Chuwit later admitted in the London Guardian, ―Yes, I bought Sukhumvit Square in December 2002. I paid 500 million baht for the plot and I wanted to build another hotel. But the land was occupied with squatters‖ (Scott-Clark & Levy 21 Feb 2004). Chuwit claimed that police officers offered to clear the site in return for an initial bribe of 10 million baht. When accusations began being laid on Chuwit and his accomplices, he 64
As Chulalongkorn University political science professor, Viangrath Netipo, pointed out, ―These people [the truly influential] don't do the dirty work themselves…At the end of the day, the government may get only the minnows‖ (Pradit 18 Jul 2003).
307 claims that he was approached again for an additional two million baht. After he refused, he was reportedly told by a high ranking police officer, ―The wind, cloud and rain are coming. We will not help you‖ (Ibid.). Chuwit was arrested in May 2003, in the first days of the War on Dark Influences. He was held in a jail for the following month, and would later accuse wardens of accepting various bribes for his differential treatment while in prison. He claimed he gave 5000 baht to one prison official at the Southern Criminal Court detention room to ensure that his wife could deliver a plate of fried rice to him (Anucha & Apiradee 29 Jul 2003). He paid other prison officials ten thousand baht to use their toilet and five thousand baht for a thicker mattress, in total claiming he paid three hundred thousand baht for better treatment during his time at Bangkok Special Prison. These payments were mostly arranged through fellow inmate, Ngow X-O, a ―powerful mafia-type figure‖ in prison for economic crimes (Ibid.). After Chuwit was released on bail, the AntiMoney Laundering Office (AMLO) began freezing his accounts. The first of Chuwit‘s infamous press events occurred at the front entrance to the Copa Cabana club, one of his six massage parlors near Bangkok‘s Ratchadaphisek Road (owned by his holding company, The Davis Group), an area called ―Soapland.‖ In front of the Copa Cabana‘s blacked-out doors, Chuwit showed reporters a diary detailing service-related transactions at the club. Adeptly providing tantalizing, but often deliberately obscure details, he claimed that several days earlier, on 7 July 2003, four high-ranking police officers were serviced by his ―massage employees,‖ numbers 103, 130, 137 and 299.
308 Chuwit‘s sensational tactics were mere foreshadowing to the media circus to follow. Several days after Sant was forced to open an bribery investigation based on these allegations, Chuwit called another press meeting at the Copa Cabana claiming Superintendent ‗T,‘ commander of police station ‗H,‘ paid him 355,000 baht per month over a period of ten years. The nearby Huai Khwang metropolitan station, commanded by Colonel Thitipong Settisombat (who was immediately suspended) was placed under investigation. Following these new allegations, Thaksin announced, incredibly, that he would transfer all the officers in the entire station, but then immediately softened, giving the officers until October to ―bring back their dignity‖ (Yuwadee 19 Jul 2003). The Prime Minister used the allegations as an opportunity to reiterate that, given eight years of continued premiership, he would ―eradicate all corrupt police and vice‖ (Ibid.). Highlighting the annual mid-season bureaucratic reshuffle, which Thaksin himself often used as an opportunity to promote his friends and relatives, he remarked that ―graft was deep-seated in the police force and was particularly heavy in the run-up to the reshuffle season, when officers jockeyed for, or even bought, promotions‖ (Bangkok Post 21 Jul 2003). At this dark influence campaign press event, Thaksin announced that traffic fines would be increased by ten percent, with the police share of the new revenue to increase more than twenty percent, in a bid to reduce bribery (Ibid.). Finally, Thaksin said corruption problems resulted from a ―‗backward working-culture‘ where subordinates had powerful connections in the hierarchy and could keep their superiors under their thumb‖ (Yuwadee & Manop 31 Jul 2003). This statement is a direct reversal of the well-known Thai bribery structure (Pasuk & Sangsit 1994), and thus a intentionally-obscured assertion of informational control.
309 While Thaksin attempted to secure new profit sources for the police, another example of the state securing order through economic dominance, Chuwit went on to allege that a ―tall police general‖ with the initial ―S‖ had covert holdings in two massage parlors. This prompted the House Committee on Police Affairs to call on the famously-tall Police DG Sant, who admitted he held a multi-million baht investment in a Ratchadaphisek Road hotel (Apiradee 31 Jul 2003). In the midst of Chuwit‘s unprecedented revelations, with press and public appetite for scandal whetted, Chuwit disappeared for two days. A taxi driver found him wandering in a dazed state on the side of the Bangkok-
―National police chief Pol Gen Sant Sarutanont testifies to the House committee on police affairs yesterday over bribetaking allegations.‖ Photo: Sarot Meksophawannakul
Chon Buri on July 11th. At the hospital, he dramatically called reporters to his bedside, where he claimed that men paid by the police had abducted, drugged, and beaten him. Later at another self-sponsored press event, this time at Government House, he declared, ―I am now a man with no future. I may be shot dead at any time.‖ The media attention and police scandal in the middle of Thaksin‘s War on Dark Influences prompted a reactionary investigation. On July 18th, the charges were merged in the Sukhumvit Square demolition case against Chuwit, his Sukhumvit Silverstar Company (which bought the complex), Lt. Col. Himalai Phiewphan and over a hundred other individuals (Bangkok Post 18 Jul 2003). Chuwit was charged with nighttime trespassing and assault. In a bizarre press announcement of its own, and an apparent response to Chuwit‘s allegations of regular bribes to the police, deputy director-general of the Excise Department (which receives ten percent tax on hotel room fees and masseuse charges),
310 Wichit Wongwiwat, claimed that ―the department can‘t tolerate reports that the tax we collect is lower than the money paid to police.‖ He announced that fifty-two of his staff would visit Bangkok massage parlors to ―try‖ their services (Wichit 18 Jul 2003). From 18-21 July, thirteen teams of four visited seventy-six massage parlors of three hundred rooms or more in the area of Ratchadapisek, Phetchaburi and Pin Klao roads. The Excise Dept. staff conducted private interviews with masseuses and their employers hopefully yielding ―realistic information.‖ Wichit admitted, ―We have a budget for our officials to try the service…I must admit that this is new for the department‖ (Ibid.). Chuwit‘s allegations, which now included ―hand delivered tea money‖ to police officers as well as lists of regular customers from Metropolitan Bureau, 191 Special Patrol and the Crime Suppression Division (Wassayos 21 Jul 2003) eventually lead to the suspension of four police major generals (of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th metropolitan divisions as well as the general staff office commander), nine police colonels, six police lieutenant colonels, one police major, twenty deputy station chiefs and crime suppression inspectors, and eleven nonFigure 47: Chuwit Kamolvisit at his Copa
commissioned police officers (Bangkok Post 28 Cabana club in "Soapland"
Jul 2003; DP 28 Jul 2003). Twenty-eight of the transferred officers were from Patumwan Police station (Komchadluek 30 Jul 2003) and one, Police Col. Pramote, was a former classmate of PM Thaksin (Ibid.). As a result of the transfers, Thaksin claimed to be considering transferring the entire Royal Thai Police office to the Justice Ministry away from his direct supervision due to the ―very heavy workload.‖ He said, ―We could have a
311 couple of ten thousand of them placed in reserve or inactive posts, if need be‖ (Yuwadee 30 Jul 2003). Within one month of these tough words, Thaksin used the reshuffle to appoint the commander of his security detail to the head of Metropolitan Police Division 1, and a former police academy classmate to head the Provincial Police Bureau (Manop 26 Aug 2003). After hypocritically calling the police transfers ―high drama‖ (Manop 30 Jul 2003), Chuwit‘s media tactics continued, when he declared an all out war (dab krueng chon) against his former government payroll patrons, calling himself a ―weapon of mass destruction.‖ He attempted to drive to Thaksin‘s residence at Soi Charan Sanit Wong 69 in Bang Phlat to hand deliver a list of nearly a thousand names directly to the Prime Minister, but was blocked by Figure 48: ―Massage tycoon Chuwit Kamolvisit is stopped by a policeman at the mouth of a soi leading to the residence of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.‖ Photo: Pattanapong Hirunard
police. He then went to a Siam Square book store for the launching of his book, Ang Abnam Thong (―Golden Bathtub‖) (Chuwit & Kiattrakun 2003)
where he signed copies and announced the launch of another book ―Confession of Sin (One Day I Will Commit Suicide),‖ which contains the initials of people who took his bribes (Manop 27 Jul 2003). This book included a cover photo of Chuwit in a prisonissued uniform and leg irons. With his popularity at an all-time high, Chuwit claimed he would pay partial damage compensation to tenants disposed in the Sukumvit Square demolition, after he was approached by six tenants who demanded compensation outside the court hearing (Bangkok Post 31 Jul 2003).
312 The Chuwit scandal affected another high ranking police officer, Pol. Lt. Gen. Noppadol Somboonsab, the Special Investigation Department commissioner who was responsible for investigating Chuwit‘s alleged abduction, but taken off the case when Chuwit alleged he was biased (Komchadluek 3 Aug 2003). Nevertheless, Noppadol claimed he held ―scientific evidence‖ to prove Chuwit staged the abduction, but would only reveal it in court. Noppadol also claimed Chuwit met a nun in Ayuthaya the day he claimed he was abducted (Apiradee 31 Jul 2003). Noppadol was removed from his position by a Thai Justice Minister who assigned the deputy director-general of the
Figure 49: One of Chuwit‘s popular books, ―Confession of Sin (One Day I Will Commit Suicide)‖
Special Investigation Department, Tharit Phengdit, and the deputy director of the Forensic Science Institute, Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunant to replace him (Anucha 30 Jul 2003). At the time of his removal, Noppadol admitted that he called Chuwit to tell him to stop criticizing the police (Ibid.), thus joining the Thai Police Association in its attempts to silence Chuwit. After Noppadol‘s removal from the investigation, he approached Thaksin for a transfer, wanting to quit his position as SID chief after less than a year in office (Yuwadee 5 Aug 2003). Rather than honoring this request, however, Noppadol was made legal advisor to the investigation by Thaksin and Pol. DG Sant, a position equivalent to that of deputy national police chief (Bangkok Post 7 Aug 2003a; 7 Aug 2003b).
313 The Chuwit scandal delayed the annual police reshuffle, conveniently prompting Thaksin to take charge of the promotions. He affirmed that promotions would be based on merit, not ―affiliations‖ (Bangkok Post 4 Aug 2003).65 As further fallout from the Sukhumvit Sqaure demolition case, Major Thanyathep Thammathorn, one of the other key suspects, claimed that police approached him to testify that Chuwit Kamolvisit staged his own abduction (Manop 5 Aug 2003). Thanyathep was in hiding for nearly six months before turning himself in. His lawyer planned to use video evidence of the demolition recorded by a foreigner to prove his innocence, along with similarly-accused Lt. Col. Himalai Phiewphan. The saga between Chuwit and Sant continued in the Thai-language press when Sant denied the personal friendship asserted by Chuwit. Sant claimed that because of his role as a public official, he normally allows ―everyone‖ to meet with him at his office. However, Sant said that Chuwit was no longer welcome there, because Chuwit‘s claim of friendship damaged his reputation. Sant also expressed that he wanted to protect himself from further allegations made by Chuwit by refusing to meet with him (Komchadluek 4 Aug 2003). This denial apparently prompted Chuwit to sue Sant for charging that he faked his own kidnapping (―Chuwit sues Sant….‖ 11 Aug 2003). Chuwit‘s final titillating allegations included accounts of giving expensive gifts to three cabinet ministers with the initials ‗S‘, ‗P‘ and ‗P,‘ one of whom was a regular guest at his Copa Cabana club. After the media spotlight fell on deputy interior minister Pracha
65
In an interesting twist to the ongoing scandal, ―Maj-Gen Khattiya, also known as Seh Daeng, filed a complaint against Pol Gen Sant on Feb 19 accusing him of protecting Mr Chuwit in the Sukhumvit Square demolition case. The complaint was referred to the National Counter Corruption Commission, which found it was baseless. Maj-Gen Khattiya was arrested late last week by police on a charge of carrying a firearm in public. He cried foul, claiming he was manhandled and that the arrest was a form of intimidation stemming from his conflict with Pol Gen Sant‖ (Bangkok Post 4 Aug 2003).
314 Maleenont, he was forced to admit that he visited massage parlors in the past. These further revelations also forced PM Thaksin to announce a party investigation claiming that any MP who visited brothels or had a mistress would be removed from office, which, to any observer familiar with the Thai proclivity for both, was a laughable fabrication. The Wall Street Journal gleefully used the Chuwit saga as an opportunity to voice its condescension for Thailand‘s ―corrupt society.‖ Seth Mydans wrote, ―Corruption is so thoroughly entwined in public life here that if it were pulled up by the roots, society might fall apart‖ (Komchadluek 11 Aug 2003). During this time, I was on a Special Patrol ride along, and had a chance to discuss the Chuwit case with several officers. Clearly, the officers thought the case was an amusing media spectacle, and joked about Chuwit‘s antics. One officer laughed as he said that Chuwit attempted to bribe the Sakorn Tamruat police association, but later denied the attempt. Another special patrol officer said, There should be an academic person to analyze this issue…I think that this ‗tea money‘ issue doesn‘t start from police. If I arrest someone on street with ‗illegal‘ stuff and that person offers to pay money, we must look at the context of the situation. Is this really illegal or really that bad? Thai society doesn‘t like to make a big deal out of everything (Interview 29 Aug 2003). Thai state-makers were desperately trying to regain some of the institutional legitimacy lost to Chuwit. AMLO froze more than a billion baht of his assets on charges of human trafficking on Aug 28th and police took away his massage parlor licenses citing the illegal extension of a building (Manop and
Figure 50: ―Chuwit Kamolvisit, driving his brand new car, is escorted by police on motorcycles to Pathumwan police station where he was charged with defuming the national police chief.‖ Photo: Sarot Meksophannakul
315 Apiradee 30 Aug 2003). Sutthisarn police station, whose officers raided Chuwit's clubs (and allegedly took hush money) (Scott-Clark & Levy 21 Feb 2004). Nevertheless, a more frank discussion of corruption than was available during the War on Dark Influence was now possible. Chulalongkorn professor Sangsit Piriyarangsan, Deputy-Chairman of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council, cited statistics that in 2002, police took 19 billion baht in bribes from gambling operators, 11 billion baht from the underground lottery, 3.4 billion baht from massage parlors and three billion baht from taxi motorcyclists (Preeyanat 18 Aug 2003). He described a culture of bribery within the police system linked to the Police Cadet Academy, ―Even newly graduated police officers know the bribe-taking channels. They know whom they should go to and how to get placements in so-called ―grade A‖ police positions - the ranking based on bribetaking opportunities‖ (Ibid.). Later, Sangsit said, ―Police had the influence over the people from birth till death‖ (Manop 25 Aug 2003). Clearly, Thaksin‘s plan for another populist campaign eliminating a complex societal problem through political theater was derailed. During the media spectacle of the Chuwit saga, coverage of small-scale motorcycle taxi corruption, and other governmentmanaged aspects of the War on Dark Influences became virtually non-existent. Only isolated reporting revealed that the problem of police corruption was still entrenched during the time Chuwit dominated the media. A police corporal was arrested for robbing and abusing an elderly woman (DP 23 Jul 2003). Prostitutes in the Patpong area accused local officials of brothel bribery (Sunthorn 25 Jul 2003). Street vendors used iTV investigative reporters to collect and publicize footage of forced bribery to police near
316 Chulalongkorn Hospital (Yuwadee 26 Jul 2003).66 The Minister of Interior employed ―foreign spies‖ to investigate nudity levels at strip clubs in five Thai cities (DP 12 Aug 2003). Although this display of public order was altered dramatically by the chaos of the Chuwit case, when both spectacles were over, little had changed.
The Political Utilities of the Dark Influence Campaign Nevertheless, despite the general derailment the Chuwit saga caused the 2003 War on Dark Influences the campaign was used politically for further centralization of power and legitimacy, especially in the time leading up to APEC. A new ―Mafia Suppression Unit‖ was created, attached to the powerful Klongluang police station (Komchadluek 19 July 2003). A new specialty unit was created within the Government Lottery Office, employing undercover officers to gather surveillance and evidence on underground lottery dealers in Aranyaprathet. The unit worked with AMLO to use newly-expanded asset-seizure laws on the underground lottery (DP 8 Aug 2003). Yet in the face of the government publicity on eliminating influence, Thaksin endorsed a Tourist Authority of Thailand program to issue ―Thailand Privilege Cards‖ allowing cardholders to pay one million baht in exchange for ―VIP, life-time, special services form the government‖ (―Here comes the new boss.‖ 4 Sept 2003). Prelude to Martial Law: Weapons Confiscations By far the most obvious political utility of the dark influence campaign was to implement yet another round of mass weapons confiscations and firearm sales bans. This was another attempt to construct the appearance of state order by maintaining its monopoly on the use of coercive force. PM Thaksin was unabashed in his wish to ―make
66
This coverage prompted then Bangkok governor (current Thai PM), Samak, to call the TV footage a fabrication and evict the vendors, citing a city beautification plan in preparation for the APEC summit ―Samak too ready to defend police.‖ 31 Jul 2003.
317 Thailand gun-free‖ by banning firearms sales and making carrying weapons illegal for all Thai citizens. Supposedly, the firearms sales ban did not affect people who already had licenses to carry and possess guns. Nevertheless the War on Dark Influences was linked to a new crackdown on ―war weapons,‖ which despite the protests of the seventy to eighty licensed gun shops in Bangkok, some operating for more than half a century, amounted to an total ban on gun sales. Interior Minister Wan Nor said, ―we have to be strict with weapon sales because the government is about to launch a major crackdown on war weapons‖ (Manop 7 Sept 2003). The government was preparing an amnesty for people possessing ―war weapons‖ to hand them over to authorities, followed by a ban on gun possession. The state rhetoric surrounding this crackdown, that only its agents and not its citizens should be allowed to own firearms was unabashed. Thaksin actively promoted making Thailand a ―gun-free society over a five to six year time frame‖ (Wassayos 15 Sept 2003) despite widespread public opposition from many of the three million registered firearms owners, and from many police officers themselves (―Disarming the public makes sound sense‖ 12 Sept. 2003). Some police officers said they ―are not in a position to guarantee public safety, particularly in remote areas‖ and ―doubt they can really protect the public around the clock‖ (Wassayos 15 Sept 2003). Nevertheless, mainstream media outlets largely supported the proposed total public disarmament project. The Bangkok Post went as far as publishing an editorial entitled ―Disarming the public makes sound sense‖ in which it claimed ―a society free of guns is a noble idea deserving of our support.‖ The editorial went on to parrot the opinion of the Thaksin
318 administration, ―it will take time to convince people of the wisdom of a gun-free society‖ (―Disarming the public makes sound sense.‖ 12 Sept. 2003). The government and media campaign for public disarmament occurred in the context of a high-profile firearm seizure that implicated nine junior police officers in supplying weapons to the ―Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam,‖ (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers. The nine officers, five from within the Ranong police Records Division, purchased 9mm Glock pistols that were found in the possession of three LTTE members when they were arrested on 12 May in a Ranong hotel parking lot. Along with Figure 51: ―Four of the five Records Division policemen who surrendered to Crime Suppression Division officers yesterday after being charged with involvement in the illegal sale of firearms to Tamil Tigers rebels.‖ Photo: Boonnarong Bhudhipanya
ten of these pistols, police found three 11mm HK pistols and ammunition (Manop 18 Sept 2003). The five police officers (none higher ranked than
Snr Sgt. Maj) surrendered along with a police Sgt-Maj from the Lak Song police station, a gun shop manager, his agent, and the owner of another gun shop (Wassayos 24 Sept 2003). An Air Force M-Sgt was also arrested, while two gun shop staff members, another Air Force ground security M-Sgt and another man were at large. According to the Bangkok Post, the thirteen pistols and ammunition ―should prove beyond any doubt that Thailand is being used as an international centre to supply arms to terrorists and insurgency groups‖ (Wassayos 7 Oct 2003). Importantly, this overstatement allowed the immediate declaration that the ―Crime Suppression Division‘s findings silenced the operators of gun shops and citizens who own guns after they rose up against Mr Thaksin's earlier announcement to make Thailand firearms free within five to six years‖ (Ibid.).
319 Meanwhile, a number of cases against police and military personal accused of stealing and/or selling stockpiles continued to hint that Thailand‘s state agents, rather than its citizens, represented a greater threat. These cases included a military sergeant conducting covert intelligence and drug suppression missions (Wassana 20 Sept 2003) and a Chiang Rai police Sgt-Maj found with assault rifles, explosives, timers, ammunition and papers about arms dealing (Theerawat 27 Oct 2003). Inevitably, perhaps, the Tamil Tiger weapons incident and other weapons seizures were linked to security preparations for APEC (discussed in detail in Chapter 7). In the above case, the weapons theft involving the military sergeant working on secret drug and intelligence missions, the theft was only detected due to increased scrutiny of military stockpiles in the run-up to APEC (Wassana 20 Sept 2003). In eight northeastern provinces, police arrested 161 ―suspects‖ and confiscated 431 firearms, of which only twenty-seven were ―war weapons.‖ Interestingly, many of these weapons seizures were simply abandoned weapons from people dumping firearms and ammunition, fearful of arrest in the face of the coming crackdown on war weapons. In one case, a police patrol in Narathiwat found an M26 grenade left near the Su ngai Kolok river (Bangkok Post 23 Oct 2003). In another case, an AK-47 rifle and ammunition were found under a tree. Countless incidents of weapons dumping were occurring across the country. As the weapons confiscation deadline came closer, it was announced that gun owners would be allowed to keep antique weapons as long as they are registered as ―state assets.‖ Thaksin cited historical precedent for the total confiscation of state gun submission, ―People who have military hardware, such as M-16 or AK-47 rifles, have time until tomorrow to
320 submit them to the state…the public had cooperated well in arms amnesties held in 1948, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1987 and 1992‖ (Nation 14 Dec 2003).67 On the day of the of the crackdown, Dec 15th, when general amnesty ended for ―illegal weapons‖ holders, Thaksin vowed that ―The government will show no mercy to those defying the order to surrender all illegal weapons to the state‖ (Yuwadee & Temsak 16 Dec 2003). With a certain degree of foreboding, it was announced that ―not a single gun had been handed over in the southern hotspot of Narathiwat.‖ Nevertheless, Interior Wan Nor said the total amount of surrendered weapons was ―the biggest ever‖ (Ibid.). Deputy PM Chavalit used the confiscation to remind Thai citizens that they should continue to report members of the their own families to the government: ―they cannot make their wives angry or the women will come to the police and report about them hiding weapons‖ (Ibid.).
SECTION CONCLUSION: Beyond Chuwit Along with further citizen surveillance and national gun confiscation, the net result of the War on Dark Influence seemed to be a return to the status quo statesanctioned illegal economy. On ―International Anti-Corruption Day,‖ a group of speakers talked about how power was concentrated in the hands of an elite group of policy-makers and business interests, offering little hope that the country would ever be free of corruption (Aphaluck 10 Dec 2003). Pibhop Dhongchai, adviser to the Campaign for Popular Democracy and the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, described a symbiosis between the government and media. Pibhop said, ―Newspapers in our democratic society are silent, just like the press in socialist countries‖ (Mongkol 10 Dec 67
As a result of the planned crackdown, according to Thaksin, 16,000 pistols, 145 military weapons, 6,000 civilian rounds, 17,000 military rounds and 608 bombs have been handed in although he pointed out, ―These figures do not include the pieces dumped in deserted areas‖ (Nation 14 Dec 2003).
321 2003). The Transport Minister himself admitted that ―bribe-taking was still rife at the Port Authority of Thailand (Amornrat 16 Sept 2003). Furthermore, corruption in the Sangha among ―rogue monks‖ and ―criminals in saffron robes‖ still remained a problem (Nation 11 Dec 2003). Finally, Deputy PM Chavalit said that he was ―baffled‖ that three provinces, Suphan Buri, Chon Buri and Nakhon Sawan didn‘t report a single influential figure during the dark influence campaign (Yuwadee 12 Dec 2003). With rampant corruption still an obvious problem despite Thaksin‘s initial claims that he would eliminate it in three months (later amended to five to eight years of his projected future premiership), the priorities of the Thai state already shifted to an obsession with terrorism and social control. Indicative of this new trend was Thaksin‘s announcement, in his weekly radio address, that he would ban vagrant elephants from the streets of Bangkok (Thaivisa 2003b). Numerous attempts to remove the estimated sixty to two hundred fifty illegal elephants in the city failed continuously. The announcement of this new ban showed that the massive social control efforts surrounding APEC would be a greater priority than the failed War on Dark Influence. The brief state concern with spotlighting corruption and influence must be contextualized with the growing state interest in the appearance of ―an ordered city‖ leading up to, during, and following the October APEC meetings. The elephants, formerly used for logging, but made redundant in a 1989 logging ban, are a common city site alongside their handlers (mahouts) begging for bananas and used to sell ―ivory‖ souvenirs. Perhaps no better symbol for the state‘s blind eye for illegal activity exists than the continual presence of massive pachyderms, a national symbol for the Thailand itself. They were banned during APEC, when they reportedly took covert refuge in a
322 forest area northwest of the international airport. Slowly in the months and weeks following these meetings, when clean streets, security, and social order took an overwhelming priority, the animals were led back to the city where they were supposedly illegal. Despite their illegality, appropriate compensation to the appropriate authorities assured their invisibility. As I rounded a city corner, on one of my perhaps ill-advised runs (just another crazy farang running through the heat, humidity and crowded sidewalks of Bangkok…), I came within a foot of slamming face first into an elephant‘s backside. Here it was: a near literal ass-end collision into Thailand‘s elephant-sized underground economy and the state‘s new social control regime, all occurring after a counter-corruption campaign and APEC preparations had supposedly ―cleaned up the streets.‖ A similarly obvious symbol of unabated corruption, despite cosmetic attempts to literally cover it up, stands on Sukhumvit Soi 10, the former site of the razed entertainment area: Chuwit Park. In July 2006, Chuwit and one hundred thirty ―associates‖ were acquitted of demolishing the businesses in the midnight 2003 raid by police and the Military Corps of Engineers. A single corporate lawyer received a sentence for incitement, the sacrificial scapegoat for the hundreds of police, soldiers, and Chuwit himself who admitted in a 2004 interview that he paid Thai police officers to destroy the businesses at his lot at Soi 10. Thus, Chuwit‘s successful inversion of this particular display of Thai state order offers an intriguing juxtaposition, indicating that state attempts to institute social control are anything but totalizing. The War on Dark Influence‘s ritual display mobilized highly visible actors, motorcycle taxi drivers who literally wore the mark of the extortion
323 schemes they labored under, to create a dramatic site of state intervention. By asserting economic dominance on this relatively minor site of the illegal economy, Thai statemakers hoped to create the appearance of a broad ―war on crime‖ that claimed to attempt to eliminate the networks of favoritism, protection, and extortion endemic to the Thai state. Thus, the campaign was an attempted assertion of economic dominance and informational control. However, the public revelation of government involvement in the destruction of the Sukhumvit Square entertainment complex and the unexpected chaos of Chuwit‘s subsequent media antics show the limitations of state displays of order. The state‘s construction of order through the campaign against dark influence was almost entirely demolished by Chuwit‘s public exposure of the ―invisible influence‖ of Thailand‘s covert netherworld (McCoy 2008:1). Nevertheless, the trickster figure of Chuwit embodies the cycles of state order and chaos: his unpredicted revelations served to normalize the status quo of routinized state corruption and covert profit. By contrast, as a performance of coercion, the dark influence campaign‘s attendant national weapons confiscations were an undeniably effective demonstration of state order. I contend that this demonstration of the state‘s monopoly of coercive force, in the service of presenting a more ordered (less publicly armed) national image for the APEC security spectacle, was integral to the assurance of coercive dominance in the 2006 coup. In effect, Thaksin disarmed his own support base, in order to present a less threatening environment for the APEC global elite. In doing so, he also helped insure that his royalist ―opponents‖ would meet a pacified public upon declaring martial law just over a year later. Concurrently, the weapons confiscation assured that anyone within the country who refused to submit to the state‘s coercive monopoly, especially in the
324 Thailand‘s ―southern hotspots,‖ was criminalized by Thailand‘s emergent terror narrative, described in Section IV.
325
SECTION IV: THAILAND’S TERROR NARRATIVE “I think APEC will be attacked…There is no way to protect against it because they (terrorists) will sacrifice their lives – it‟s a brotherhood across the world.” Pol. Capt. ―Vichit,‖ Metropolitan Special Patrol (interview August 2003) Although this is a work of fiction, and no such internationally wielded counterterrorism unit is currently recognized by the nations of the world...the reality of this gaming environment is not as far removed from our own as some might hope. ―The New World Order‖ (Red Storm Entertainment 1998) A police major, ―Norodom‖ working as a crime suppression inspector, reflected on the mantra that is part of his job description and title: suppression. He said, ―My first assignment at (this) station was suppression (bongkan brapbram)… This is a job in a uniform to go out and show off…show power. Suppression and protection is work done in a uniform, going out and showing off, showing power.‖ Who is the show for? What is embedded in the show of force, the show of power? In 2003, the spectale of terrorism in Thailand was crafted into a narrative chain of events, and represents another conjunction in the state construction of order. The individual display of power Norodom talked about, a hierarchical group demonstrating force, the basis of pre-modern statecraft, gave way to more elaborate and shadowy displays. A manufactured threat of terrorism was used as the excuse to create a new army of counter-terrorists made of police, military, and intelligence operatives. A cult of fear, based on time-tested techniques of covert informational control, was being created. The cult of counterterrorism in Thailand is still gathering followers (International Monetary Fund 23 Jul 2004:2; Livingstone 1990).68
68
This phrase makes reference to a book by Neil Livingstone called ―The Cult of Counterterrorism: The ―Weird World‖ of Spooks, Counterterrorists, Adventurers, and the Not-Quite Professionals‖ (1990). However, in defining the members of this ―cult,‖ where Livingstone refers to intelligence operatives, SWAT team members and users of ―spycraft‖ themselves, I also refer to the wider group of citizens who consume, fetishize and internalize the symbols and activities of counterterrorism. ‗Cult,‘ in this case is an admittedly loaded metaphor meaning, ―Devotion or homage to a particular person or thing, now esp. as
326 In other words, on our front pages, in our televisions and in our minds, the police embody and enact the ―legitimate use of physical force‖ by the state. And the black-clad SWAT team, the counter-terrorist, is the symbol of state power and violence par excellence. Thus ―the cult of counter-terrorism‖ in this case refers to media outlets who produce images of the technologically proficient riot squads who instantly descend on purveyors of state dissent as well as the consumers of those images, from nearly anyone who glances at the headlines, watches a police TV program or film to the most obsessed and avid fan of police and para-police literature. The object of worship, in this case, is not only the agents of state violence, but the state‘s order-making capacity. Terrorists are an ideal enemy of the state: nebulous, loosely defined groups that are unattached to any other state and vulnerable to covert manipulation from within. These ideal enemies are subject to unapologetic rhetoric of state dehumanization and criminalization without fear of retribution, aided by the global mandates of the New World Order. Within increasingly sophisticated counter-terrorist teams, states can bring Weber‘s definition of the legitimate use of force fully to bear. Counter-terrorist teams include the use of force as the sole reason for their existence: they function only to kill or incapacitate enemies of the state within the domestic sphere. It is within the special tactics police that the heart of state violence and the expression of state order can be located. But within these groups, the paradox of order is also most obviously prevalent: without constantly reproducing threats to state order (chaos) the state‘s capacity for violence, its defining characteristic is unnecessary. Thus, states require violent enemies requiring coercive suppression to ensure that the wheel of chaos/order and violence
paid by a body of professed adherents or admirers,‖ (OED #3) but the term‘s connotations of fanatical religious devotion are useful in illuminating how state power is enacted.
327 continues to spin. The specter of ubiquitous terrorism is the contemporary state‘s everpresent shadow, from which counter-terrorism can emerge. The first chapter of this section examines the actors employed in the terror/counter-terror dramas that follow. This chapter focuses on Thailand‘s special militarized police units, riot squads, special patrol division, Border Patrol Police, and other police tactical units assigned specifically with ―VIP protection.‖ Importantly, the expressed goal of police special unit tactics groups across the world, the groups Kraska and Kaeppeler call police paramilitary units (PPUs) (1999:464), is a dominant display of force – an excessive display of intimidation and power. Because of the decades-long tradition of international cross-training and information sharing among PPUs, these ―elite‖ police units are becoming globally homogenized. Kothari and others noted this globalizing trend in the late 1980s: Perhaps the most striking feature of the modern epoch is the homogeneity of forms of physical coercion. Armed forces, police forces, paramilitary forces around the world make use of the same types of military technology…With the help of advisors and training courses, forms of command, patterns of operations, methods of recruitment also bear a global resemblance. For the first time in history, soldiers and policemen from different societies have more in common with each other than the societies from which they come (1989:22). The above passage describes the trend of ―global policing.‖ This trend accelerated rapidly following the Cold War, although many aspects of it have centuries-old historical precedents (as discussed in Chapter 2, see also Nadelmann 1993). Thailand‘s globally-situated PPUs and elite protection strategies are featured prominently in Chapter 7, where I examine ―Thailand‘s terror narrative,‖ a chronological chain of events which married British counter-insurgency and US global policing with a series of terror-related Thai state performances. Featured performances of this narrative
328 included the anti-terrorism executive decrees immediately followed by the high-profile arrest of Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. ―Hambali,‖ and the October 2003 Asian Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC) meetings. These coercive and ritualized anti-terror displays were used by the Thai state to create a growing narrative of terrorist threats in the service of economic dominance and informational control. Concurrently, they were also designed to integrate with the internationalist order and economic legitimacy of APEC, which attempts to globalize economic dominance and to homogenize the security operations of member states. The performances of state and global order in the Thai terror narrative built to a crescendo in January 2004, when southern provincial bombings and assassinations radically intensified. In this site of violent disorder, the problem of chaotic violence continues to justify coercive ―solutions‖ of social control.
329
Chapter 6 – Counter-terror and Coercion: Police Paramilitary Units, Elite Protection Spectacles and Riot Squads This is our duty. The bad people (“khon raay”) are well trained, so we train harder. They might have better weapons than us, so we learn how to shoot them (the “khon ray”) better…In the end, we will win. Pol. Lt. ―Reng,‖ Arintaraj 26 headquarters And the riot squad they‟re restless They need somewhere to go ―Desolation Row‖ (Dylan 1965) In the cyber-café at the top of Bangkok‘s Mah Boong Khrong shopping center, popularly known to be haunted by its Chinese husband and wife founders Mah and Boong Khrong, hundreds of young Thais engage each other in endless cycles of combat as terrorists and counter-terrorists. They carefully program virtual uniform patches which adorn the shoulders of their black-clad or camouflaged online avatars. In one popular online game, the ―Rainbow Six‖ series, players serve in a covert international team made of UN member nation‘s police and military special operations units. Prior to the unprecedented popularity of the ―Counter-Strike‖ terrorist/counter-terrorist modification of the ―Half-Life‖ online game, ―SWAT 3‖ was another popular online option. In this game, players are members of the LAPD SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team. The LAPD is a fittingly central site: the first SWAT teams in the world were introduced to LA in the 1960s. In SWAT 3, players learn close quarter battle (CQB) weapons tactics, verbal compliance models (endless repetitions of ―Get down! Drop your weapon! Do it now!‖), as well as the LAPD SWAT motto and mission: ―Bringing Order to Chaos.‖ Through computer games such as these, Thais, especially young men, are invited to participant in the virtual equivalent of a global trend: police units are simultaneously militarizing and internationalizing.
330 These groups, designated as counter-terrorists, SWAT teams, or Police Paramilitary Units (PPUs ), constantly cross-train with each other at federal police headquarters throughout the world: at the FBI training headquarters in Quantico, Virginia; at the SAS base in Hereford, Western England; at GSG-9 headquarters in St. Augustin near Bonn, Germany; at the Naresuan Border Patrol Police base in Hua Hin, Thailand; or at the former Asia Games headquarters where the Bangkok Special Patrol Arintaraj team is based. All of these groups train several days a week, every month, every year for close quarter battle (CQB) with groups or persons literally called ―the bad guys‖ in a Figure 52: Thailand's Arintaraj Police Paramilitary Unit
myriad of languages from around the
world. In Thai, the bad guys are ―khon raay‖ or ―bad people.‖ This simple binary opposition helps PPU agents to marry training operations to real-life operations and to kill or incapacitate others without needing to question orders received, thus ideal for performing coercive force. CQB training is a deliberately-developed technology for the enactment of a particular kind of globalized physical violence. At the forefront of the global policing trend, CQB training is virtually the same worldwide. A squad of four to twenty-four agents (or ―operators‖) will run various drill scenarios, usually in a ―kill box‖ or special training facility, where configurable plywood is used to create various imagined physical
331 spaces. Here the Baudrillardian simulacrum is employed to keep counter-terrorists and PPUs at ―training strength‖ for confrontation with a variety of enemies of the state. Millions of dollars are invested in PPUs for city, county, provincial, state, national, and international government agencies in weapons, uniforms, equipment and support for the tens of thousands of squad-based police units. These units are increasingly used to serve routine warrants, conduct evidence searches, and respond to domestic disputes. To deploy a PPU team, whether it is in the service of counter-terrorism or for a domestic dispute is to keep a team at a well-honed ―operational capacity‖ that is appreciated by the team members as well as their leaders. To be used in an operational situation proves that the group is worthy of the massive budgets earmarked for such units and justifies the groups‘ ―elite status‖ among other police units. Thailand has a growing cadre of PPUs in addition to ―rapid response teams‖ within the military. Thailand‘s national level PPUs is the ―Narasuan‖ group, which was organized in 1983 specifically to build a counter-terrorism capacity within the Border Patrol Police‘s Arial Reinforcement Unit (PARU). Naresuan 261 is modeled after the national German PPU, GSG-9. Within Bangkok, the ―Arintaraj 26‖ PPU is a sub-unit of Bangkok‘s Metropolitan Special Patrol division responds to incidents in the city and its environs. These two groups are important agents in the performance of coercive force by the Thai state. They are
Figure 53: Thailand's Naresuan PPU
deployed both in response to ―incidents‖ where they enact physical violence, as well as in
332 demonstrations of the Thai state‘s capacity for coercive force. In these demonstrations, the state‘s capital of physical force is performed symbolically in media showcases, state spectacles, public events, and other displays of the capacity for violence. As groups who proclaim a mission to maintain public order, PPUs exhibit a particularly paradoxical approach to creating order out of chaos, including riot control. For one, the ―domestic‖ mission of PPUs allows for deployment of militarized tactics that are illegal in international war, as outlined in the Geneva convention. Under US Code, for example, the Figure 54: ―The commander of the riot squad sub-division, Somsak Prasaansuk, with a contingent of officers with helmets and riot shields‖ (Top Gun Warrior Magazine May 1999:11)
prohibition against the use of chemical or biological agents in warfare is notably exempted for ―Any law enforcement
purpose, including any purpose related to riot control‖ (United States Code 2006). Interestingly, the unit patch for the riot control sub-division within the Special Patrol Branch of the Thai Metropolitan Police Bureau is a circular mandala-style traditional Thai shield with a canister of riot-control gas in the center. Through the center, a riot club in the same place where the traditional Thai daap or sword lies in the Royal Thai police insignia. After witnessing numerous riot control responses to various political demonstrations, I traveled to the headquarters of the Metropolitan Special Patrol Bureau to interview several officers and commanders of the riot control sub-division. The riot control sub-division is made up of 1,350 officers, with 150 officers from each of the nine Metropolitan Police division districts. This structure allows each
333 Metropolitan police station within Bangkok to hold a small riot control unit of trained officers. Riot control officers are recruited directly from the Police Academy and receive one month of specialized training and courses specifically related to riot control and suppression (khuap khum charajon). While working within the riot squad sub-division, officers receive additional physical and operational training every Wednesday. Videos of demonstrations and other incidents are used in the training, usually provided by news stations. The use of news media in training is but one aspect of the simulacra that is ―reality training.‖ One riot suppression officer with seventeen-years of experience described reality training, ―We use real situations that happened before to train them, such as how to suppress mobs after they enter restricted area.‖ I asked, ―Are they actually trained at a real place or not?‖ ―No, they are usually trained here; we set up hypothetical situation at the training area and use a blueprint of a real place. They have to learn how to raid in and bring out the people who are in the restricted area properly.‖ ―Who do they use to substitute for rioters?‖ ―We use our officers,‖ he said. Thus, just as Thai teenagers engage in non-stop virtual performances of terrorist and counter terrorist in cyber-cafes, news media is used to enhance reality training scenarios where officers role-play both rioter and riot suppressor. When I inquired further about what is emphasized in training, the officer said, ―First, we have to reprogram them to be loyal to the division and emphasize the importance of being a riot control officer. The tactical trainings involve gun shooting, self-defense, close-range attack and area guarding.‖ ―What do you mean by saying, ‗reprogram‘?‖ I asked.
334
―We try to teach them the most important things of working here; which are unity and patience. During the training, they have to learn how to face difficulty and are trained with reality training; the reason is to give them an idea of a real working situation, so we have many rules for them to follow and serious penalties if they break the rules.‖ When I asked another riot squad trainer ‗Yok,‘ who served as the unit subcommander, ―What is the biggest operation that your group has been ordered to deal with?‖ he explained, ―The Black May (1992) incident – we couldn‘t control the situation at that time because there were too many people and the situation was out of control. The rest of the incidents that we were involved in weren‘t so violent because people usually just want to form up a group to request for something from the government and negotiate peacefully.‖ ―Were you there during the Black May incident?‖ I asked. ―I was there,‖ he said. ―Most of the riot control officers who were there resigned or moved to other divisions.‖ ―Was that incident used as a lesson for training now?‖ He said, ―We have videotape that was recorded by a news station. We use it to teach in class as an example of a real violent situation and to show the weak spot of the police and why they couldn‘t control the situation.‖ ―What reason was given for that, why it didn‘t work out?‖ ―The police didn‘t have enough force and weapons at that time.‖ Thus, according to this riot squad veteran, weapons and physical force are the central factors in controlling any political demonstration, even though the Thai military‘s use of force was the main reason the demonstration ended tragically.69 From my observations at demonstrations and interviews with riot control officers, only the commanders of riot units visibly hold firearms, although some officers might covertly carry illegally 69
The first hotel I stayed at in Bangkok in 2001, the Rathanakosin or Royal Hotel is notoriously haunted by the ghosts of protesters who died there when it was used as a makeshift refuge and triage from the soldiers firing into the 1992 counter-coup demonstration referred to above as the ―Black May‖ incident.
335 concealed weapons. One officer said, ―The commander is allowed (to carry a firearm) in order to protect himself at the command spot nearby the incident.‖ One member of the riot squad rank-and-file explained to me, ―We are not allowed to carry a gun during performance.‖ In addition, or the actors involved in performing the duty of riot control, the incidents are, quite literally, performances of the state‘s capacity for violence. The state‘s capacity for violence is expressed as a manifold, and the female riot control unit I observed at multiple demonstrations, including the anti-Bush APEC demonstration of 2003, is one of its complex expressions. The special female unit (the first female Thai police, tamruat ying, were hired as traffic officers in 1961), is not attached to the riot control sub-division. It is a separate unit recruited from within the Metropolitan Police Bureau; a structural position which belies the public relations and special-use nature of the women who serve there (Ibid.). As the subcommander veteran who was present at the Black May demonstrations explained, ―They will be called when there is a female mob formed up to protest somewhere or to join with our group to control a situation in an important meeting or event such as Olympics.‖ Thus, the female riot squad, is a gendered aspect of the
Figure 55: Border Patrol Policewomen
336 state‘s capacity for expression, and are employed both to express the state‘s willingness (capacity) to enact violence on women, and to perform gendered displays at national or state events and rituals. Special police units of women are commonly deployed, with media fanfare, at public events. The Naresuan national-level PPU routinely showcases its cadre of women officers at public events. Also, at police competitions, which often are international events designed to foster cooperation and camaraderie among the ―international law enforcement community,‖ Thai women snipers are publicly showcased. Thus, there exists a strong connection between ―special‖ elements of both the police, military, and police-paramilitary units and women. Women are routinely highlighted in public events and deployments of these units for the purposes of public relations and operational tactics (deploying women officers at demonstrations with many women). This
Figure 56: Police women sniper competition
serves to create an image of nationalism and patriotism that is publicly displayed beyond socially-mandated gender role divisions. As part of the broader performances of masculinity, the Riot Suppression subdivision is made of five sub-groups which work along with a sixth group, the Arintharat sub-division, to protect embassies and other elite urban zones. As a twenty-year veteran of the Bangkok riot squad said, ―We have some officers from our group helping the
337 Arintharat group to guard the area of all ambassadors‘ houses nowadays. It‘s not a direct responsibility but because of the lack of officers, we have to help out as much as we could. This responsibility actually belongs to the Special Branch (Santibaan)‖ (interview 7 Oct 2003). Arintharat‘s relationship to the Riot Control sub-division highlights its image as an ―elite‖ unit. As ‗Yok,‘ the veteran above elaborated, Our group is responsible for suppressing and controlling mobs and also performs duties upon request from other organizations. The responsibility of the Arintharat group is to suppress terrorists. They are specifically trained to do this duty. The officers of Arintharat are recruited from our group, the recruitment happens once a year. They have to take physical, EQ and IQ tests, which are built specifically for this group only (Ibid.). I asked another riot suppression officer whether there was any group within the riot suppression sub-division that is more efficient than another groups. He said, No. It is only group number five, Arintarat, which is trained to perform special duty. Also, only the Arintarat unit cross-trains with other police groups internationally‖ (interview 7 Oct 2003). Arintarat is therefore singled out as a highly specialized mechanism for coercive expression, used symbolically in national and international performances.
Chaos and Order in the Anti-Cambodia Counter-Riot Riot squads are routinely deployed at embassies to monitor and suppress protests, and thus are front-line agents to enact physical force and the state‘s capacity for violence. Recent sociological examinations show how both protester and police negotiate the limits of dissent within symbolic and historically-situated sites of protest (Steinhoff 2007). The deployments of riot squads create dialogues between state and protester, with both groups negotiating a boundary of mutual order and chaos within the protest performance space. Violent and non-violent meaning is symbolically encoded in this chaotically-ordered space, which I discovered at the end of my first month of fieldwork in 2003, just days
338 before the declaration of the drug suppression campaign. A Thai soap opera actress, Suvanan Kongying, was quoted in Rasmei Angkor (Ray/Light of Angkor), a progovernment Cambodian newspaper, as claiming the ancient Khmer site of Angkor Wat rightfully belonged to Thailand. The remarks later proved to be misquotes, but the damage to Cambodian national pride was done. On January 29th, the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh was burned down by a group of Cambodians, who went on to destroy numerous Thai businesses and residences. Alex Hinton provides a detailed examination of the incident within Cambodia and demonstrates how the anti-Thai riots re-asserted a nationalized ‗Khmer‘ identity against a foreign ―Other‖ (2006). During the riots in both countries, Khmers and Thais relied on othering as a source of threat for the mutual creation of cultural identity (Ibid. 446). In Cambodia, this threat creation centered around Thai-Cambodian profiteering, trade, the illegal border economy, the perceived cultural imperialism of Thailand, and the attendant condescension of the Thai Other used as a foil in Khmer identity formation. Moreover, the symbolic prominence of Angkor Wat, its sacking by the kingdom of Ayuttaya, the contentious Angkor-era border temple of Preah Vinhear (in Thai, Khao Phra Wihaan) and the Thai/Khmner Rouge alliance were also sources of meaning in the anti-Thai riots (Ibid.). On a political level, there were widespread rumors that Hun Sen loyalists from the CPP and perhaps Hun Sen himself instigated the violence (Ibid. 451) first, through de facto complicity (an initial delayed response by state forces), and second, through the use of pro-government ―Pagoda Boys‖ in the riots (Ibid. 462). According to these public theories, Hun Sen‘s CPP used the riots as an excuse for a pre-election crackdown on independent radio stations, and a crackdown on anti-government protest within
339 Cambodia. The nationalist sentiment revolving around Angkor Wat‘s mandala of symbolic meaning was prominently invoked and politically useful. Hun Sen‘s speech at a school for the blind and deaf in which he called the Thai soap opera actress Suvanan, ―Thief Star,‖ (Ibid. 446) added further weight to her symbol-laden stage names, ―Morning Star‖ and ―Helen of Troy.‖ I heard the news the following morning, on January 30th that the Thai embassy and a number of Thai businesses in Phnom Penh, Cambodia were burned in riots the night before. Despite the ―Land of Smiles‖ moniker in Thailand, there is a Thai expression, ―naahm ning lai leuk‖ (still waters run deep), describing the often volatile feelings beneath the calm and silent cultural veneer. A half-century campaign of Thai nationalism, a long history of military politics, and the US-led anti-communist programs of the 1950s and 1970s, created widespread xenophobia, mistrust and, in certain situations, outright hatred of foreigners. This animosity is especially expressed towards Thailand‘s closest cultural and geographical neighbors. With this in mind, knowing my goal to study the state construction of order and chaos, I rode the elevated train to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok to witness the backlash to the riots in Phnom Penh. I arrived after the immediate and more destructive protests in the morning, but by noon there was a massive buildup of police vehicles, media vans and protesters in the wide street near the embassy. At the demonstration, I was shown a grainy photocopy that was widely circulated at the protest. It depicted a scene supposedly taken from the Cambodian riots: a smiling man driving a stake into a large picture of His Majesty, the King of Thailand. This act of symbolic violence and lèse-majesté is a capital offense in Thailand, and this image alone
340 provoked intense rage among many Thais (Streckfuss 1998). As the afternoon wore on a number of Cambodian flags were burned along with countless effigies of Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen. Later, a police general gave a ten minute speech from a police fire truck, vocally competing with a few chants from the crowd of ―aawk bpai!‖ (Get out!) addressed, presumably, to Cambodians still living in Thailand. This chant was used as a kind of default rallying cry throughout the course of the day by the most visibly angry and/or intoxicated sections of the crowd. Riders on passing buses, clearly sympathetic Thais, were handed pictures and literature from the smiling and cheering crowd who waved Thai flags (some of which were distributed by uniformed police officers). The police general finished his speech and the crowd cheered enthusiastically. He said that the King of Thailand himself sent a message asking the crowd to disperse. During this protest, the nearby Aerofloat Airlines office and Regent Hotel were used as a staging area for protesters and police. Most of the hundreds of police assigned to this protest were Metropolitan officers from various local stations, along with large portions of the Metropolitan Special Patrol Division Riot Control Unit. Almost all of the Metropolitan police and Special Patrol officers were unarmed, or carried shields and clubs with no firearms. The commissioned officers, by contrast, carried firearms, although some of their weapons were visibly not fitted with cartridges. Every half hour, riot control and regular metropolitan units moved back and forth to the Regent Hotel for breaks. Attendant to considerations of rank, these subordinates passed the commissioned officers, the majority of whom were police colonels, in a nearby staging area, many dutifully saluted. The throngs of protesters and surrounding crowds let these groups of police through without word or incident. A fence was set around a fifty foot police
341 staging area. In one corner of this area, commissioned officers were constantly conferring and directing the deployment of Special Patrol units in rows with riot shields and helmets. These groups stood five rows deep with eight officers to a row. On the opposite side of the Special Patrol riot units, regular metropolitan officers at the rank of sergeant and below, reinforced the scene. Control of space is one of the central means of control in riot suppression. When I asked a riot suppression veteran what techniques are used to control a demonstration, he said, ―We first analyze the situation and set up a restricted area in order to keep out the people; if they enter the area, they will be arrested. We can‘t make any decision during the performance; only the commander can, because if a problem occurs, someone has to be responsible for it.‖ The deployment of fences is routinely used as a space-controlling device and their use is normalized by both the police and protesters. I asked one riot control sub-division officer who sets up the fences, and he said, ―We usually know where to set up fences; a mob always occurs at the same place.‖ Thus, even in the seemingly tumultuous demonstration at the Cambodian embassy exhibited a chaos, controlled in many respects, by police. Both protester and counter-protester performed in a normalized space in the context of police riot control. In the early afternoon, as Cambodian flags burned, press covered the scene, and several tourists looked on, I watched the protest and its riot control response proceed in an eerily-ordered fashion. Metropolitan commissioned officers, including the Metropolitan Police Commander and the Special Patrol Commander walked around in groups of three or four. The commanders, Pol. Lt. Generals walked in front as a police fire truck, equipped with microphone and PA system, drove up on the sidewalk to the
342 police staging area. A high ranking officer entered the scene and gave a ten minute speech. The Police Fire Truck PA system fed back and the Police General‘s speech competed with a few remaining ―aawk bpai!‖ chants. People in buses passing by were handed photocopied pictures from people in the crowd through open windows. People in the crowd cheered and waved flags distributed earlier. While the Police General finished his speech, there was a marked complicity and agreement with people in the crowd. Earlier there was some sort of altercation with a high ranking officer and a self-appointed ―spokesman‖ in front of the crowd. This was resolved by the Police General, who thanked the public for their cooperation. Most importantly, the general related a statement he claimed was directly from King Bumipol himself, pleading for peace, order, and good behavior. Smiles abounded in both police and crowd members: negotiations were good. The police general finished his address and the crowd cheered. Later that evening, as another Cambodian flag was burned, a picture of king was in danger of being wrinkled. One of protest leaders in a white oxford reverently handed the image through the crowd to the police. Like this event, the protest itself was a symbolic display: the rear entrance to the embassy, much closer to the actual building itself, but away from the main street, was empty with only a few motorcycles visible. There were no police guarding this entrance and no secondary protest. The main focal point of the protest seemed to lie at the symbolically important front sign which, earlier that morning, was torn off and later covered with a ceremonial wreath. Another symbolic aspect of the protest was the use of fire to burn countless flags and effigies of Cambodian PM Hun Sen. Fire symbolism was a major part of this counter-protest along with the constant chants directed at the Hun Sen effigies: ―ai hia!‖
343 (meaning ―you reptile‖ – a serious curse in Thai) and ―Khmer…Hia!‖ Various members of the crowd wore a particular identifiable uniform: they were shirtless, visibly intoxicated, and wearing headbands reading, ―Love King‖ (in English). Many carried framed pictures of King Bumipol. Numerous signs and chants were in English, possibly for the benefit of the international media, who cordoned off an area that could be entered by anyone with the confidence to do so. Many shouted, ―Hun Sen…Fuck You!‖ a phrase which morphed into something else unintelligible. As the sun fell, more Thai flags were distributed and things became decidedly festive. Most police, seemingly fresh from the academy in their late teens, showed a general air of boredom. I saw one officer and his friend walking arm in arm, exhibiting the peculiar affectations of Thai masculinity. Some officers read news paper and most looked quietly on. The protest came to a quiet close just before midnight. By contrast to this massive embassy protest directed at Thailand‘s oft-reviled neighbor, Cambodia, I witnessed another protest on 19 March 2003, when rural farmers descended on the US embassy.70 The farmers were there to protest provisions within Thailand's Geographical Indication Protection Bill. The US Embassy‘s regional security officer, Robert Eckert stood in front of the embassy compound with police and staff to watch this small protest. Rural farmers with signs, some in English opposed US restrictions on plant and animal names. This small routine political protest contrasted sharply with Cambodian Embassy protest a month and a half earlier. Nevertheless, the police presence was significant, and included roughly twenty-five US Diplomatic Security corps contractors and a similar number of Thai riot police with clubs in front of 70
I would like to thank the US State Dept. e-mail listserv for timely information on the exact location and schedule of many organized protests. Although these e-mails urged all US citizens to avoid the planned protest sites, I never perceived any animosity directed toward my observations.
344 embassy. Several Special Patrol officers watched from inside the embassy grounds and across street armed with silenced H&K MP5SD3 sub-machine guns. I tried to watch from bridge over embassy, but was forced to move by another private security contractor who said I could not stand on the bridge. Seconds later, a Thai man with a video camera was allowed to casually videotape the embassy from the same position. This heavilyordered one-hour protest dispersed quietly, and Eckert himself moved several police barricades in a show of diplomacy. Paramilitary Police Training and the Performance of Ordered Coercion The response we usually get is, “Holy s---!” That‟s the reaction we want. We are in the business of scaring people – we just want to scare the right people. Abad Nieves, NYPD ―Hercules‖ SWAT team (Reagan 2006) The reason we wear black is because that‟s what the Germans (GSG-9) started. It‟s also to scare the bad people (khon raay). We look like the (Ring Wraiths) from“Lord of the Rings,” right? Pol. Lt. ―Reng,‖ Arintaraj 26 headquarters An interview with a hostage negotiator of the Arintaraj 26 team revealed the centrality of demonstrating the state‘s capacity for coercive force in ―incident responses,‖ whether in riot control or hostage situations. The negotiator said, ―the theory to stop crime using a show of force.‖ He described players in this performance within Arintaraj 26 as involving the ―tackle team‖ (chwaay kamlong- literally ―force men‖), in addition to the negotiation team. In PPU training for these ―real-life‖ performances, drama students from local universities are used to create ―real situations.‖ This training technique reveals the perfomative basis of displays of physical and symbolic coercive force: training incidents underlie the ―real-world‖ dramatic displays of force in the Thai state. The ―show of force‖ is developed as a drama, and continues as a performative display by the agents of the Thai state trained in globally-situated PPU techniques.
345 As an unofficial measure of the institutional integration of PPU training within the Royal Thai Police, of twelve officers of a variety of ranks, from commander, to private, seventy percent or eight in twelve received specialized training in parachuting, riot control, special firearms tactics, and other aspects of PPU training. One deputy commander, for example, took tactical gun shooting classes at the Special Patrol 191 headquarters every year. An interrogations officer received special training in riot control (khuap khum charachon). One officer in the support division was trained at an urban warfare school, ―unconventional warfare‖ (nok beep) and combat shooting. Another officer in the investigation division was trained in jungle survival and forest patrol. In an example rife with symbolic significance, a police sergeant named ―Diamond Wheel‖ was trained in jungle survival, parachuting, and combat shooting. Thus, the ubiquity of this specialized training points to a repetition and familiarity with PPU elements, a ―police special tactics‖ praxis, at every urban police station. The US-trained legacy of counter-insurgency, primarily through the Border Patrol Police, PARU, and military Rangers (tahaan phran), is historically-inscribed and continually in evidence at the patrol booths and police stations throughout Thailand. A discussion with a former BPP officer, now serving in a Bangkok Metropolitan station underlined the difference of practice in paramilitary police units in contrast to the police as a whole. After two years of pre-cadet school, Sarawat (the generic term for police officer) ―Boonlum‖ spent four years in the police academy before attending military school and various special warfare training schools. He was in the BPP for two years, and served as head of his unit. The BPP station was situated among the agricultural villagers he described as raak yaa (‗grass roots‘) and designed to prevent ‗invasion‘ from
346 Cambodia. As a nearby train thundered past the station where we were talking, he referred to two kinds of promotion systems, ―voluntary‖ (leew de kwaam samak cay) where officers could apply for positions that they usually wouldn‘t get, and promotions based on Commander‘s orders. It was, Boonlum said, ―much more dangerous there in BPP…It wasn‘t like Saving Private Ryan…The Khmer Rouge usually came to find information - two or three people only - not to attack.‖ He pointed out that, due to border agreements, the area he protected should be a free military area, so the police must be used in military functions since the military can‘t be deployed there. Here, the political utility of using paramilitary police units in place of military units is evident: police are seen as a force for domestic defense, removed from the offensive orientation of the military. As Desmond Ball describes in his book about the Thahan Phran (―hunter soldiers‖), the Thai Rangers are another organizational unit blurring the distinctions between police and military in Thailand (Ball 2004). The group was preceded by the Asasamah Thahan Phran (―volunteer hunter soldiers‖), an anti-communist insurgency force in the Cambodian borderlands, and was established in July of 1978 under Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then director of the Army Operations Center. The Thai Rangers were used in military operations through the 1980s including the capture of a CPT stronghold at Khao Ya in Phitsanulook‘s Khao Khom mountain range in 1981, operations against Khun Sa at Ban Hin Tack in Chiang Rai from 1981-1982, and the border war with Laos in 1987-1988. However, outside of these militarized operations, the Thahan Phran are associated with their notorious administration of Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand
347 from 1980-1988 through the paramilitary police unit of Task Force 80. This PPU was formed within the Thai Rangers and was initially tasked with guarding refugee camps at Sa Kaew (a ―holding center‖ for refugees associated with the Khmer Rouge) and Khao I Dang (another ―holding center‖ eventually administered by UNHCR) in Cambodia. From the Site Two mega-camp at Sa Kaew, Task Force 80 routinely led convoys of trucks shipping rice and other supplies to Khmer Rouge camps at Tap Prik. The unit was disbanded in 1988 after widespread allegations of abuse of authority including forced relocations, torture, rape, murder, and extortion (Ibid.). After these allegations, the Thai Rangers were temporarily disbanded, and the Thai military‘s support of the KR was quietly swept under the rug of US State Dept. and UNBRO control. Perhaps because of their operational similarity, the Thai Rangers and the Border Patrol Police (BPP) rarely cooperated with each other. One BPP officer told Ball, ―we always operate separately in this area…mainly because if BPP troopers get killed or hurt, their families get compensation whereas (those of) the Ranger volunteers do not‖ (Ibid.: 155). My interview with Boonlum confirmed that BPP officers thought little of their Ranger counterparts. The more extensive training of BPP, and its specialized recruitment from within the Thai police, caused its officers to look down on Rangers and view them as particularly corrupt. In fact, this rivalry dates to incidents in the early 1980s, when several Provincial Police stations were actually attacked by Thahan Phran units (Ibid. 170-173). In yet another likely example of government-sponsored terror in Thailand, Rangers were accused of conducting arson attacks on thirty-four schools in southern provinces in Aug 1993. According to the captured leader of the New Pattani United Liberation
348 Organization (PULO) in 1988, the arsons were ―the work of a group of local influential people who wanted to stir up trouble in the Muslim-dominated area with the aim of destabilizing the first Chuan Leekpai administration‖ (Bangkok Post 19 Feb 1998; Crispin 25 Oct 2001). In a more recent case of state-sponsored terror in Thailand in July 2002, twenty police officers were killed in a series of police station bombings, ―police authorities suggested that Rangers from the 41st or 43rd Regiments, perhaps working as ‗hired guns‘ or ‗enforcers‘ of corrupt officials, were actually involved in the killings‖ (Bangkok Post 21 Mar 2002; 24 Mar 2002). Gen. Chaisuek Katadat, then Ministry of Defense Inspector General, attributed the killings to the Rangers, finding that ―the violence arose from a conflict between two interest groups backed by influential state authorities and rival political parties‖ (Wassana 11 Sept 2002). The Rangers, at that time were backed by the former commander of the 4th Army, an ally of the Thai Democrat Party. Ball also alleges that evidence links the Rangers to a June 2002 robbery of weapons and ammunition at Yala‘s Bang Lang National Park (Daily News 22 Jun 2002; 23 Jun 2002). Finally, the Thahan Phran were linked in local press to the killings of police officers in Yala Pattani and Narathiwat in 2002 (Bangkok Post 2002; 24 Mar 2002; Wassana 11 Sept 2002). Thus, the Thai military unit with a militarized para-police role is involved in numerous accusations of government sponsored terror. The Thai Rangers are accused of direct involvement in the process of creating state order through chaos, and the deliberate manipulation of disorder.
349
Elite Protection, Royal Spectacle and Special Patrol In the construction of state order through assertions of economic dominance, private industry and government protection are integrated into Thai police history and institutional structure through ―VIP‖ protection. As discussed in Chapter 2, in the Angkor-era origins of the Royal Thai Police, the ―police‖ were bodyguards, protecting the royalty and religious elite. This role is still evident in the numerous branches of the Thai police and military devoted to ―VIP‖ protection. Throughout the documents, mission statements, and strategy papers of the Royal Thai Police
Figure 57: Unit patch of the Metropolitan Special Patrol division.
―protection of the monarchy‖ is repeated constantly as a stated goal (2001b; 2005). Thus, for the APEC meetings, the Thai police merely nationalized their longstanding historical mission of special protection for elite political and economic interests. Within the Thai police, the Office of the Royal Court Security Police along with the Santibaan protects the numerous members of Thailand‘s royal bloodlines. Beyond this, the Special Patrol division within the Metropolitan Police Bureau is tasked largely with protecting Thailand‘s economic and political elite. I witnessed the VIP protection role of the Special Patrol Division in a series of ridealongs, interviews, and observations. At none other than the 2nd Annual Anthropology conference at the Princess Maha Chakri Srindhorn Anthropology Center in Taling Chan, I observed a contingent of about forty or so Special Patrol officers along with Royal Court Security guarding Princess Srindhorn, who was in attendance. Movement within the building was somewhat
350 restricted, but security seemed to stress the show of force, and the spectacle of royalty. There were no metal detectors, or any kind of personal searches, although women royal security or special patrol officers with royal patches over their normal unit patches stopped people from entering the main hall. Throughout the meeting, many people stood around quietly in an orderly manner, which upon closer inspection was not ordered beyond a general sense of deference. There was no sense of what was being protected or where public could or could not go. The structure of authority was seemingly enforced by the number of bodies milling around rather than an ordered ―executive protection strategy‖ or movement. The royal event in the hallways of the conference held a quiet strangeness. I again observed the royal protection spectacle during November 2003 at Bangkok‘s Emporium luxury mall. From the hollow central core of one of the mall‘s wings, hundreds of shoppers stood in enraptured silence as Princesses Ubol Ratana tried on items offered by handlers and was draped in necklaces outside of the posh storefronts of the third floor. I was reminded of this royally-inspired hushed awe during Thongchai‘s 2007 speech on Thai ―moments of silence,‖ both the silence of bystanders and the silence of the suppressed (28 Nov 2007). Throughout the Emporium shopping complex, fifteen impeccably-dressed plainclothes private security officers joined the numerous uniformed officers of Special Patrol along with an entourage of around fifteen military officers from the air force and other military branches. The area where the princess was shopping was roped off, and an awed silence surrounded the open air of the shopping complex. At the periphery, young special patrol officers flirted playfully with female clerks in the shops next to the roped-off royal shopping area. As the group moved
351 downstairs, security became more alert looking up around and in all directors for possible threats. The royal security officers and special patrol officers were especially seriouslooking, surveying the magical silence of the normally bustling Emporium mall. Outside, thirty to forty patrol cars from Royal Security, Special Patrol, and other agencies surrounded the mall. Phalanxes of police officers guarded this royal shopping function where commerce and the monarchy were linked with the magic of the state. The link between the Metropolitan Police Bureau Special Patrol division and elite protection was taken to a performative extreme on 13 Oct 2007, the same day King Bhumipol was hospitalized and underwent blood clot surgery. At a Bangkok arena,
Figure 58: Metropolitan Police Bureau Special Patrol Arintaraj demonstration at a Bangkok arena
Special Patrol‘s Arintaraj PPU performed a public demonstration before a stadium filled with people clad in yellow shirts symbolizing support for the Thai monarchy (Arintaraj 2007). Although the performance was scheduled prior to the king‘s hospitalization, the simultaneity of the event with the surgery offered an opportunity for the group to demonstrate its ―royal protection‖ edict at a spectacularly symbolic level. Officers ―fast-
352 roped‖ into the arena in police helicopters and several rappelled acrobatically from the stadium‘s roof; an elaborate demonstration of the state‘s capacity for physical response. I became familiar with the blue uniforms, black berets and embroidered insignia of the Special Patrol Division police while living in Bangkok in 2001. Their distinctive unit patch indicates their particular connection to Thai royalty protection although they are often deployed and public functions and protests. At muay thai matches and public events, Special Patrol police are routinely present.
Figure 59: Metropolitan Special Patrol officer, 2001. Photo by author
Significantly, this division also boasts the largest motor pool within the Royal Thai Police and are the only division who routinely patrol with a fleet of vehicles connected by a separate central radio dispatch command center. While I was welcomed into the ―three Cs‖ dispatch center to witness the technological aspects of the logistics and communications systems of this division, it took a significant amount of negotiation and bureaucratic wrangling to witness patrol operations firsthand. After sending a letter directly to the commander of the division requesting interviews and ride-alongs, my research assistant and I were unable to find anyone with any knowledge of where the letter went. Pitcha was constantly transferred on phone, a routine procedure, but in this case nearly comical in the sheer display of bureaucracy (in) action. Finally victorious, we arrived at a district Special Patrol headquarters. Inside, a personable police captain, ―Vichit‖ confirmed our two-week ridealong schedule. Shifts
353 there ran from 6am-2pm during the day, 2pm to 10pm in the afternoon and evening, and 10pm to 6am at night. Each morning, the mid-shift has thirty-two cars patrolling each of the three major areas of the city (for example, 32 cars patrol the Thonburi area, 32 north of Khlong Sang Sap, and 32 south of the same canal). At night, the number of total cars drops to fifty-one. The patrol plan is drawn up by the planning superintendent and changes every fifteen days. Patrols are assigned based on crime data and calls from dispatch. The patrol plan includes locations and methods of patrol (shopping centers, foot patrols, etc). Vichit separated ―regular‖ patrol locations from ―special locations‖ (embassies, the Prime Minister‘s house, and ―VIP buildings‖) further enumerating the historic and structural importance of elite protection within the Thai police. He also noted that due to US-declared ―Orange Alerts,‖ many cars were reassigned to embassy patrols, by specific request of the United States. ―This is annoying. It is pulling cars away from assignments,‖ he said. Later, a tall older officer consigned to the naay daap (sword police) noncommissioned rank explained that he actually created the whole patrol plan that Vichit claimed as his own. He brought us out to observe the technological aspects of the patrol cars and the computer/dispatch links. At the time, the cars used an NT workstation which was linked with the ―C3‖ 191 dispatch center. The vehicles at regular metropolitan police stations are not linked to this dispatch system, it is exclusively used by special patrol. Strangely, this officer walked me through the computer system and had me input the passwords to connect to the dispatch system. Initially, we had difficulty connecting. This delay led immediately to a discussion of the budgetary constraints plaguing even the relatively elite ―191‖ units of special patrol. The police, the veteran officer explained, are
354 the only government unit that must provide their own uniforms and weapons. Similarly, the cars are fixed by the police themselves. Incredibly, the police rent some of the patrol cars for 1000 baht per day. The current Minister of the Interior Wan Nor, he said, was not a friend of the police, and as a result, the bureaucracy suffers from mismanagement. This officer‘s boss, Captain Vichit explained for the first time that the October APEC meeting would require three thousand police officers. He told us that the PM would declare a national holiday to clear people out of town clear traffic from streets. While we were doing interviews and ridealongs at Special Patrol, Hambali was arrested just a few weeks prior, and twenty embassies were requesting special protection from the Thai police. The captain told us, ―But it‘s no different from before. (The police) don‘t like to change. The world changes so fast…‖ We segued into a discussion of how different types of international training in the Thai police led directly to higher salary and rank. For example a degree from a school in Singapore or Malaysia might net a commission of Police Sub-Lieutenant to Police Captain. The same degree in Australia or New Zealand might lead to a ―pan tamruat drii‖ rank (between Captain and Lt. Col.). Those privileged enough to earn a degree in the United States or Europe might be ranked at Maj. General and above. For the large body of the rank and file however, officers are paid ―5000 baht a month to enforce 300 laws,‖ Vichit said. By contrast to this open discussion, when we met another police captain named ―Warrior,‖ with cloth embroidered uniform badges rather than the traditional metal, tersely and immediately asked us what we wanted. At his request, I dutifully wrote down my name and dissertation title as we reviewed the ridealong schedule. He repeated, ―I don‘t want this…‖ as we negotiated several four hour shifts during the evening and one at
355 night. This tense scene behind us, we were invited to lunch in the station at noon. There were six of us, and additional officers needed to be invited to the table by the commander. Vichit grew increasingly animated as coffee and tea took effect. ―I think APEC will be attacked,‖ he said, ―There is no way to protect against it because they (terrorists) will sacrifice their lives – it‘s a brotherhood across the world.‖ There was general talk about immigration problems for Thai students in the US under Pres. GW Bush, police theory, the new patrol organization and how too many prisoners were released on the Queen‘s Birthday leading to pickpockets and thieves on the crossing bridges at Victory Monument. Vichit got louder and louder, demonstrating his rank by talking over a squat lower-ranked officer using English explanations. This was not the first or last time, that my presence was used as an opportunity for high-ranking officers to show off. The last time I saw Captain Vichit was as he left the station with a private driver, smoking gloriously in the back seat. As part of our epic continual negotiations with Special Patrol, we were sent to the headquarters building to get ridealong permission directly from the commander. We were met by a police major who personably related his experience with the US, spending time at an LA wat for an annual monk‘s retreat as well as a trip to Florida and Disney World. He appeared quite relaxed, repeatedly grabbing his crotch and ordering commands to a constantly active group of underlings who gathered water, coffee and documents. We did not meet with the commander, whose office on the top floor was marked with an elaborate and prominent sign (every floor had a similar sign which marked the office of the floor‘s sub-commander). Permission was provided to us through attachment to the original letter of permission granted to me in 2001.
356 We arrived at one special patrol district headquarters for an afternoon patrol, greeted on the street near the entrance by a citizen slumped over an overturned liquor bottle. Fifteen minutes prior to the start of the afternoon/evening shift, the officers lined up for inspection in blue uniforms. ―We have to protect the embassies even more now,‖ the Pol. Sub-Col. stressed, referring to Hambali‘s arrest. ―Proper dress is, of course important. Be aware of what you are doing and pay attention.‖ The officers stood at ease during the pre-shift briefing saluting and clicking their boots when it was deemed professionally necessary. After the three captains in charge of roll-call were dismissed, we left in a patrol car. ―Gon‖ the young ex-motorcycle officer who we rode with, pointed out a broken patrol car that had to be push started. Our first stop was the Australian Embassy, which was usually checked by inspector NCOs who oversee the Special Patrol units assigned there. One officer was at the entrance and another two contract workers were checking for explosives. Officers from Arintaraj and Narasuan groups were also reportedly in the embassy. Twenty minutes after we arrived we drove to the Australian ambassador‘s residence, followed by the German embassy. Officer Gon told us this location was ―not a critical situation.‖ Nevertheless, the officers assigned to the embassy must sign a form with the inspector (in our car) proving they were there. A missing officer would be required to provide a report or suffer heavy punishment. If a terrorist threat occurred and the officer was missing, he could go to jail. By contrast to the ―non-critical‖ German embassy, the US embassy was heavily patrolled by many police, including Arintaraj officers armed with submachine guns. Several minutes later we arrived at the US ambassador‘s residence. These embassy checks had to be done twice a shift each day since they started after 9-11. The next
357 check, however, would be during the night shift. The day patrol routinely ended early to save gas caused by waiting in traffic. We thanked the officers and were conveniently dropped off at a BTS station. Several days later, we went on another afternoon patrol on a hot sunny day to Thonburi. The special patrol cars assigned to this area do not link up with the local patrols. The two officers who drove us on the Thonburi patrol were longterm partners. The higher-ranking, Captain ―Sin‖ joked with his lower-ranking driver asking him, ―Non-Commissioned…do you know what that means.‖ Much of this shift consisted of patrolling wealthy gated communities in Thonburi. This is the meat and potatoes of what ―Special Patrol‖ is all about. Some urban elites pay the police for extra protection, and their houses are marked with patrol boxes, which each passing patrol must dutifully sign to prove that they were there. In other cases, such as the high-ranking police administrator, called simply puu yaay (―big man‖) by our escorts, special patrol checks in three times a day, once per shift. Aside from these VIP protection duties, we observed a number of traffic stops for various reasons. In one case, the officers pulled over a truck near the anthropology center because it cut in line at a bridge. The truck had a covered tailbed, and needed to show its company‘s invoice. Pulling over the truck was accomplished by Capt. Sin rolling down the window and pointing to the side of the road. Within minutes, we were clear of this routine stop and the officers pulled over another car. The officers told us that any police officer of any rank can pull over cars and search them on the street. Trucks must have open sides to facilitate searches. The search was accomplished in less than a minute and we were off to check another neighborhood patrol box and a large gated house.
358 ―Searching houses is different,‖ Capt. Sin said. ―We have to have a warrant for that, whereas on the street we can check any vehicle or person.‖ Several minutes later, we stopped at a small abandoned bus station and reported back to the station via radio. While we were there, an old man crossed the street and asked a car to stop for him. He looked intoxicated, prompting the captain to tell us, ―We must have a cool heart.‖ This common expression in Thai, jai yen or ―cool heart,‖ is a reminder to show a calm, nonaggressive appearance. Although this ―encounter‖ noticeably upset our escorts, we went on to check a ―street with a high crime rate‖ and another patrol box outside a gated house. In between these locations, the officers discussed the upcoming APEC meetings with us. For Special Patrol, ―the first thing is to protect VIPs and we must escort the VIP cars.‖ In a typical 30-officer vehicle entourage, they said, the Metropolitan police car was in the front, Special Patrol second, Santibaan third, followed by the VIP limo and a Special Patrol ―weapons car‖ in the rear. The same contingent of thirty officers were involved in protection strategies at each of the VIP‘s hotels. With all of the preparation for APEC, Captain Sin was worried that we would get the wrong idea about Special Patrol. ―APEC training is taking most patrol cars and the commander is busy with it. It is a special case.‖ We stopped at a bank, a mall, and another VIP house where the officers dutifully signed the patrol log housed in a plastic bag inside the patrol box. At a crowded motorcycle shop our driver joked, ―Thai people maybe think you are a suspect!‖ In the Pin Klao area we drove to the Prime Minister‘s house. Here, we found one officer sleeping in a patrol car, and twenty-four hour coverage from officers standing on each corner. After this, a report came in that a woman had fallen from a high building near the
359 Prime Minister‘s house. Captain Sin called another officer by cell phone to check out the scene. He told us that police have to buy their own mobile phones, but is used as a primary source of communication by officers since ―the radio is too slow to find out who is at the scene.‖ Minutes later, we arrived at the building and waited five minutes to find out what happened. A maid had fallen and was bleeding from one ear. An ambulance was taking her to the hospital, a police officer told us. The situation resolved, we returned to the station several minutes before the end of the shift. Wanting to see how night patrol differed from the other shifts, as well as to observe a police checkpoint/roadblock, we returned to this special patrol station a few days later at 9pm. Three groups were spread out during the initial pre-shift briefing. ―At night there are shorter meetings,‖ the unit commander informed us, ―That‘s why I cut the meeting short – because of you.‖ The cars were dismissed to patrols and the road blocks that were set up. On the way out, a car drove away quickly, killing or injuring a dog. Similarly, the unit commander rushed away from us, saying he didn‘t have the power to authorize us seeing a road block. Earlier, Pitcha had confirmed via fax that we could observe a checkpoint, but now nobody seemed to know who the person in charge of this would be. It took ten minutes for someone to identify the commander who could arrange our observation. During this time, we waited in a police snooker bar crowded with large snooker tables and drunken patrons. Not all appeared to be police officers, perhaps many were relatives of police. We were definitely out of place. Finally we were sent out in a car, however, we could not observe the checkpoint that night. Instead, we road with two veteran officers patrolling Area One. One of the officers, who originally worked in Pattani, told us that the main duty of Special Patrol in
360 Area One is protecting the royal family. The atmosphere in the car was jovial. Pulling up to a bank parking lot, the officers politely took off their hats as we passed two women. As we parked and one officer left to change into his official uniform (he was previously wearing a camouflage jacket), we learned colloquial terms for police ranks: Police Lieutenants and Sub-Lieutenentas are called ―puu moat‖; Police Captains are called ―puu khong‖; and Police Majors are called ―tho sarawat.‖ Teasingly, we were told ―only ‗the inside‘ knows what to call the pan faa.‖ Both officers carried large old revolvers and the driver wore many rings of various colors known for their healing and protective powers. The costume change behind us, we drove from Lad Prao to the airport area on the highway. Driving 100km/hr we still were routinely passed. Arriving at the Kha Nay Yao district, we checked various VIP boxes, each containing a log book with categories for the date, officer, car, shift, etc. At ten minutes before eleven we arrived to check a particular royal VIP: Gen. Prem‘s residence. This ―Secretary of the King‖ was having a party. In three years he would be a key organizer in the ―bloodless coup‖ of 2006. After leaving the house and driving on Ram Indra Rd. we were told that ―today‘s checkpoint is at Don Muang airport…we won‘t go there because it happens after 1am.‖ Several nights later, Pitcha again asked the same high-ranking officer who told her, in disturbing tones, that she should ask if there was ―anything she needed‖ a few nights earlier, to see a roadblock. He refused initially, wanting to delay our observation for several days later until Pitcha deftly pointed out that today was the last day we arranged with the unit commander in or official letter. This led to a comically chaotic incident that, reflecting back, most likely involved the relocation of a previously existing roadblock to a ―display‖ roadblock set up exclusively for our observation.
361 A police captain approached us and told us he hadn‘t received any information from the commander regarding a ride-along. Initially, he said the ride-along and checkpoint observation would be impossible, but we could interview him. As we began this interview on the patrol grounds, several special patrol commanders arrived unannounced, prompting the captain to leave in confusion. As he left the table where we were talking he muttered, ―what the hell?...‖ and went to deal with the commanders. Special patrol officers were saluting and clicking their heels in a mandated, but deft show of deference in what was an obvious ―damage control‖ situation. With the commanders around, the captain changed his story of what we would be allowed to observe that night several times. At first he said we couldn‘t see the checkpoint. Then he said we could interview him while he patrolled with several people. Then he said he could change the time of the checkpoint for us. We protested, but he said that Metropolitan Police officers often had a checkpoint at the same time, ―so no one is doing any work otherwise.‖ We finally rode with two NCOs who were friendly, but quiet. They were obviously intimidated by their commander‘s orders. At quarter to midnight we arrived at the checkpoint all seven cars from this special patrol zone were there. The ―Puu kong‖ (Captain) was very talkative with us, managing the event and dictating who we were allowed to talk to. As we asked one officer some questions, a number of taxis were stopped briefly along with a few ―suspicious‖ private cars. Checkpoint sites, we were told by one officer ―are chosen based on veteran officers knowing where high crime areas are.‖ This one is near a ―jungle‖ (paa) area, and thus is thought of as a zone of high crime. A Mercedes drove by without pause. Several other luxury cars drove by, but many pickups are stopped. ―Checkpoints need four officers: two to check and two to
362 cover.‖ No explanation was given for why so many officers were at the scene (thirteen total: all of Special Patrol Unit One). The stated reasons for the checkpoint were ―checking for weapons, drugs, stolen cars.‖ Most cars got a quick rudimentary search. Some driver‘s bags were searched and there were rudimentary body searches. One pickup of 10 people got searched because had red plate (new) with an old registration. The plate was called in and the people in the pickup were detained for twenty minutes. At the checkpoint, police wore reflective vest covers with Metropolitan Police Bureau insignia which look, to the casual observer, like bullet-proof vests. The black mesh of these covers obscured the officer‘s name and rank and the reflective strip on each vest further obscured this information. From this position of relative anonymity, the searches were discretionary based on the appearance of the vehicles and how the drivers reacted after being stopped. Once stopped, searches were rudimentary or more thorough. Seats of cars might be altered to hide drugs, one officer explained, describing how hidden zippers and pockets are often built into seats.
After being allowed to observe the
checkpoint searches for about an hour, the two NCOs drove us through the Bangkok night to the neighborhood near our apartments. In this incident, the behavior of various Special Patrol commanders convinced us that the checkpoint was literally staged for our benefit: it was hastily moved and set up only after it became apparent that we would there observing. We were never able to confirm this, nor the reasons for why the checkpoint was moved. Nevertheless, this display of the state‘s coercive capacity (in this case, zones of routinized search) is a performance designed to create the appearance of order based on the control of chaos (in this case, the chaotic potential of criminals, drug traffickers, and other national threats).
363 Ritualized displays of order such as police checkpoints merge with other ordered performances of the state security grid, culminating in the spectacular display of the 2003 APEC security ritual.
364
Chapter 7 - The APEC Security Ritual: Laying the Groundwork for Martial Law Like the hastily-arranged police checkpoint writ on a national scale, ―Thailand‘s terror narrative‖ was also display of order and a performance of the state‘s capacity for coercive force. As national policy and media were incrementally brought in conformity with a ―global war on terror‖ model, this narrative emerged predictably from the introduction of anti-terror executive decrees to the arrest of Hambali to the creation of the APEC security grid in 2003. As will be demonstrated, these performances of state order were inextricably linked to the renewed rise of acts of violence in Thailand‘s southern provinces in January 2004. The rise in violent incidents in Thailand‘s south was, in turn, an instrumental element leading to the 2006 coup and the declaration of country-wide martial law. Although the royalist junta behind this military takeover of the country presented themselves in opposition to ousted PM Thaksin‘s various campaigns of state order, they benefited directly from the blueprint for state control laid out in the Thaksin era. Out of all the elements Thaksin‘s state power blueprint, which justified Thailand‘s current state of exception, none were more useful than the instrumental creation of a violent terrorist threat emerging from Thaksin‘s executive decrees, APEC security ritual, and coercive southern ―solutions.‖
The Executive Decrees of 2003 Legal legitimacy, or the appearance of it, allowed PM Thaksin, and later his royalist ―enemies,‖ to return Thailand to a condition of absolute rule arguably not seen since the pre-1932 period. A series of laws and executive decrees would culminate in the Executive Decree on Government Administration in Emergency Situations of July 2005
365 (Human Rights Watch 18 Jan 2006), which allowed the Prime Minister to declare martial law without geographical limit. Since the 1960s in Thailand, counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics, and counter-terrorism legislation was used for a wide variety of social control purposes. This legislative apparatus is used in the construction of order by the Thai state through political-economic domination. The primary value of such legislation is the ambiguity and flexibility of the constructed state enemies. ―Insurgents,‖ ―separatists,‖ ―communists,‖ and ―terrorists,‖ are the historical and contemporary targets of an increasingly ambiguous coercive state response. The timing of counter-terrorism legislation in Thailand coincides with particular strategies of social control, forming a chain of legislative legitimacy for the incrementally-increasing scope of each new crackdown. The series of ever-broadening declarations of martial law of 2005 and 2006 find direct historical precedent in the Executive Decrees of 2003. In June of 2003, the first indications of new counter-terror legislation were made in the Thai English-language press, a complete reversal of the Thaksin‘s earlier claims that: We have been following the activities of JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) members very closely. We know who is who. It is impossible to say that Thailand has no members of the movement. But I can confirm to you that they are inactive (Nation 30 May 2003). Thaksin made these comments in late May 2003, in response to the arrest of two Thai nationals Abdul Azi Haji Chiming and Muhammad Yalaludin Mading on suspicions of being members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) helping to plot an attack on the upcoming ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh. After this story, which was eerily prescient of similar accusations in the run-up to Bangkok‘s APEC meetings, new stories in the Thai and international press circulated the idea of an increasing terrorist threat in Thailand.
366 On June 10th, contradicting Thaksin‘s days-old claim that no ―JI threat‖ existed in Thailand, an Islamic teacher, Maisuri Haji Abdulloh, his son, Muyahi Haji Doloh, and a doctor, Waemahadi Wae-dao, were arrested in Narathiwat. The men supposedly confessed to membership in Jemaah Islamiyah and admitted conspiring with a Singaporebased JI member, Arifin bin Ali, to bomb five embassies and tourist areas in Bangkok. Allegedly, CSD agents found maps in the suspects‘ homes with detailed attack plans and eight locations circled: Khao San road, Soi Nana, shopping centers on Figure 60: ―Suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group arrive for questioning yesterday at the police Crime Suppression Division. The suspects are, from right, Maisuri Haji Abdulloh, Muyahi Haji Doloh and Waemahadi Wae-dao.‖ Photo: Somchai Laopais
Sukhumvit Road, along with the US, British, Australian, Israeli, and Singaporean embassy. Arfin, the supposed leader of the plot, was arrested in Bangkok on 16 May, and under confession he
identified Maisuri, Muyahi, and Waemahadi. Interior Minister, Wan Nor was quick to assert that the three were not scapegoats, but were in fact linked to JI ―with evidence.‖ Deputy PM Chavalit also defensively asserted that the timing of the arrests, while PM Thaksin was in Washington DC, was not meant to please the US (Bangkok Post 12 Jun 2003). On June 20th Gen. Surayud, then armed forces supreme commander (prior to his post-coup position as Thailand‘s Prime Minister), announced that the military had drafted a ―counter-terrorism law‖ and put it before the National Security Council (Wassana 20 Jun 2003a). During this time, PM Thaksin was lobbying the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) to create new counter-terrorism legislation as well as new mandatory
367 public participation in ISOC programs in 45 provinces (Ibid.). Thaksin also wanted ISOC to become involved in the suppression of illegal foreign labor and illegal logging. This expanded mobilization of ISOC continued its history of public encroachment as well as its retooled mission following near-obsolescence after the communist amnesty of the late 1980s. When ISOC needed a new reason for existence, terrorists and various aspects of the illegal economy functioned as extremely flexible justification for renewed expansion of the agency.71 With new counter-terrorist legislation awaiting deployment, it was necessary to highlight a series of public ―threats‖ to justify the impending state controls. These threats reinforced the confessions of the ―JI members‖ arrested in June. An incident in mid-June allowed PM Thaksin and his international associates to create the threat of a ―dirty bomb‖ in Thailand. On August 1st, the Wall Street Journal reported a joint operation of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE – newly centralized on 1 March 2003) agents and Thai Crime Suppression Division officers. Tom Ridge, then-US Homeland Security Secretary, called the operation ―an outstanding example of international cooperation in disrupting the proliferation of radiological material‖ (Hookway 1 Aug 2003). In initial reports, a sting operation in a Bangkok hotel parking lot led to the arrest of Narong Penanam, an elementary school teacher from a village near the ThaiCambodian border, and prevented the sale of radioactive material used in the construction of a dirty bomb. Narong came into possession of a lead-lined container of .035 ounces of
71
This expansion of mission and activities is similar to the newly-centralized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE‘s expanded operations of mass-arrests of gang members under OPERATION COMMUNITY SHIELD, for example, allows DHS to claim broader encroachment on domestic life than would be possible under a purported counter-terrorist mission (see Notes Section, Fig. 99 for illustration of the national scope this operation).
368 cesium-137 through an old friend who was an aide to Thai Air Force Vice Marshal Chanak Charoensuk.72 Narong drove to Bangkok in 2001 and acquired the box of what he assumed to be uranium from his friend, the ex-aide to Chanak. He then attempted to find an interested buyer, which led to the sting operation on 13 June 2003 in the parking lot of Bangkok‘s Royal Pacific Hotel. Significantly, by including the weight of the metal container in initial reports of the arrest, Thai and international authorities vastly overstated the amount of material seized. These reports state that Narong was attempting to sell 66 pounds of cesium, an amount that was ―enough to inflict deaths and illnesses and badly contaminate a major city, causing tens of millions of dollars in damages.‖ This discrepancy, when compared to the actual .035 ounces seized, allowed the intentional overstatement to create the appearance of a phantom radiological threat.73 In addition to the ―dirty bomb‖ radioactive material arrest, another June 2003 event was a catalyst for the executive decrees, the arrest of Hambali, and the APEC security surveillance grid: PM Thaksin‘s June meeting with US President Bush in Washington DC. The Nation‘s Figure 61: PM Thaksin meets with Pres. Bush on June 10th, 2003
72
Chanak mysteriously acquired this heavy Cyrillic-lettered box of radioactive material in 1997. He took it to the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace, who identified it as cesium, before Chanak took it to his own house where it remained until his death in 2001. Following his death, a portion of the radioactive material was returned to the Thai atomic agency along with an anonymous letter stating that it was not the full amount of cesium originally held by Chanak (Hookway 1 Aug 2003). 73 It is also important to note that the details leading to the arranged sale with Crime Suppression Division agents disguised as buyers were not included in the initial media reports. Perhaps the June 6 th arrangement of ―sixty-six pounds‖ of radioactive material was a pre-arranged operation designed to create the necessary environment of fear which allowed the executive decrees to pass after news of the arrest on 1 Aug 2003 gained international attention and merged with news of the arrest of Hambali on 11 Aug 2003.
369 editor, Kavi Chongkittavorn, wrote of Thaksin‘s dramatic shift in his depiction of terrorists in Thailand following his meetings with Bush: After the Bali bombing last October, he (Thaksin) insisted that Thailand was not a safe haven for regional or international terrorists. Anybody who said so must be out of his mind. Then, on June 10, the day he met US President George Bush in Washington DC, it was decided that the sunny side of tourism would be morphing into the dark tentacles of terrorism (18 Aug 2003). Uncharacteristically, the Bangkok Post was the first to highlight the links between Thaksin‘s meeting in Washington, the timing of his executive decrees, and the subsequent arrest of Hambali, A number of observers contend that pressure from the United States propelled the decrees…others say the show of tough intentions in the decrees is a precondition for Mr. Bush‘s attendance at the APEC meeting…Following the prime minister‘s talks with Mr. Bush, Thailand won special status for agreeing to exempt US citizens from extradition to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. Hence there should be no surprise if Thailand were again to try and please the US by instituting tough anti-terrorist measures in double quick time (Bangkok Post 13 Aug 2003b). These new Thai connections laid the groundwork for Thailand to become a fresh battleground in the global War on Terror. Accordingly, on 11 Aug 2003, the Royal Gazette announced that the Thai government issued an anti-terrorist executive decree. The decree was issued under Section 218 of the Thai Constitution. This section states: For the purpose of maintaining national or public safety or national economic security, or averting public calamity, the King may issue an Emergency Decree which shall have the force as an Act. The issuance of an Emergency Decree under paragraph one shall be made only when the Council of Ministers is of the opinion that it is the case of emergency and necessary urgency which is unavoidable (Office of the Council of State 1997).
370 The decrees expanded the definition of terrorism to include ―those whose actions cause harm to lives, personal freedoms, public utilities, transport infrastructure, private land and public property. These include acts against individuals, governments and property belonging to Thailand, other countries and international organizations‖ (Bangkok Post 13 Aug 2003b). Money laundering laws were also expanded by decree, allowing the seizure of assets of anyone accused under this new definition of terrorism. Thus, Thailand, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and many other countries, had its own radically-expanded definition of ―terrorism‖ which included nearly any action that threatens people or property. The day after the decrees were issued, PM Thaksin justified the new police and military powers as necessary to ensure the protection of world leaders during the APEC meetings. He also cited the Indonesian bombings as further justification for the decrees, which amended both the criminal code and the anti-money laundering law (Bangkok Post 14 Aug 2003). Despite the provision of section 218 and 219 of the Thai constitution stipulating that the Cabinet ―must submit the decree to the National Assembly for consideration without delay‖ (Office of the Council of State 1997; Thailand Board of Investment 2006), the decrees went immediately to Thai Parliament, bypassing any possibility of constitutional debate. In response to the numerous critics who likened the parliament vote to rubber stamping, Thaksin threatened, ―Just imagine terrorists bombing the houses of people who oppose the decrees and let‘s see what they make of that‖ (Bangkok Post 14 Aug 2003). Thus, once again, the imagination of terror and the conjuration of violent fears make constructions of state order possible.
371 Similarly mobilized in the state imaginary, Defence Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya told the national press, ―People who are not thinking about committing terrorist acts should not be afraid. Only those thinking of doing so are afraid of the decrees.‖ By contrast, Senator Kraisak Choonhavan compared the decrees to the broad anti-communist law that resulted in arrests without trial and extra-judicial killings in the 1970s. Kraisak, like the rest of his fellow Thai senators, still hadn‘t seen the full content of the decrees, days after their declaration. He said, We got rid of the anti-communist law. Now we have another draconian74 law…We already have a national security law. We have firearms laws. We have criminal laws. The government already has overwhelming laws to arrest terrorists and they have been doing so, sometimes with dubious evidence (Bangkok Post 13 Aug 2003a). As opposition to the decrees increased, Thaksin continued to rely on rhetorical threats, ―I wonder what the critics will say if a bomb is thrown into their houses‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003a). He also cryptically referred to highly classified information he possessed that would cause the decrees to pass immediately (Kavi 18 Aug 2003). Regardless of this PM Thaksin‘s defensive posturing, criticism of the decrees mounted. Surapol Nitikraipoj, dean of Thammasat University‘s law school, led a group of twenty-one law lecturers questioning the legality of the executive decrees. Suropol said, ―Only twice in our history has the criminal code been amended without parliamentary scrutiny...both times by dictatorial governments‖ (Mongkol 14 Aug 2003). Suropol also questioned the
74
Beginning with Kraisak‘s usage, ―draconian‖ was used to describe Thaksin‘s decrees many times in subsequent days. The reference is apt: in 621 BC, Draco, the first law scribe of Athens, transcribed a particularly harsh set of laws while he was archon eponymous of Greece. The laws called for the death penalty for minor offences, and slavery for debtors who were of lower class than their creditors. Although Draco first codified Athenian laws, he was not the creator of these laws. Prior to Draco‘s codification of Greek law, Athenians were subject to arbitrary oral rules at the whims of eupatrid thesmothetai and judges. Therefore, Draco‘s codification brought public attention to outrageous archaic Athenian penalties. Nevertheless, the strict, unforgiving nature of the laws created a new adjective, ―draconian‖ to refer to penalties considered excessive or severe (Freeman 1926; Kagan 1991).
372 suspicious timing of the decrees. On 5 August, the cabinet agreed that anti-terrorism legislation must be executed through draft legislation, for the purposes of maintaining legality and international legitimacy. Then, the government ―had a sudden change of heart‖ and bypassed the legislative process through executive decree. The cabinet did not meet after Aug 5th, creating an opportunity to announce the decrees without discussion or amendment (Ibid.). Thai cabinet secretary-general Bavornsak Uvanno said the two executive decrees were endorsed by the cabinet in an Aug 5th secret meeting following the hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. The APEC summit was cited by the cabinet as the reason to bypass delays by the Senate (Ibid.). Significantly, in the same article that described the secret meeting, as well as the academic opposition to the decrees, the Bangkok Post ran a photo of the Arintaraj 26 PPU alongside the story, which included a caption referencing the unit‘s
Figure 62: ―Armed members of the Arintaraj task force put on a show at Metropolitan Police headquarters while awaiting transport to the Army Special Warfare Centre in Lop Buri, where they will get additional training. The unit will provide VIP protection during the Apec summit in October.‖
VIP protection role during the upcoming APEC meeting. Arintaraj‘s visual display of force within an article about academic protest surrounding the executive decrees is an unmistakable state media message. The decrees and APEC were linked and dissent was to be met with coercion. The Executive Decrees and the Economic Dominance of AMLO Because the protest surrounding the decrees largely centered on their constitutionality, the dramatic expansion in powers they granted to the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) went largely without comment. When I first visited the
373 AMLO building in 2001, the agency was a young entrant in the Thai bureaucratic scene. The office staff was minimal, but gracious, and the security detail at the entrance was small and unassuming. The director of the agency congenially allowed me, a lowly predissertation researcher, a lengthy interview about the new organization and politely answered all of my questions. Over the course of that year, and every year since, AMLO quietly amassed bureaucratic capital and burgeoning powers. In 2001, I lived less than a block away from the AMLO building, which also houses the
Figure 63: AMLO Headquarters, Bangkok
Office of the Counter-Corruption Commission, a block away from MBK,
Siam Square, and Siam Centre shopping complexes. Over many months, in the shadow of the elevated BTS train track, I observed the exterior security for the AMLO building grow with the powers of the organization. As AMLO officials negotiated weaponry for themselves, the guards at the door became more numerous, more vigilant and more heavily armed. These physical changes accompanied a broader growth in the agency‘s power. The 2003 executive decrees enabled AMLO to obtain the financial records of a broader range of Thai citizens and to freeze and seize assets from anyone suspected of ―terrorist connections.‖ The decrees‘ modification of the Thai criminal code radically expanded the scope of both the definition of terrorism and AMLO‘s power. Previously, the agency could investigate assets of those suspected of money laundering for drugs, gambling,
374 weapons, poaching, illegal logging and foreign exchange fraud. By adding the ambiguously-defined category of terrorism to this already-extensive list, state officials made the Anti Money-Laundering Act immensely more profitable and powerful. To operationalize this expanded assertion of economic dominance, a new unit formed under the command of AMLO‘s Secretary-General, Pol. Col. Peeraphan Prempooti: the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). With the creation of this unit, Thailand joined a ―worldwide network‖ more than a hundred other centralized FIUs organized under the ―informal coalition‖ of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, named after the Belgian palace in Brussels where the group first met in 1995 (International Monetary Fund 23 Jul 2004).75 Other FIU‘s include AUSTRAC in Australia, FinCEN in the United States, FINTRAC in Canada, the Serious Organised Crime Agency in the United Kingdom, Tracfin in France, and Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera in Argentina. The Thai FIU is specifically dedicated to detecting ―suspicious or unusual financial activity‖ transactions, terrorism, and corruption cases (Onnucha 20 Aug 2003). Most FIUs are not law enforcement agencies and are taxed exclusively with information analysis, which makes the case of the increasingly powerful and newly-armed Thai AMLO relatively unique. Suspected money laundering cases are identified based on nationwide surveillance of financial transactions, and are then passed to public prosecution agencies. Pol. Col. Preeraphan Prempooti, AMLO secretary-general reported that his agency was a member of the Egmont group since 2000 (Parista & Wichit 5 Sept 2003). This private group, then, by coordinating information and cooperation among 75
The World Bank‟s IMF report on FIU‟s contains a definition that reveals its overall political-economic agenda as a replacement for the nation-state: “The term „country,‟ as used in this publication, does not in all cases refer to a territorial entity that is a state as understood by international law and practice; the term also covers some territorial entities that are not states, but for which statistical data are maintained and provided internationally on a separate and independent basis” (International Monetary Fund 23 Jul 2004:2).
375 FIUs from many nation-states wields immense power. Thus, AMLO‘s FIU serves as a new economic control mechanism for both national and global interests. Its agents determine not only who is ―involved in terrorism‖ or which state officials are ―involved in corruption,‖ but can also search and seize the money and property of anyone it accuses. To celebrate the agency‘s new powers on the occasion of AMLO‘s fourth anniversary, Pol. Col Preeraphan presided over a ceremony and press event. He highlighted the agency‘s close working relationship with officials in Singapore, Switzerland and Luxemburg, key bastions in the large-scale money laundering. In a bizarre media showcase, several of the 2,940 crocodiles seized months prior from a ―suspected drug dealer‖ were displayed for attendees and members of the press (Ibid.). This event served as an example of the use of
Figure 64: Siezed crocodiles of a "suspected drug dealer" are displayed at AMLOs 4th anniversary event
media spectacle to craft organizational legitimacy and public interest for law enforcement agencies. In the tradition of US Customs media events where agents destroy thousands of counterfeit Rolex watches with steamrollers (―Robert,‖ US Customs Special Agent in Charge, ret., personal communication), the AMLO anniversary crocodile show highlights state agents‘ penchant for public spectacle, as well as the new emergency decree-granted powers of an increasingly-powerful institution of the Thai state.
Operation Black Magic: The Arrest of Hambali While AMLO‘s burgeoning powers highlight it as a key agency in the creation of state order through economic dominance, the executive decrees were also used to create
376 order through coercive performance. The mysterious timing of the decrees on Monday, August 11th, 2003 became obvious later in the week, when news sources began reporting details of an ―important arrest‖ in Thailand. A few days later, it was announced that the person in custody was Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. ―Hambali,‖ who was arrested in Ayuttaya on the same day the executive decrees were issued. The delayed release of information seemed designed to deter attention to the arrest‘s simultaneity with the decrees, and thus the pre-planning and media management of both. An examination Hambali various media descriptions highlight his importance as an all-imporatant boogeyman of the global War on Terror. Media and official descriptions variously described Hambali as, ―the brains behind Jemaah Islamiah (JI)‖76 (Wai & Charles 20 Aug 2003); ―the 39-year old al-Queda point man for Osama bin Laden‖ (Ibid.); the ―top strategist for al Queda in Southeast Asia and the region‘s most wanted fugitive‖ (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003); the ―second in command of Jema‘ah Islamiya…the main liaison between JI and Al Queda‖ (CBN 15 Aug 2003); ―a 37-year-old Islamic scholar, wanted by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philip-pines in connection with a string of regional terrorist attacks over the past few years‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003b); the ―39 year old Indonesian, ‗operations chief‘ of JI…and the only figure from Southeast Asia on the al-Qaeda military committee‖ (Wassana 18 Aug 2003); and ―terrorist kingpin‖ (Dawson 18 Aug 2003). Finally, he was referred to by the CIA as ―Southeast Asia‘s bin Laden‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003b). Hambali‘s linkage with nearly every major terrorist attack in Southeast Asia from Sept. 11th to the time of his arrest are, like these media personas, politically useful for 76
The extensive quotations surrounding the details of Hambali‘s life and arrest that follow are used to highlight the conflicting and quasi-fictional nature of alleged ―fact‖ in Thailand‘s emergent global terror narrative. The details associated with Hambali are an example of informational control in their own right.
377 War on Terror architects and beneficiaries. He ―supposedly arranged a January 2000 meeting in Malaysia attended by two of the nineteen Sept. 11th hijackers‖ and was ―suspected of involvement in the December 2000 bombing of a train in Philippines, Manila that killed 22 people‖ (CBN 15 Aug 2003). Similarly, he was ―tasked by Al Queda after 9-11 to recruit pilots to carry out more hijackings in the United States‖ and ―received a large sum of money for a major attack from an al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan‖ (Ibid.). Finally, and most critically, he was the ―‗mastermind‘ of the October 12, 2002, bombings on Bali which killed 202 people‖ as well as the ―top suspect in the bombing of a JW Marriot hotel in Jakarta August 5‖ (Ibid.). Who was this terrorist kingpin and magical chameleon of incredible martial prowess? The only biographical information available to the public inevitably highlighted his connections to violent Islamic fundamentalism. Thailand‘s Nation newspaper reported, ―Hambali was born into a poor family in Indonesia‘s West Java province in 1966, before becoming involved in the JI network as a teenager‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003b). Born on 4 April, 1966, his birth name was Encep Nurjaman. In 1983, he went to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union‘s invasion of that country, and met Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s, at a time when US funding to what would become the ―Al Queda‖ organization was at an early peak. Returning to Malaysia in 1991, he changed his name to Riduan Isamuddin and was nicknamed ―Hambali‖ after ―Hanbali‖ a religious school of law started in the 8th century. After failing to secure an adequate source of funds as a kebab seller and medicine patent-holder, Hambali founded the palm-oil import-export company, Konsojaya, in 1994. This company allegedly served as a front organization for the activities that would
378 make him notorious in the next decade. In 2000, he was linked to a series of church bombings in Indonesia. In the same year, he participated in the CIA-showcased ―2000 Al Queda Summit.‖ The Bali bombing, which caused the initially-defiant Indonesian government to adopt the global War on Terror narrative, pushed Hambali further underground, as the arrest of Abu Bakr Bashir caused many of his associates to flee the country. Significantly, stories of his continual re-entry into Thailand, like nearly every detail of his background and arrest, are conflicting and variously reported. Most international press accounts, including the Washington Post‘s (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003), maintain that he re-entered Thailand via Malaysia in January 2002, ―where he planned the Bali bombings at a meeting in Bangkok‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003b). Following this 2002 meeting, ―intelligence sources‖ assert that Hambali left and returned to Thailand twice in the year before his arrest (Ibid.). From September 2002 through March of 2003, according to an adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, he reportedly lived in a Muslim community in Phnom Penh, ―staying in a guesthouse popular with budget travelers‖ (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003). Cambodian authorities learned this information after arresting three suspected Jemaah Islamiah members in May 2003 (Ibid.). The Washington Post, relying on the account of ―a security analyst in the region familiar with the investigation‖ asserted that two weeks before his arrest, Hambali re-entered Thailand. However, rather than positing that Hambali entered from the Cambodian border, the article tells a confusing tale of entries and exits which do not explain how he left his Phnom Penh guesthouse hideout: He had left Malaysia, possibly traveling by boat to Burma and then heading overland to the Thai border, the analyst said. Using a false passport, he crossed into Mae Sai, Thailand, from a spot near the LaosBurma border, where a short footbridge spans a narrow stream between
379 the two countries, the analyst said. This border is less scrutinized than Thailand‘s southern border with Malaysia, where Thailand intensified security measures over the past year to prevent militants from entering (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003). In the days just following Hambali‘s arrest, there were many similar reports alleging that he initially ―traveled from Chiang Khong border district in Chiang Rai to hide among the Muslim community in Ayuthaya‖ (Nation 15 Aug 2003b). Within Thailand, according to the Minister of Defense, Hambali used a tour agency‘s service to travel using a fraudulent passport (DP 16 Aug 2003). A writer in the Thai language newspaper, the Daily Post, pointed out the discrepancies in official accounts of Hambali‘s entry into Thailand: …evidence of how Hambali entered Thailand from several sources are different. The military said that he entered Thailand through the ThaiMalaysia Border and traveled to Ayuthaya, but the police said that he entered the country from the Chiang Khong Immigration checkpoint in Chiang Rai (DP 16 Aug 2003). These two conflicting accounts highlight the long-standing rift between the Thai police and the military. Adding to the confusion, an official border corruption inquiry in August 2003 focused on southern border entry points. Thaksin himself admitted that official corruption may have let terrorists enter Thailand. Speaking to reporters about Pol. DG Sant, Thaksin said, ―I told him he will need to do more because senior officers are also involved. He needs to find out whether these officers have been negligent in supervising their subordinates‖ (Bangkok Post 20 Aug 2003b). Just days before, Thaksin somehow predicted that ―about 30 JI people‖ would be coming to Thailand during APEC, and would enter as tourists. Therefore, Thaksin said, government immigration background checks would have to be implemented (ThaiRath 18 Aug 2003). As a result of the inquiry into the southern border checkpoint, Sant reported that three immigration senior
380 sergeants-major would be fired. In addition, twenty officers would be transferred over corruption in entry screening.77 Simultaneously, Chiang Khong immigration officials in the north denied that Hambali passed through their northern border entry point. As evidence for this claim, they asserted that no entry record existed for him. ―Pol Lt-Col Prai Rinsawasdi, head of the Chiang Khong immigration unit, said he was puzzled by reports that Hambali had fooled immigration officers with a fake Spanish passport after crossing from Laos. He said Lao authorities also did not have a record for him. An immigration policeman said the security situation at the Chiang Khong checkpoint was normal‖ (Ibid.). Three years after the Hambali‘s arrest, a Bangkok Post ―wrap-up‖ story in 2006 asserts an entirely different account than the initial reports of entry through Chiang Khong. By contrast, the story reports: Following the tip-off from Phnom Penh, Thai officers began interrogating several local and foreign Muslims apprehended in and around Bangkok. One of them confirmed that Hambali had entered Thailand from Cambodia. ―The last foreigner we interrogated gave us the name of Hambali‘s trusted aide. He also told us that Hambali was holding a Spanish passport bought from a pair of Pakistani forgers living in Thailand, who were linked to a Russian-born criminal whom we arrested later,‖ said an officer in charge of the interrogation. ―However, none of them knew Hambali's whereabouts, which we learned three days before his arrest.‖ After locating Hambali‘s aide, Thai police in early August followed him to the immigration checkpoint in Mae Sai district of the northern province of Chiang Rai. After making a visa extension for Hambali, his aide took a bus back to Bangkok. ―We pounced on him at Ekkamai bus station, when he started to run,‖ said the officer (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006).
77
According to the Thai-language newspaper the Thai Rath, ―A source at the Sadao checkpoint said people with suspected terrorist links bribed immigration police to ensure only cursory passport checks. The passport holders did not personally appear before immigration officers. The source said members of terrorist groups such as the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) and Bersatu had been ferried across the Sungai Kolok river on the Narathiwat border‖(ThaiRath 18 Aug 2003).
381 Apparently, then, Hambali was finally undone by his assistant‘s ―visa run,‖ a routine operation familiar to most temporary laborers and expatriates in Thailand. Prior to the 2006 coup, a visa could be renewed by crossing any Thai border checkpoint and then reentering Thailand the same day. What is most interesting about this version of the events leading to Hambali‘s arrest is its complete contrast with the numerous media stories and official accounts from the time of his arrest in 2003. These contrasting accounts point to the successful deployment of informational control. Similar to the widely varying depictions of Hambali‘s movement into and out of Thailand, nearly every account of his arrest differs from every other account. In the above Bangkok Post ―wrap-up‖ story, Hambali‘s Spanish passport, with the name ―Daniel Suarez Naviera,‖ was not fake, as claimed in numerous media reports. The passport was stolen from its original owner by a ―Russian-born criminal,‖ and forged by two Pakistanis living in Thailand, who replaced the original photo (Ibid.). When the passport was seized at the Ekkamai bus station, Hambali‘s visa runner, ―LiLi,‖ also possessed a room key for Boonyarak apartments in Ayuthaya. Police then were able to examine the list of tenants and found the man they thought to be Hambali in room 601. Supposedly, a phone call by police to a ―top Thai government official‖ ordered Hambali to be captured alive (Ibid.).
Figure 65: Hambali's Boonyarak apartment in Ayuthaya
382
According to the ―wrap-up‖ story, just before 11pm on August 11th, 2003, officers from Thai police, the Armed Forces Security Center (AFSC) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) surrounded the Boonyarak apartment. A phone call from a ―telephone operator‖ instructed Hambali to discuss his phone line downstairs. When he emerged from the elevator he was arrested. The Bangkok Post dramatically reported, He managed to kick a police officer in the stomach before he was wrestled to the ground by several policemen, who recovered two fullyloaded .380 mm caliber Soviet-made Makarov pistols from his trouser pockets. Hambali reportedly obtained the guns in Cambodia. He was wearing jeans and T-shirt, a baseball cap, and sunglasses when he was arrested. Shortly afterwards, the SWAT team armed with HK MP5 machine guns broke into room 601 and arrested Hambali‘s wife and the foreign JI man. They also stormed the other room but no one was inside. Both rooms were searched and sealed (Ibid.). In this ―wrap-up‖ account, police found a bomb assembly manual in his room along with a large amount of Thai baht and documents, but no bomb-making material. In contrast with the numerous government and official reports that claimed that explosives were found, CBN reported on 15 August that, according to US President Bush, Hambali was arrested ―in the last few days‖ along with ―seven other alleged accomplishes‖ and numerous explosives (CBN 15 Aug 2003). The Thai-language newspaper, Daily Post,
383 reported that, according to Thai police, Hambali was actually arrested at Chok Sethee Apartments next door to the Boonyarak building, along with ―bomb making equipment‖ (DP 16 Aug 2003). In addition, according to the DP, police found a picture of PM Thaksin ―with a cross mark on his face.‖ In many accounts of Hambali‘s arrest, his body-modifications were highlighted. Malaysia‘s The Star added the tone of religious judgment to their reporting of the ―CHAMELEON‖-like behavior of Hambali‘s Figure 66: ―CHAMELEON: Hambali sporting a new look after shaving and undergoing plastic surgery‖
conniving strategy, ―He underwent plastic surgery, removed his trademark beard and began wearing T-
shirts and jeans. Sometimes he even walked around in shorts, which many Muslims would normally frown upon for exposing the flesh‖ (Wai & Charles 20 Aug 2003). In the series of continual variations and contradictory reports of the details of Hambali‘s arrest, The Nation reported that Hambali and his wife were arrested while they were sleeping (Kavi 19 Aug 2003). In the Thai-language newspaper the Thai Rath, Hambali‘s wife was arrested first (ThaiRath 20 Aug 2003). This story explains that different Thai ministers were reporting different stories, with some claiming that information from the Thai News Agency led to his arrest, and some saying it was a coffee seller near the crime scene. Because of these many and varying ―official‖ stories, that PM Thaksin demanded ministers to stop giving interviews (Ibid.). The Washington Post reported that Hambali ―was done in by suspicious neighbors and a telephone trace‖ (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003). In this version, a brave team of ―about a dozen undercover Thai agents…burst into Apartment 601…surprising the slumbering
384 Indonesian cleric and his wife‖ (Ibid.). Significantly, the major source of the Post‘s information was Paul Quaglia, director of PSA Asia Ltd., a security consulting firm in Bangkok. Quaglia is a known ―ex‖-CIA employee who now owns a consulting company, so it comes as no surprise that he highlighted not only how the CIA was instrumental in the arrest, but also how the Thai police were ―tipped off by Muslim Thais in the community, who were wary of the foreigner who attended the local mosque and Internet cafe, but did not speak Thai.‖ The value of citizen surveillance networks and their value for informational control is constantly reinforced by US intelligence agents throughout the globe. Other misinformation was included in the Washington Post account days after the arrest. Nakashima and Sipress reported, ―about two hours before capturing Hambali, Thai agents picked up two accomplices, said to be either Indonesian or Malaysian, in the apartment next door‖ (Ibid.). In Time‘s narrative, the dynamic entry of SWAT teams was also described, even though, according to the account three years after the fact, they found only an empty room. Not to deny readers an exciting story of yet another SWAT raid, Time dutifully reported the detailed disinformation, Last Monday night a fleet of bronze sedans carrying about two dozen Thai Special Branch police forces pulled up near the six-story Boon Yarak apartment building in Ayuthaya. A US official says the Thai authorities were acting on at least two forms of intelligence provided by the CIA. Intelligence officers in the region pinpointed Hambali‘s location after intercepting a cell-phone call placed to an operative in Indonesia. At 10:30 p.m. on Monday, the Thai forces knocked on Hambali‘s door and then smashed the lock and stormed inside. A college student named Oh, 26, who lives under Hambali's apartment, says she heard a ―loud crash‖ that sounded like a domestic dispute. Minutes later the noise stopped. The police hauled Hambali out and turned him over to the CIA, which moved him to an unidentified country for interrogation (Burger et al 25 Aug 2003).
385 In contrast to the Washinton Post‘s account of a Muslim community wary of a stranger walking among them and frequenting internet cafes, the story in Time paints the typical picture of quiet loner. They report, ―He probably chose to live in the cream-and-pink apartment in Ayuthaya precisely because of the anonymity it offered…he rarely left the place, never did laundry and ventured to the local 7-Eleven only at night. ‗He kept to himself,‘ (26 year-old college student Oh) says.‖ The Time article includes a photo, entitled ―Takedown‖ to support their account that, ―Acting on tips from the CIA and other intelligence services, Thai forces stormed the one-bedroom apartment in this Ayuthaya building, where Hambali had sought refuge for two weeks‖ (Ibid.). This account is reinforced by the aforementioned reliance on counter-terrorism employees who attempted to create a picture of the CIA providing all the information leading to the arrest. A counterterrorism official, deemed the operation ―pretty cool…Once we knew who it was, and the locals could gin up the necessary operation, they took him down‖ (Ibid.). The sensational story of a joint CIA/Thai SWAT team operation pervades public consciousness. The globally- influential Wikipedia account supports this myth, including the false information of found explosives, ―The twenty uniformed and undercover police smashed down the door to his one bedroom apartment in Ayuthaya, and arrested him and 33-year old Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, a Chinese Malaysian who was considered to be his wife. Police also seized explosives and firearms in the property‖ (Wiki-authors 2007).78 The question of which one of the Thailand‘s numerous military and PPU raid teams was actually involved in the raid is difficult to discern. Ayuthaya was the location 78
Recently, the sentence, ―Hambali was wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a pair of sunglasses‖ was added to this description, giving the entry the added gravitas of forensic investigatory description.
386 chosen for an joint police/military anti-drug task force, who conducted raids with H&K and M16 assault rifles during the first month of the War on Drugs (Sunthorn 2003). The number of claims of agencies and officials involved in Hambali‘s arrest strain the limits of credibility in order to create the appearance of an ―international law enforcement‖ victory. According to Malaysia‘s The Star, Malaysian police provided the dossiers of the elusive Zubair and Li-Li, allowing Thai police and the CIA to ―swoop in‖ on Hambali‘s apartment (Wai & Charles 20 Aug 2003). The agencies within the Thai police claiming involvement in the arrest vary widely as well. The Bangkok Post insists that a high level Thai police Special Branch official was reviewing his ―top secret‖ files when he received a call from a Cambodian intelligence officer. The Cambodian official reportedly said, ―My friend, we just got information that Hambali and his wife have left for Thailand.‖ This information led to the creation of a ―war room‖ and the hunt for Hambali in Thailand, later symbolically code-named, ―OPERATION BLACK MAGIC‖ (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). The same 2006 Bangkok Post ―wrap-up‖ story offers an explanation for the numerous discrepancies, based on a senior Thai police officer‘s account. The officer said, ―firstly, we had to conceal some information to protect our sources and secondly, people from a certain organisation wanted to get all the credit, like they had done everything.‖ The officer goes on, ―We used all the people we could trust and all the equipment at our disposal. Some agencies paid little attention to our requests, but we were joined later by personnel from the AFSC and the NIA with support from a Western intelligence agency," the officer said. ―But without the tip-off from Cambodia and the
387 hard work done by my people, a series of bomb attacks could have caused large-scale devastation in Thailand,‖ he said. Thai-language Daily Press substantiated the Bangkok Post‘s story that it was officers from Santiban special branch police who arrested Hambali along with the help of the International Terrorist Suppression Unit.79 Later, the article claims that the National Security Office and local police conducted the raid (DP 16 Aug 2003).80 Thaksin himself reported that the arrest happened because of public surveillance and tip-offs from the neighborhood (Kavi 18 Aug 2003). Similar accounts of citizen surveillance and tipoffs were widespread. ―Ayuthaya Muslims‖ supposedly reported Hambali to authorities because he was ―a foreign visitor to their mosque‖ (Bangkok Post 18 Aug 2003). The same editorial reported, ―One must note that Hambali found no help and no sympathy from any community. When tracked and caught, he was simply another fugitive on the run, and local Ayuthaya people - Buddhist, Muslim - were delighted‖ (Ibid.). In addition to this citizen cooperation, the editorial reports Indonesia‘s and Malaysia‘s public claims of providing manpower and information, even though American and Thai agents made the actual arrest. The editorial states, ―It also reflects extremely well on the international cooperation that is necessary to confront the cross-border menace of al-Qaeda and its tentacles around the world‖ (Ibid.). The Nation reported similar international cooperation saying, ―The US provided technical and ‗other‘ assistance to the Thai security detachment, which included special branch police, soldiers 79 80
Because of the joint cooperation between the National Security Agency, the Special Branch Police and the Armed Forces Security Centre (AFSC), armed forces intelligence chief, Lt-Gen Praparn Nilwong was able to keep his job. Prior to Hambali‘s arrest there was heavy pressure to replace Praparn with Lt-Gen Phanphon Indradhat, the elder brother of Maj-Gen Trairong Indradhat, known as Seh Ice. Seh Ice was a former classmate of PM Thaksin at the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School's class 10 (Wassana 17 Aug 2003).
388 and a Muslim security force‖ (Kavi 19 Aug 2003). Months after the arrest, army commander Gen Chaisit Shinawatra, another freshly-appointed relative of Thaksin, claimed that it was the Thai army who first detected Hambali‘s movements in the country, and that their cooperation with the Armed Forces Security Centre led to his arrest. Gen Chaisit claimed that intercepted telephone conversations by the army revealed that ―Hambali‘s terror network‖ met on the 8th of every month (Wassana 11 Oct 2003). Chaisit went on to claim that, ―the army was first to know about Hambali. The army had worked behind the scenes all along.‖ US officials were, of course, delighted to highlight international cooperation in intelligence and police activity associated with the case. US Ambassador Darryl Johnson offered this statement, ―His capture testifies again to Thailand‘s leading role in the community of peace-loving nations‖ (Nation 19 Aug 2003). House of Representative‘s Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, ―coincidentally‖ was in Thailand within days of the arrest as part of a delegation to ―review the terrorist situation in the region.‖ He described Thailand‘s performance in the arrest as the ―action of a good friend‖ (Ibid.). All of this diplomatic backpatting contained an air of international condescension. This attitude is typified in the words of a ―regional security analyst‖ (CIA contractor and consultant, Paul Quaglia) who claims that the CIA briefed few Thai officials about the Hambali arrest until the final moments of his arrest. The analyst said, ―They were kept in the dark until the zero hour for fear of a leak and blowing the whole thing‖ (Nakashima & Sipress 16 Aug 2003). What is behind these dizzying contradictory claims of bureaucratic ownership of information and activity leading to Hambali‘s arrest? Beyond the diplomatically-useful
389 claims of massive international cooperation, there was a simpler motive to the throngs of Thai military, intelligence and police groups claiming their instrumentality in Hambali‘s capture: profit. The first reference to the possibility of a US-sponsored reward resulting from the arrest was in the Thai-language newspaper, Kom Chad Luek. The article stated, ―Thailand has a chance to get 172 million baht‖ from their assistance in the arrest (KCD 16 Aug 2003). The Thai-language Daily Post also reported that PM Thaksin, while complimenting police intelligence (called in Thai, the ―News Division‖) and Provincial Police Division 1 for their role in the arrest, claimed that Hambali was found because of bank account transactions. This adds another claim to the cacophony of conflicting arrest details (DP 17 Aug 2003). Apparently, Thaksin‘s original claim that citizen tipoffs lead to Hambali‘s capture, was not as economically useful as a claim benefiting the antimoney laundering arm of Thaksin‘s new executive decrees. The following day, the Patumwan metropolitan association received an award in a public ceremony for arresting Hambali. Several of the officers receiving the award were visibly shaking on stage. It was claimed that these officers were shaking not because they were overwhelmed with pride, but because they were ―scared for the future‖ (KCD 18 Aug 2003). With this local reward disbursed, the stage was set for nation-wide bureaucratic claims for responsibility in the Hambali arrest. Under the US Department of State ―Rewards for Justice‖ program, Hambali‘s arrest offered up to four million USD. This figure prompted some outrage within Thailand when a senior US Embassy official told Defence Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya that the reward would be around one million USD (Bangkok Post 11 Sept 2003). On 11 Sept. 2003, a lucrative day for the cycles of terrorism and counter-terrorism, it was noted in the Bangkok Post that US
390 payouts for the Egyptian who provided information leading to the arrest of suspected Sept 11th ―mastermind,‖ Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was $25 million. Moreover, when Qusay and Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein‘s sons were killed by US bombings, the ―Rewards for Justice‖ program provided $30 million to the Iraqi giving information on their location, which made the ―surgical‖ bombing possible (Ibid.). With these multi-millions of dollars paid out in rewards by the United States for its state enemies, the initial one million dollar figure estimated by the US Thai Embassy seemed miserly, and the figure was increased to ten million USD. Prime Minister Thaksin said that ten individual officers would share part of the ten million USD reward, but that the majority would be allocated to state agencies who cooperated in the operation. The smorgasbord of cooperating agencies included the Special Branch Police, Royal Thai Army, Immigration Police Bureau, National Intelligence Agency, Armed Forces Security Centre and drug suppression units (Preeyanat 18 Sept 2003). Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh indicated that the ten officers who were personally rewarded were from the Armed Forces Security Centre and the National Intelligence Agency. This allocation revealed that claims of the AFSC and NIA as the two main Thai agencies that ―carried out the capture‖ were taken seriously by Thai authorities (Ibid.). The National Security Council Chief, Gen Vinai Pattiyakul mediated the reward disbursement to ensure ―fairness.‖ In discussing the handout, PM Thaksin assured the media that the reward was given as an ―incentive‖ rather than a ―headhunt‖ (Ibid.). The following day, the details of the reward were further codified. One third of the ten million USD ―bounty,‖ 133 million baht, was used to create a foundation for
391 officers killed in the line of duty. The remaining two-thirds, 267 million baht was split among no less than fourteen agencies ―involved in the operation‖ (Bangkok Post 19 Sept 2003a). The largest shares went to the AFSC and NIA, followed by the Special Branch police and Provincial Police Region One (which covers the Bangkok and Ayuthaya areas). Within AFSC, tenty people were ―entitled to a share,‖ the specific amount of which was to remain secret to ―avoid quarrelling.‖ This monetary secrecy was the result of strict orders of PM Thaksin (Ibid.). The army‘s share of the reward, the exact amount of which was kept secret, was used to upgrade the army anti-terrorism unit. According to Army chief Gen Somdhat Attanant, the money would be used to buy weapons and equipment for the anti-terror Task Force 90 special warfare unit at Lopburi (Bangkok Post 20 Sept 2003). As the reward was distributed, many Thai officers felt they didn‘t get the respect and credit they deserved. Thai officials said later, ―most of the $10 million in reward was distributed to those who had not much to do with the case, while those who worked hard got very little or nothing‖ (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). While reward money under the coffers for United States ―Rewards for Justice‖ program was wrangled and disbursed, Hambali himself was quietly transferred out of the country on a US rendition flight. Initial reports were kept intentionally obscure. Indeed, in the initial days after the arrest, so important to PM Thaksin‘s executive decree timing, Thai officials such as Defence Minister Thamarak Isarankura wouldn‘t even confirm that the ―suspect‖ being interrogated was Hambali (Nation 15 Aug 2003b). US sources said in the initial days when the story broke that Hambali was held in a ―secret location,‖ and was being questioned by ―Thai authorities‖ and the FBI (Ibid.).
392 Several days later, the Bangkok Post reported that Hambali was flown on a US plane to an ―undisclosed location in Asia for detention and joint interrogation by allied countries, including Thailand‖ (Wassana 18 Aug 2003). Kuala Lumpur‘s New Sunday Times offered further details that Hambali was flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan and later to Guantanamo Bay (Ibid.). After the Bangkok Post reported that Hambali was flown out of the country, they highlighted that the interrogation team included a Thai police officer from Special Branch, as well as intelligence officers from the United States and Indonesia. (Nation 20 Aug 2003). Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Chulalongkorn University noted with consternation: The circumstances surrounding the capture are still incomplete, but it is clear that Hambali was taken promptly into US custody and flown to an undisclosed location for interrogation….In view of its on-going flagwaving obsession and nationalist fixation, the Thaksin government has yet to explain the extra-territorial concession it ceded to the US authorities in the Hambali case. Any person, foreign or native, who is taken into custody on Thai territory must enter Thailand's legal process in the first instance, after which a quick show trial on extradition could be staged. The suspect could be held in a top security facility in Thailand during the interim. Such a legal process, at a minimum, would safeguard the notion of territorial sovereignty (Thitinan 19 Sept 2003). Later in September, ―officials‖ speculated that Hambali was flown to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, or to the US-British airbase at Diego Garcia, the forcibly depopulated atoll in the Indian Ocean (Dawson 15 Sept 2003). In Songpol and Wechsler‘s ―wrap-up‖ piece three years later, they reported that, ―A convoy of cars took him to a remote section of Don Muang airport under tight security at night. All the lights were switched off in that restricted area of the airport, guarded by heavily-armed commandos.‖ This US flight escort occurred three days after Hambali‘s arrest. This information was based on a
393 ―senior police officer who took part in the secret operation from the very beginning‖ (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). This account confirms ―intelligence sources‖ statements that Hambali is held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba along with ―his close aide and other JI man arrested at the apartment.‖81 According to a Human Rights Watch report in 2006, Hambali was held in Jordan by the CIA, one of the agency‘s notorious ―black sites.‖ On 6 Sept 2006, President Bush admitted that overseas covert interrogation centers, known as black sites, existed. He confirmed that Hambali was held by the CIA, and that he was, along with 14 other ―al Qaeda leaders‖ transferred to Guantanamo. Hambali's wife, by contrast, was deported to Malaysian custody. Malaysian authorities supposedly conducted a 81
Presumably these two men were ―Zubair‖ and ―Lillii,‖ although the unclassified transcript of the 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba reveals that initial evidence submitted by the US government contended that they are the same person. In the tribunal to determine whether Bashir bin Lep, a.k.a. ―Lilli,‖ would be designated as an enemy combatant by the United States (Combatant Status Review Tribunals 20 March 2007), the US Air Force Major serving as recorder said, RECORDER: Lili refers to ZUBAIR. That's (Z U B I R) al. (A L period) being translated to mean alias, Ahmad, (A H M A D) alias Lili, (L I L I) refers to Zubair, (Z U B A I R)…And lastly, Basyir (B A S Y I R) refers to Bashir Bin Lap, the Detainee in question, The oral statement of the detainee, Bashir bin Lep, a.k.a. Mohammed Nazir bin Lep disputes much of the US government‘s evidence against him including this point of confusion (that he is both ―Zubair‖ and ―Lili‖). Bin Lep‘s statement at the tribunal was presented through a Personal Representative, another US Air Force Major: PERSONAL REP: ZUBAIR, AHMAD and LILLI are not the same person. Bin Lep‘s personal representative goes on to highlight the government‘s confusion: PERSONAL REP: The Unclassified Summary presented to (the detainee) had LILLI as his name on the Unclassified Summary. The Unclassified Summary read today had LILLI removed. The name LILLI does appear in Exhibit R-2. And the Recorder has stipulated that-that LILLI refers to ZUBAIR. There is no consistency in R-2, to what BASIR or BASHIR did. PERSONAL REP: Other than the LILLI referred in R-2, has been stipulated to be ZUBAIR by the government. PRESIDENT: By some other person; understood. That is understood. Later in the hearing, a tribunal member‘s question reveals continual confusion on whether ―Zubair‖ and ―Lilli‖ are the detainee in question: MEMBER: I believe that ah-- your comments ah-- about the indictment by Zu-- by the Detainee, ah-- were that-- we couldn't specifically tie the Detainee to this document, is that correct? PERSONAL REP: I believe that is for the Board to decide (Combatant Status Review Tribunals 20 March 2007).
394 ―debriefing‖ session with Noralwizah Lee Abdullah although no details of her interrogation were ever revealed (Dawson 15 Sept 2003). For their part, the Malaysian government urged the US to extradite two Malaysian nationals, supposed Al Queda members identified at that time only by their nicknames Li-Li and Zubair (later identified as Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep and Mohd Farik bin Amin), who provided information under interrogation which allowed US and Thai agents to ―swoop in‖ on Hambali‘s Ayuthaya apartment. Both men were supposedly arrested in Bangkok: Zubair in June and Li-Li on 11 August, supposedly four hours before Hambali‘s arrest (Kyodo News International 26 Aug 2003). However, as late as 2007, the US government submitted military tribunal evidence that Li-Li and Zubair were the same person (see footnote on preceding page). In the context of August 2003, Hambali‘s political value to global War on Terror architects cannot be understated. His arrest was supposedly first announced as President George W. Bush flew on Air Force One from Texas to California on 14 August 2003 (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). A White House spokesman immediately called the arrest an ―important victory in the war on terrorism…a significant blow to al-Qaeda.‖ Later that same day, Bush made a speech to US Marines in San Diego where he said, ―Hambali is one of the world's most lethal terrorists who is suspected of planning major terrorist operations. He is no longer a problem for those of us who love freedom.‖ Similarly, Australian PM, John Howard, informed Australians that the ―ultimate mastermind‖ of the Bali bombings in October 2002, which killed eighty-eight Australians, was caught. (Ibid.).
395 As Howard‘s statement suggests, one of the most politically useful aspects of Hambali‘s arrest was the subsequent ability of War on Terror proponents to link Hambali to nearly every major Southeast Asia terrorist activity in the 21st century. Importantly, officials claimed these admissions were made by Hambali directly, while under interrogation. However, like all aspects of Operation Black Magic, reports of what Hambali revealed under interrogation are fraught with contradiction, false information, and convenient conjecture. It was reported immediately after Hambali‘s arrest that he confessed to planning, with his accomplices, an attack on the October APEC meetings (CBN 15 Aug 2003). The method for extracting this confession, the means for how this information was disseminated amid global intelligence secrecy, and the motive for Hambali‘s immediate and revalatory confession was unexamined in media reports. According to other reports that contradict this alleged confession, in the brief time that Hambali was under Thai custody, Thai Special Branch Police asked Hambali about a plan to attach the October APEC meetings. According to an Thai police source for The Nation on 18 August, ―he said no.‖ When asked specifically about JI‘s plans in Thailand he told interrogators that they were in the country only to hide and regroup (Kavi 19 Aug 2003). What accounts for the widely divergent initial reports from official sources within Thailand? Other news agencies issued reports of fiendish and detailed plots, despite Hambali‘s initial reluctance to answer questions, ―half-hearted‖ answers, and denials that APEC was a future target. After interrogation by ―two Thai intelligence officials‖ however, ―The source said his five associates surveyed Apec reception venues, including the spot opposite the navy headquarters where world leaders would gather to watch the royal barge procession scheduled for Oct 20‖ (Wassana 18 Aug 2003). The alleged
396 threat to APEC was repeated numerous times by the Bangkok Post, reporting that PM Thaksin, ―said Hambali had been plotting new terrorist attacks, possibly in October, when Bush and others would be attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok‖ (Burger et al 25 Aug 2003). No less than one hundred names of Hambali‘s associates were supposedly obtained by Thai authorities who were quick to create a terrifying picture of a myriad of alleged plans for violent mayhem in the wake of Hambali‘s arrest. One National Security Centre officer of the Armed Forces' Supreme Command said, ―The sleeping cells have awoken‖ (Nation 20 Aug 2003). The report predicted a JI and al-Qaeda ―shock wave‖ resulting from Hambali‘s arrest. In contrast to these apocalyptic predictions, other Thai authorities, including PM Thaksin himself claimed that Thai authorities were on the ―verge of‖ breaking up a number of terrorist organizations in Thailand. Thaksin said that there were now ―only a handful of top terrorist leaders‖ in the country along with an ―insignificant‖ number of their collaborators. Thaksin ―asserted that authorities had everything under control and were keeping a close watch on their movements‖ (Nation 31 Aug 2003). In a schizophrenic account of confessional admissions and specific planned plots, Hambali supposedly told US interrogators in September 2003 that ―he feared JI was in disrepair because of continuing arrests of group members, and because of the financial problems.‖ Then Hambali told the interrogators of a ―chilling search for terrorist targets in Thailand…tourist centres in Phuket and Pattaya, the main JW Marriott hotel near Sukhumvit Soi 2, and Don Muang airport, specifically El Al Airlines of Israel‖ (Dawson 12 Oct 2003). All of these ―results‖ from Hambali‘s ongoing interrogation at CIA-
397 sponsored black sites were shared among the ―Sensitive Six‖ within ASEAN. In an effort to create a ―coalition of the willing,‖ terrorist information was supposedly no longer held by any single country, but simultaneously shared by US, Thai, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Australian intelligence (Ibid.). Thus, the arrest of Hambali signified an unprecedented transformation in intelligence networking and international cooperation among ASEAN member nations. All of this successful global policing demanded the dissemination of new threats. On cue, official accounts suggested Hambali‘s immediate replacement. Within days of Hambali‘s arrest, media sources reported of a new manhunt for Malaysian Azahari Husin and Indonesian ―bombmaker‖ Zulkarnaen. Alan Dawson reported for the Bangkok Post, ―Husin, a British-educated engineer, seems most likely to try to fill Hambali's shoes as chief JI violence planner…It remains to be seen if he can also be the main link with alQaeda, one of Hambali's chief roles‖ (Dawson 18 Aug 2003). Dawson‘s account goes on to allege that Husin attended Bangkok‘s Feb 2002 ―terror summit‖ along with Hambali. At this alleged terrorist equivalent of the APEC meetings, JI supposedly switched to ―soft targets‖ while planning the Bali bombing. Dawson admits that Zulkarnaen‘s name ―surfaced only recently‖ when Indonesian authorities asserted he was the head of Askari Islamiyah, Jemaah Islamiyah‘s ―military wing‖ (Ibid.). Thus, within days of Hambali‘s arrest, state officials and news media had not only a new terrorist ―mastermind‖ to fill his shoes, but entirely new JI ―wings‖ (a group that, according to Hambali‘s alleged confession, was supposedly in ―disrepair‖ and wracked with financial problems). As new threats were being manufactured to replace Hambali‘s role as regional terrorist kingpin, it was with some irony that police were told to watch for ―Dr. Azari,‖ a close aide of
398 Hambali caught in Ayuthaya on Aug 11th. Supposedly, four JI members who accompanied Hambali into Thailand ―managed to escape.‖ The four, including Dr. Azari, were supposedly ―sabotage experts‖ linked to al-Qaeda (Bangkok Post 25 Sept 2003). Meanwhile, the Thai and international media continued to link Hambali with an alleged plot to target APEC. International papers, such as Malaysia‘s The Star would use Thai newspapers as their source of the alleged link asserting, ―Hambali was presumably in Thailand to plan his next plot – an attack during the (APEC) summit in Bangkok in October, which US President George W. Bush is expected to attend‖ (Wai & Charles 20 Aug 2003). These tenuous connections and presumptions created the appearance of a threat to APEC that would justify the massive security spectacle to follow. These reports came out while Hambali‘s link to regional terrorist actions broadened exponentially. According to the Jakarta Post, Hambali supposedly ―told interrogators he had authorised every major bombing in Indonesia in the past three years, from the car bombing of the Philippines ambassador to Jakarta in 2000 to the Marriott Hotel attack, just six days before his arrest.‖ In 2006, the Indonesian government made extradition requests for Hambali, but in the early days of his arrest, they believed US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz promise that Indonesia would have future access to Hambali. In the meantime, Wolfowitz assured Indonesian authorities, ―professionals who have a lot of worldwide experience in dealing with terrorism‖ were in charge of Hambali‘s interrogation (Dawson 15 Sept 2003). These shadowy interrogation professionals supposedly used seized documents to link Hambali to the alleged ―series of bomb attacks during the APEC summit‖ and a
399 ever-growing number of targets including ―the US and British embassies, nightclubs in Phuket and Pattaya…the check-in counter of El Al Israeli Airlines at Bangkok‘s Don Muang airport…(and) an Israeli restaurant in the backpacker‘s area of Khao San Road in Bangkok‖ (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). Again, by contrast to these metastasizing bomb threat claims linked to Hambali, Thai police officers who interrogated him shortly after his arrest assert that, ―He gave us nothing useful, nothing about his purpose in coming here and what he planned to do‖ (Ibid.). What was behind these widely divergent claims? On one hand, US black site interrogators linked Hambali to a vast array of attack plans, while Thai officers assert that he gave them no such plans or useful information. Three years after Hambali‘s arrest, Thai intelligence officers admitted to Bangkok Post that most of the contradictory information surrounding Hambali‘s interrogation was a psychological operation: Contrary to what the media reported at the time, the capture of Hambali had nothing to do with the arrest of Malaysian-born Zubair Mohamad, believed to be one of his close associates, in southern Thailand in July 2003. ―It (the news leak) was a tactic to cause a rift within the JI movement,‖ said the intelligence officer, who maintained that Zubair did not provide any useful information about Hambali's whereabouts (Songpol & Wechsler 6 Aug 2006). What is not admitted in this account is that these ―tactics‖ were not directed solely members of JI. The key factor in all of these exaggerated stories of bombings, supposedly revealed by Hambali while he was on CIA-sponsored rendition flights or detained in black site gulags, was to create the appearance of a credible terrorist threat for APEC, another example of state order through informational control. The goal of OPERATION BLACK MAGIC then, was not simply to capture Hambali, but to disseminate and amplify his alleged plans through global media sources, while
400 manufacturing the appearance that the upcoming globalist economic meeting was under threat. Steps were then justified to ensure a total security lockdown of Thailand‘s host city for Pacific wing of the global economic elite.
Security Preparations for APEC: The Leviathan’s Lair Throughout its nineteen year history, the APEC security ritual expanded with the origin, scope and influence of the meetings themselves. Following Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke‘s call for greater economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific region in 1989, the APEC forum was created to conduct meetings throughout the year among its ―member economies‖ (currently 21 nations). These activities culminate in an annual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, the first of which occurred in 1993 under US President Bill Clinton‘s invitation to Blake Island, in Washington State. This meeting ties APEC directly to Clinton‘s strategy to build legitimacy for the stalled ―Uraguay Round talks‖ from 1986-1994 which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thus, APEC is the Asia-Pacific wing Figure 67: The 1997 APEC meetings in Vancouver, Canada
of broader neo-liberal projects of economic globalization. According to
the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), a ―nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution,‖ APEC is designed to do no less than ―Build a New Order with Asia‖ (Dicks Nov 1993). The NBR document is directed at the ―willing engineers of a new order in Asia.‖ In the 1997 APEC meetings in Vancouver, delegates stood arm in arm as
401 globalization protesters on the University of British Columbia campus were pepper sprayed nearby. Wesley Pue documents the coercive police response to protest of this APEC meeting. The protest were indicative of the growing public awareness in the mid to late 1990s of the political and economic implications of organizations such as the WTO, IMF, EU and NAU asserting regionalist and globalist agendas without allowance for public inclusion or debate (2000). While Thai state planners and global consultants prepared the 2003 APEC metropolitan lockdown, a localized incident of chaos and coercive state response occurred, which converged with the economic goals of the APEC meetings. The last day of an ―anti-piracy concert‖ in the Suan Lum Night Bazaar was cancelled when ―interschool brawling‖ between vocational school students resulted in the death of a twentytwo year old Buranapon Technical College student. The student was presumably killed during the Saturday night ―brawl‖ on 30 Aug 2003, which led to hundreds of injuries and more than a thousand arrests (Wassayos 1 Sept 2003). More than forty thousand people packed the night bazaar for two free concerts organized to ―promote awareness of music piracy.‖ When a reported sixty thousand ―disappointed fans‖ were left outside, fights between students from rival schools began breaking out before more than two thousand police were summoned for riot control operations. Deputy Commerce Minister Wattana Muangsuk in charge of the Intellectual Property Department responsible for the antipiracy campaign, said of the students, ―Even buffalos have more brains than they do…it was pitiful to see an event arranged for a good cause ruined by senseless rogues.‖ Importantly, according to the Intellectual Property Department Director General,
402 Yanyong Puangratch, the last day of concerts was also cancelled because of ―security concerns in the build-up to the Apec summit‖ (Ibid.). This massive riot surrounding an event promoting ―intellectual property‖ was a harbinger of the ―anti-piracy‖ agenda of APEC. Just under a month after the arrest of Hambali, a prelude to the Bangkok APEC lockdown occurred in Phuket for a meeting of twenty-one APEC financial ministers on Sept 4-5th. As would be the case for the main conference a month later, newspapers dutifully printed police and government press releases of the island security preparations virtually verbatim. Therefore, Phuket‘s insular geography made not only an ideal test-site for APEC security planners, but also an ideal setting to test social control schemes and the media/government symbiosis. Police removed all the visible signs of Phuket‘s underground economy: illegal workers, beggars, counterfeit goods stalls, child street vendors, etc. (Bangkok Post 3 Sept 2003a). Even stray dogs were removed in the island‘s social order makeover. Beyond these relocations and removals, residents were encouraged to smile more and store owners were told not to overcharge foreigners. This social control effort was considered an important ―stepping stone‖ for the main APEC summit in October, the theme of which was, ―a world of differences, a partnership for the future‖ (Ibid.). To enforce this partnership, as financial ministers ―hammered out economic cooperation initiatives,‖ two thousand soldiers and police were sent to Phuket, specifically to guard the APEC ―VIPs‖ (Khao Chut Daily 2003).82 These included officers from the Phuket Provincial Police, the Santibaan Special Branch, the Border Patrol Police and a bomb squad from the Police Ordinance Division (Ibid.). The
82
The Kom Chad Luek daily newspaper erroneously reported the number of police and military as ―20,000‖ (Khao Chut Daily 2003).
403 Phuket event was called a ―successful dry run‖ for the October summit. As would be the case for both Phuket and Bangkok, an important aspect of the APEC ritual was the use of media reports to create the appearance of total security control. The Nation reported, ―A swarm of military, police, special branch police and plainclothes agents - about 1,100 in all - were on hand to secure the Phuket venue. Heavily armed detachments also patrolled the streets of the island‘s towns, combed its beaches and resorts and set up 24-hour guard posts on its golf courses and hilltops‖ (Nation 8 Sept 2003). Augmenting these performances of the state‘s capacity for coercive force, US delegates simultaneously issued a list of ten ―global terrorists‖ for UN identification and unilateral response. At the conclusion of the meeting of APEC finance ministers in Phuket (prior to the October APEC meetings and after the arrest of Hambali), US Treasury Secretary, John Snow, said that the designation of ten Indonesians and Malaysians as global terrorists ―was an important further step in dealing with terrorism‖ (Bangkok Post 7 Sept 2003). Snow said the list was to be submitted to the UN and, if no objections were raised, all UN members would be required to act similarly (Ibid.). Thai Interior Minister, Wan Nor, assured the media that this list, circulated by the US, was not linked to APEC. With the US list clearly creating ―terrorist awareness‖ in Thailand, the coverage of the Phuket event included descriptions of planned deployment of ten thousand police and hundreds of military commandos for the upcoming Bangkok summit. The elaborate flight, traffic, and hotel security plans at meeting places were also described. These security plans included, ―drills to simulate hijacking, hostage-taking and bombings are reportedly part of final security preparations‖ (Ibid.). In a curious merger of terrorist
404 chaos with global order, ―security drills‖ simulating attacks are associated with nearly every major ―terrorist‖ event of the last decade.83 The conflagration of Hambali‘s alleged APEC meeting attack plans continued in countless news stories in the weeks leading up to the event. The constant repetition of Hambali‘s supposed link to an APEC threat was also used to justify increased security measures at a variety of locations unrelated to the meetings themselves, including embassies. On 3 September, the Australian embassy announced that it was moving its entire diplomatic staff out of the embassy residence compound to separate locations throughout the city. In this announcement, a spokesperson in Canberra denied that the move was linked to a security threat (AP 4 Sept 2003). Nevertheless, the same news story went on to describe Hambali‘s arrest and PM Thaksin‘s claim that Hambali was in Thailand to plan an attack on the APEC meetings. It was also reported during this time that Hambali received two million baht to ―find a human bomb to copy the 911 incident‖ (ThaiRath 18 Aug 2003). The same news piece reported that police were arranging for Metro Special Patrol 191 units and Arintaraj units to guard embassies. Contradicting this obvious link between the constant repetition Hambali‘s supposed threat to APEC and embassy protection, Thaksin said that the Australian embassy was transferring its diplomatic corps because of ―overcrowding‖ (Yuwadee 5 Sept 2003). This news item included a defensive reassurance: ―Australia was worried 83
For example, Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard anti-terrorist branch agent turned consultant, admitted on BBC radio that drills conducted by his firm, Visor Consultants, simulated bombings on the exact underground stations and buses that were bombed on the morning of the 7 July 2005 in London. Power said, ―At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise …based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning‖ (BBC 7 Jul 2005). Similarly, on the morning of Sept. 11th, NORAD, the CIA and other organizations were involved in another series of drills simulating hijacked planes flying into buildings under the codenames VIGILANT GUARDIAN, VIGILANT WARRIOR, NORTHERN GUARDIAN, and NORTHERN VIGILANCE (Lumpkin 21 Aug 2004). As was the case on 7-7 and 9-11, security officials were unable to determine whether the actual incidents were real or simulated.
405 about safety, had adjusted security in many countries and even closed its embassies in some countries. Australia was confident in Thailand's anti-terrorism measures‖ (Ibid.). For months prior to the arrest of Hambali, however, embassy protection was an added mission for the Metropolitan Police Special Patrol Division. As documented in Chapter 6, part of the post-9-11 security detail included tasking Special Patrol officers with guarding the US, British, Australian and several other embassies. Most of the day-to-day responsibilities for embassy Figure 68: An Arintaraj 26 team member guards the US embassy in 2001
protection were shared between special patrol and the metropolitan
stations surrounding each embassy.84 The number of officers assigned to each embassy varied depending on US requests, an arrangement further revealing the ―special relationship‖ between the two countries (Fineman 1997). According to one Senior Sgt. Major (the ―Sword Police‖ rank), since 9-11, his station sent twenty officers a night for the 12am-3am shift alone, in addition to the regular shifts. Each station is responsible for providing eleven officers for a three-hour shift, although his station was sending more officers in two shifts. He ―thought‖ he got paid overtime to guard the selected embassies of the US (interview 9 Jun 2003). He said, ―It‘s very important because we don‘t know when they are going to attack or not…The government is very afraid because the government doesn‘t want to have trouble with
84
In Metropolitan Police District 5, for example, Thonglor, Prakanom, Khlong Dan, Lumpini and Bang Naa stations all devoted a certain number of officers to embassy details.
406 foreign countries.‖ Thus, a substantial commitment of police resources is devoted for international interests. Embassy protection is another example of Western security agendas (global policing) affecting local/national police in specific and fundamental ways.85 Along with embassy security, spectacular preparations were underway at Bangkok‘s Don Muang International Airport in preparation for APEC. Taking a cue from the recent re-introduction of armed ―sky marshals‖ on US planes, the Thai government announced that sixty air marshals (―trained commandos‖ from the Thai air force‘s Security Forces Command), three per flight, would be on select international Thai Airways flights during the meetings (Wassana 9 Oct 2003). The plan was announced by a contingent of Thai air force commanders, including Air Combat Commander ACM Chalit Pukpasuk who said ―the guards would blend in with passengers and sit close to suspicious characters‖ (Ibid.). Citing authorization from the US Federal Aviation Administration, the armed commandos were to travel back and forth from Bangkokbased flights to ―the United States, the Middle East and other countries thought to harbor terrorists.‖ This unilateral source of authorization became commonplace in late 2003 when the US began ordering foreign carriers to post armed guards on flights to the US
85
Nevertheless, embassy protection was a task of Thai police officers in Bangkok prior to September 11 th. One commissioned interrogation officer described a comical incident in one of his previous assignments: I know certain members on the support staff for the US embassy. I was working at the Lumpini station in crime suppression at the time. One day, I was called to the US embassy. The ambassador kept ducks and chickens on the embassy grounds. There were several ducks that were found near a pond and canal in the embassy that died. I was assigned with finding out how they died. We did an autopsy because there were small holes found on the birds. The ambassador thought they were shot so he asked that we do an autopsy. Actually, we found out they were bitten by a Komodo dragon who lived in the canal on embassy grounds‖ (interview 3 Jun 2003). This story illustrates a unique example of how police resources are routinely diverted at the whim of international and diplomatic interests
407 (AP 29 Dec 2003). Air force commander ACM Kongsak Wantana cited hijackings during APEC as the main justification for the air marshal program. In addition to posting armed commandos on flights, a no-fly zone was imposed over Bangkok during APEC and a group of F-16 fighter planes were on standby in Nakhon Ratchasima, ready for deployment within three minutes. Two F-16 fighters were to accompany each ―VIP aircraft‖ upon entering Thai air space (Yuwadee & Manop 8 Oct 2003). To escort APEC leaders from the airport, security helicopters were to fly above their motorcades from Don Muang to their hotel destinations (Wassana 9 Oct 2003). On the ground at the airport, a massive security grid was planned which included up to 1,300 guards and an ―infra-red fence‖ (Yuwadee & Manop 8 Oct 2003). Police and the military would patrol the airport and a back-up control tower would be running in case of main tower communications malfunctions. Finally, Thai Airways security chief, Pricha Sukchai, announced that military tanks on the tarmac would join the 1,300 airport guards. He stated, ―We are at code red now. Everything is at 100 percent strength‖ (AFP 6 Oct 2003). In the news reports of the ―massive security blanket‖ at Don Muang airport, there were other descriptions a wide variety of security measures planned for the APEC meetings. Two thousand police officers would be guarding the APEC leader‘s hotels, nine hundred officers would escort the leaders motorcades and more than a hundred officers would guard the VIPs and their Figure 69: ―Big brother is watching‖
spouses directly (Yuwadee & Manop 8 Oct 2003). To visually anchor these numbers to other forms of security
408 planning, the above article included three photographs. The first photograph, by Apichit Jinakul, was captioned, ―Big brother is watching‖ and showed a traffic police officer watching cars on Bangkok‘s Si Ayuthaya intersection using a notebook computer (Fig. 69). The caption refers to the second photo of a man walking near a large surveillance pole. These cameras were part of the system installed at the above intersection to ―detect red light violations.‖ The surveillance pole in the picture apparently contains visual as well as audio surveillance capability as well as license plate recognition technology. Although the system was already clearly deployed in routine policing, it was supposedly ―on trial.‖ A third photograph in the article about the APEC airport security grid describes ―car blocks‖ at hotels during APEC. It shows a police officer demonstrating ―multipurpose obstacles‖ at a Police Club media demonstration on 7 Oct 2003. Similar security demonstrations at the Police Club grew increasingly bizarre. One police officer, wearing a flak jacket, demonstrated a crutch
Figure 71: A metropolitan police officer demonstrates "car blocks" to be deployed at APEC delagate's hotels
modified into a gun. This demonstration
was supposedly necessary, ―to demonstrate why security staff must be on the alert during the Apec summit‖ (Manop & Pradit 8 Oct 2003).
Figure 70: A Kevlar-clad officer demonstrates a gun concealed in a crutch. Photo: Boonnarong Bhudhipanya
409 As this smorgasbord of images details, ground-based transportation security was another major aspect of the APEC ritual. An intricate grid of road closures were announced and publicized described as a ―massive shutdown of major areas of the city‖ (Ibid.). The Traffic Police commander announced parking bans and traffic closures on major roads throughout Bangkok. Ironically, the details, dates, and maps provided in the police and media descriptions of road closures showed the exact paths of motorcades and the locations of every APEC meeting. A map and timetable was included in one article (Ibid.), describing an amazingly detailed list of road closures at specific times throughout the conference (in the Notes section, Fig. 100). This map alone, published nearly two weeks before APEC, provides orderly information for Bangkok drivers and would–be ―terrorist‖ planners alike. The inclusion of these detailed documents came at a time when National Security Center representatives were continually touting the possible plans of Hambali‘s closest associates, still reportedly at large. At a meeting with intelligence officers, the National Intelligence Agency, and the foreign ministry, NSC representatives warned the press that ―JI could regroup within a month.‖86 During the same meeting, citing ―fresh warnings‖ that JI would attack during APEC, a ban on trucks and large vehicles from high-rise buildings, department stores and hotels was announced. Additionally, all pick-up trucks with covered beds passing by the Foreign Affairs Ministry would be searched. Similarly, all vehicles entering and leaving the Metropolitan Police Bureau were to be searched (Ibid.). Trucks with 10 wheels or more were to be banned in Bangkok from 6am to midnight during the conference.
86
If these regrouping terrorist bogeymen were such a threat, why was the Bangkok Post authorized to simultaneously release detailed plans revealing the movement of every major motorcade during APEC under the guise of ―traffic planning‖ (see the Notes section, Figure 4)?
410 Motorists were told to ―avoid Vibhavadi Rangsit, New Road, Sathorn, Ratchadamri, Rama I, Phitsanulok, Ratchadamnoen, Sukhumvit, Ploenchit, Rama IV and Wireless roads between Oct 15-22‖ (Bangkok Post 3 Oct 2003). Drivers knowledgeable of the streets of Bangkok understand how impossible it would be to comply with this demand: these roads account for most of the city‘s main central thoroughfares. With these massive road closures planned, trains and railways were also declared ―danger spots‖ for APEC. The Railway Police Division deployed more than 1,000 officers at major rail stations as well as trains throughout Thailand. Additional security cameras were installed at twenty major train stations and sniffer dogs were also deployed (Wassayos & Mongkol 16 Sept 2003). Along with these railway security plans, more elaborate APEC security grid minutiae was revealed. Twenty-one women military police were assigned to guard the wives of the twenty-one APEC leaders. To take the leaders on a fifteen minute tuk-tuk trip to the royal barge procession on the
Figure 72: ―Military policewomen undergo training with firearms in a drill yesterday at the Military Police Battalion, held to boost their preparedness for security details during the Apec summit later this month.‖ Photo: Apichit Jinakul
night of Oct 20th, the Thai Navy pledged to provide a phalanx of twenty-five tuk-tuk drivers (Wassana 2 Oct 2003). Similar to the Bangkok road closures, the Chao Phraya river itself was closed to traffic during the royal barge procession rehearsals as well as during the actual procession itself. On Sept. 19th and Oct 3, 7, 12, 16 and 20, boats were barred from passing between the Krungthon bridge and the Memorial bridge between 3pm to midnight. Express boats and tourist boats were allowed prior to 6pm (Bangkok Post 19 Sept 2003b). These details
411 point to a massive shutdown and diversion of river transport. Indeed, the title of the article describing them simply read, ―River Closed‖ (Ibid.). For the massive royalist ritual of the royal barge procession, 1,800 soldiers would guard the Chao Phraya river banks between the two above bridges. In addition to repeatedly closing the Chao
Figure 73: ―Navymen begin to patrol the Chao Phraya river after the opening of a hall for the Apec meeting at navy headquarters in Thon Buri yesterday.‖ Photo: Sarote Meksophawannakul
Phraya‘s vital transportation route and economic life-source for the APEC ritual, the Thai government also planned to close all banks on 21-22nd October, forcing many private firms and the stock exchange to close. This broad economic shutdown was part of a government plan to declare a special national holiday in hopes that people would visit their home provinces and clear the city during the meetings (Bangkok Post 4 Oct 2003). Four days later, it was announced that Deputy Prime Minister Visanu Kruengarm and Bank of Thailand governor MR Pridiyathorn Devakula ―agreed that closing commercial banks to facilitate the summit could harm the country's economy‖ (Manop & Pradit 8 Oct 2003). Although the government allowed banks to remain open, Visanu asked the banks to limit services to walk-in customers only and not to dispatch staff or messengers during the summit. Similarly, Visanu declared that the telephone, water and electrical industries should put staff on stand-by. Finally, the deputy PM asked department stores not to promote sales during APEC ―so as not to have large groups converge on any one area‖ (Ibid.). These declarations reveal the extent of the business/government nexus where ―private‖ industry seems to run under the whims of the government and vice versa. In
412 addition, the restrictions on movement and business within the city represent an unprecedented assertion of economic control to promote a state order ritual. Pre-APEC Social Control and Public Order Operations The broad physical security planning for APEC was augmented by a wider campaign of social order and ―cleanup‖ of the city. For example, in at least twenty of Bangkok‘s fifty districts, garbage cans were removed from city streets, or taken out of site from motorcade routes of the delegates. According to the Director of Public Cleansing, Pavinee Ammarthas, Bangkok planners were using APEC to create a ―change of habits‖ among city residence. Within two years, all garbage bins were planned for removal from city streets (Supoj 3 Oct 2003). The report prompted PM Thaksin to order state officials to keep security planning for APEC secret. He said, ―I have told those officials to reveal as little as possible. We don't need to tell the world we will take all trash cans off Bangkok streets or look inside all of them‖ (Yuwadee 24 Sept 2003). The informational secrecy also pointed to a broader program of social control, using APEC as a convenient excuse for city planners to remove anything they considered ―unsightly.‖ The ubiquitous stray dogs that roam Bangkok streets were targeted under these broad plans. Beginning Sept. 8th, the city began removing stray dogs using an unspecified strategy for ―targeting and clearing‖ (Bangkok Post 8 Sept 2003). By far, one of the most dehumanizing aspects of the broad social control preparations for APEC was the government plan for removal of homeless residents of Bangkok to army camps for ―education.‖ These plans included sending homeless people with physical and mental health problems to hospitals, while those in good health were to be sent to military camps for state-run ―vocational training‖ (Apiradee 24 Sept 2003; Yuwadee 18 Sept 2003). To implement this plan, PM Thaksin announced that the
413 Bangkok Metropolitan Administration would find ―vagrants‖ and conduct medical checkups. Those found medically fit would be sent to Citizens‘ Development (wiwat pollamuang) schools inside army camps for ―disciplinary and vocational training‖ (Yuwadee 18 Sept 2003). Thaksin denied that this forced removal was part of the APEC preparations and said, ―That is a way to give them the courage to fight on for a better life… All these steps are about eradicating poverty.‖ During the state lottery-funded compulsory medical evaluation of homeless people, immigration police would check their nationalities. Those found to be ―not Thai‖ would be deported. National Human Rights Commissioner, Pradit Charoenthaithawee supported the government‘s plan to remove homeless people and put them in army camps, and said that the occupational training plan would not violate human rights (Ibid.). A group of thirty homeless people from the Four Regions Slum network protested this plan and met with a member of the Senate to urge the government to reconsider. One of the network members, Chalerm Chitwipark said, ―I am not disabled or a beggar. I can earn a living to support myself although it may not be enough to find a permanent place to stay at night‖ (Ibid.). Adding sublime insult to government injury, Bangkok governor, Samak Sundaravej called homeless people a nuisance and said they should be treated like stray dogs. Governor Samak said, ―There are no excuses for being a vagabond...If we help them by feeding them and providing shelter more will only leave their homes, come to the city and drift around…In doing so, they take advantage of society. We should send them home‖ (Bangkok Post 17 Sept
Figure 74: Former Bangkok governor and current Prime Minister, Samak Sundaravej
414 2003). Samak proposed setting up ―reception areas‖ at the train station and near Sanam Luang in order to begin removing homeless people from inner Bangkok by Sept. 22nd. With these plans in place for forced relocation of homeless people into outer areas and military camps, the government focused on other short-term clean-up operations for Bangkok‘s notorious image. Sex shows in the famous Patpong district were banned until after APEC, along with the district‘s numerous counterfeit goods stalls (Nation 10 Oct 2003). Throughout the city, vendors selling pirate reproductions of CDs, DVDs, watches, handbags and clothes were temporarily removed from places like Patpong, Mahboongkhrong shopping center and Pantip electronic plaza. I visited all these sites during the weeks before APEC and found them to be shells of their former entrepreneurial selves. These once-frenetic sites of semi-underground commerce were all nearly empty, and shop stalls which were normally packed with shoppers, sellers, runners, and electronic items had simply vanished. An eerie silence overwhelmed Phantip Plaza as if the shadow of APEC had entirely overwhelmed the local quasi-legal economy. Nevertheless, within weeks of the summit‘s conclusion, most vendors, fake goods stalls, and sex shows were back in business. The missile smuggling plot, citizen surveillance, and activist bans Pongpat Chayapan, a Crime Suppression Division superintendent, said experts from the behavioural science analytical unit have infiltrated crowds at major department stores, business districts and residential sections of foreign expatriates to check on foreigners showing too much interest about terrorism. (Wassayos 26 Aug 2003) I began to feel more and more like a suspect. Building into their idea of what is criminal. Maybe I am a criminal and don‟t know it. Fieldnotes, December 2003
415 Simultaneously, with plans for bank, river and road closures in addition to setting up a massive grid of physical security, a missile smuggling plot was announced that would solidify citizen surveillance programs. Military intelligence officials told the press and public at the beginning of September that ―JI members‖ were attempting to obtain a large arsenal of weapons hidden in Cambodia. The hidden weapons, left behind in the final conflicts between Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian government supposedly included SAM-7 rockets, RPG launchers and M79 grenades. The missile plot served as the impetus for further joint operations between Cambodian and Thai police and military on the border. Along with this story, yet another Hambali entry story emerged when it was announced that the two countries were cooperating to find Mohammed Dee Haji Jeh Ming, a Thai native of Narathiwat province who supposedly brought Hambali to Thailand (Wassana 8 Sept 2003), again contradicting countless earlier reports. This missile smuggling plot allowed the Thai government to create a credible threat to solidify participation in citizen surveillance networks. Metropolitan Police held a series of training exercises with motorcycle taxi drivers, instructing them to watch for a variety of ―suspicious‖ behaviors and providing them with police contact numbers. Suspect behaviors included the obvious: ―passengers carrying batteries and electric wire and smelling of chemical substances and gunpowder,‖ in addition to a vast range of other ―terrorist profiles.‖ Addressing an assembled group of hundreds of motorcycle drivers, Pol. Maj. Noppasilpa Poonsawasdi, an Metropolitan Police inspector said, ―police need your cooperation to keep your eyes on all foreigners you carry to their destination…Don't overlook minor details. If you feel your customer is a suspect, please call 191. We‘ll be there within five minutes‖ (Sirikul 22 Sept 2003). Drivers were told to keep a pen and
416 paper to record details of suspicious passengers and to start conversations that lead to further details. However, even silence was touted as a tell-tale sign of the possible terrorist as drivers were advised, ―Normally terrorists will keep quiet when you talk to them‖ (Ibid.). These training sessions were repeated at all the Bangkok police stations in the weeks leading up to APEC. The president of the ten thousand taxi drivers of the Taxi Association gave his assurance that drivers would watch for suspicious behavior, even as some drivers voiced their opposition. One cab driver said, ―Police give us trouble, especially at their street checkpoints‖ (Ibid.). A taxi driver detailed this harassment in an early interview in August. He told me he regularly pays from fifty to one hundred Baht to traffic police officers on Ramkamhaeng Road. ―Every time I goes past the police booth in front of Ramkamhaeng University, a policeman from the booth pulls me over, knocks on my window and says the word ‗quick‘ several times as a code‖ (interview 5 Aug 2003). After this shakedown cue, the driver would put a fifty or one hundred Baht note in a piece of paper and hand it to officer. The driver said ―those policemen collect money from taxi-drivers for their breakfast, motorcycle and private car drivers for their lunch, and truck drivers for their dinner‖ (Ibid.). The taxi-driver reinforced hunt for the Cambodian SAM missiles continued into October. The Bangkok Post announced that six missiles were ―on the loose,‖ citing that they were the same type of missile that shot down an Israeli commercial jet in 2002 (Mercury 1 Oct 2003). This specific threat justified further taxi surveillance training. Nearly five thousand motorcycle taxi drivers were briefed at Don Muang Technical College by the Don Muang police. The briefing included an account of the arrest of
417 Hambali, which further reinforced the narrative that Hambali posed to threat to APEC. Significantly, the briefing also included ―news coverage by an international agency about Thailand being vulnerable to terrorist attacks and rumours about the surface-to-air missiles‖ (Wassayos 3 Oct 2003). During the motorcycle taxi driver briefing, the anti-aircraft regiment of the Thai air force provided a display missile for demonstration purposes. A PVC tube hidden in a golf bag was used to show how the missile could be concealed. The training had its desired Figure 75: A taxi driver holds a effects on the taxi drivers:
SAM missile launcher during a pre-APEC police demonstration event
―If I had not been trained, I would not have known what the missile looked like. I have seen them in movies,‖ said a 34-year-old woman motorcyclist from Kosumsamakhee housing estate queue. She said tips on how to spot suspects and explosives would help her detect suspicious people. Natthapon Ruangrit, 40, a motorcyclist from Sirisuk housing estate queue, said many foreigners lived in temporary housing in his service area. Most were new faces and rented apartments for temporary stay. He was told by police to keep a special watch on foreigners (Ibid.). Don Muang police station gave crime informant cards to the taxi drivers at the training sessions. Dept. Pol. Lt. Col. Surasak Prakkamakul, deputy traffic chief for the Don Muang station said, ―We can call them spies. They need not disguise themselves when doing the task. We give them tips on how to detect suspicious things…We also tell them to wear clean clothes, take a bath and brush their teeth to welcome Apec participants‖ (Ibid.). Taking advantage of the War on Dark Influence sin nam jai (―gift of good will‖) of the motorcycle taxi campaign, Police DG Sant Sarutanond remarked, ―I would regard motorcycle taxis and taxis as our own police patrol cars‖ (Chimprabha 13 Oct 2003).
418 More than two thousand motorcycle drivers and taxi drivers gathered as part of a policeorganized volunteer group to ―report anyone who was behaving suspiciously‖ (Ibid.). Joining this informational vigilantism, the National Intelligence Agency called on local ham radio operators to join the growing citizen surveillance grid. NIA opened a hotline for ham operators to report suspicious people and behavior (Chimprabha 13 Oct 2003). NIA agents attended a seminar of ham radio operators held in Bangkok and provided a suspicious person ―profile.‖ The NIA‘s Nanthiwat Samart told the seminar, ―They act like tourists who love taking photos, but they want photos of buildings and roads only…They use pre-paid telephone cards and have few guests to their rooms, most of whom are Middle-eastern looking. They prefer to stay in apartments or guesthouses that are close to mosques, as they are pious Muslims‖ (Ibid.). Furthermore, ―they‖ don‘t ask others to take pictures of them while they pose, prefer cash to credit cards, and never use the telephones in their apartments. In addition to citizen surveillance training of taxi drivers and ham radio operators, city police and private security firms conducted ongoing training of hotel staff, security guards, and citizen volunteers in ―peace-keeping measures‖ (Bangkok Post 3 Oct 2003). According to Dep. Metropolitan Police chief, Adul Saengsingkaew, more than one hundred thousand volunteers signed on to help report suspicious people and activities. These numbers reveal a massive state-wide program for informational control. Dep. Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh explained, ―The armed forces‘ intelligence networks will be expanded and connected with communities. Intelligence units will increase their capability and military intelligence will have more assignments‖ (Bangkok Post 20 Aug 2003a). This merger of military intelligence with Thai community social
419 networks was designed for APEC, but the phenomenon continued after the end of the meetings, when the last delegates left the country. These citizen surveillance programs were supposedly necessary because of the shortfall caused by the high numbers of police and military with APEC VIP protection duties, which left police in short supply in their home communities. Dep. PM Gen Chavalit told an assembly of two thousand Bangkok district leaders, ―We do not have many police left in Bangkok, so we need you to help us watch your areas and neighbors during the meeting to make Bangkok free from drugs and crime until the meeting finishes‖ (Anucha 17 Oct 2003). At the same meeting, Dep. Police Commissioner, Pol. Gen, Sunthorn Saikhwan urged observant citizens to inform police at Bangkok checkpoints and police coordinating centers of any ―suspicious activities‖ (Ibid.). With citizens watching each other, the government watched citizens in every imaginable venue and previously unimaginable social context. Police behavioral analysts were supposedly watching ―terrorism buffs‖ described as ―foreigners who buy unusually large numbers of newspapers, magazines and books with large coverage of terrorist activities‖ (Wassayos 26 Aug 2003). Agents from the Crime Suppression Division‘s behavioral science analytical unit infiltrated department stores, business districts and residential districts of foreign expatriates to monitor foreigners ―showing too much interest about terrorism.‖ The head of this unit, Pol. Col. Pongpat, said, ―It is interesting that they have so much interest in this topic, despite being just plain tourists…some foreigners buy unusually large amount of this kind of printed material so we need to know who they really are‖ (Ibid.). A Spanish man living on Sukhumvit 15 was subject to a background check after he ―madly‖ took books on terrorism from the shelves of a
420 nearby bookstore. Sources I interviewed told me that the Crime Suppression division was the unit investigating foreigner‘s reading habits with the Special Branch (Santibaan) police in charge of the wider surveillance efforts (interview Sept 2003). Thus, APEC was significantly altering Thailand‘s political surveillance landscape. Simultaneously, along with creating programs of citizen surveillance, Thai statemakers systematically expanded the list of those it consider ―threatening‖ to the legitimate order of the APEC meetings. One of the supposedly-threatening groups that received increasing amounts of press attention was the Chinese ―sect‖ of Falungong. Along with diplomatic fears over the possibility that Falungong would stage protests during APEC, beginning in late August a number of ―suspicious foreigners‖ were arrested, in political suppression operations which continued until the opening of the meetings in October. In Chiang Mai, three Pakistani men were arrested by immigration police during a house raid resulting from ―tip-offs from local people about suspicious foreigners‖ (Bangkok Post 23 Aug 2003). One of the men failed to produce immigration papers and the other two men carried expired passports. Not surprisingly, Chiang Mai immigration police chief Pol. Col. Shinnapat Tansrisakul announced that the three were suspected of involvement with unspecified ―international terrorist networks‖ (Ibid.). On Sept. 23rd, fifteen activists were arrested for illegal entry outside the Burmese embassy where they were demanding the release of Burmese political activist Aung San Suu Kyi. They remained in detention through October. The constructed threat of foreigners, especially NGO activist groups, Falungong members and ―suspected terrorists,‖ gathered momentum into October, when the Foreign Ministry issued a blacklist of five hundred names. The list was used to deny visa entry to
421 hundreds of individuals for the duration of the APEC meetings. This blacklist announcement came simultaneously with an announcement from PM Thaksin that NGOs should not stage protests during the meetings (Bangkok Post 9 Oct 2003a). The same day, Tourist Police arrested 546 foreigners in a three-day ―crackdown on illegal immigrants.‖ The charges included ―causing annoyance to tourists, working without permits, illegal entry, prostitution and drug dealing‖ (Bangkok Post 9 Oct 2003b). During this initial crackdown, twenty-seven Thai nationals working as tourist guides were arrested by Tourist Police for operating without a license. At a meeting of Thai security agency heads the next day, police and intelligence agencies were asked to monitor the activities of seven types of groups including, ―members of the antiglobalisation network, foreign NGOs, terrorist groups, computer crime gangs, religious cults such as Falungong, neighbouring countries‘ rebel groups and Thai grassroots organisations such as the Assembly of the Poor, Assembly of Small-Scale Northeastern Farmers and Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline opponents‖ (Bangkok Post 11 Oct 2003). With a crackdown on political dissent underway, the People‘s Globalization Network for Peace, made up of 12 Bangkok-based NGOs, began planning a four-day protest beginning Oct. 18th. The initial focus of the protest was APEC itself: specifically, the ―hidden agendas that could affect Thailand's sovereignty and the livelihood of its farmers‖ (Kultida 9 Oct 2003). An antiglobalization march was planned to begin on Oct 19th, at the Central World Plaza shopping complex on Ratchadamri road (the complex, named the ―World Trade
Figure 76: ―Air force security guards show their equipment and readiness to provide security for Apec delegates at Don Muang airport.‖ Photo: Tawatchai Kemgumnerd
422 Center‖ until 2002, is on Crown Property Bureau land owned by the Central Group). The march was planned to follow the same root used in 1976 by students protesting US military bases in Thailand. In another example of the media juxtaposition of paramilitary images and organized political dissent the article on the protest plans was paired with a bizarre picture of ATV-mounted M16-toting agents in camouflage (see Figure 3). As part of the ongoing immigration crackdown preparing for APEC, six hundred Cambodians were deported. Some of the Cambodians deported were children, who were marked as international human trafficking victims. The deportation was condemned by the US State Department, which used its paternalistic demerit system to demote Thailand to its ―Tier 2 group‖ of nations not fully complying with its minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking. John Miller, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said, ―This will certainly have some effect on the evaluation…We can't ignore this. But how much effect remains to be seen. Whether Thailand will remain in Tier 2 will be answered in 6-7 months‖ (Anjira 7 Oct 2003). Undaunted by Thailand‘s new ―Tier 2‖ title, PM Thaksin warned all potential protesters that APEC was being held, ―for the good of the nation, and no one should attempt to ruin it by creating a public disturbance…Any protesters will be the last to receive government help‖ (Bangkok Post 2 Oct 2003). Thaksin went on to say that any group planning a rally during the summit would be subject to ―long and painful consequences‖ (Ibid.). Again, a photograph picturing armed
Figure 77: ―Guards from the air force and the Airports of Thailand Co state agency begin joint patrols yesterday at Don Muang airport as security was tightened further in the lead-up to the Apec summit.‖ Photo: Jetjaras na Ranong
423 state agents was visually anchored to this article on potential public dissent was (Fig.77). In case after case, stories of protest or potential protest were run side-by-side with armed APEC security preparations. PM Thaksin assured that the ban on protests would only last for the duration of the summit ―for the sake of security, public order and the country‘s reputation‖ (Bangkok Post 2 Oct 2003). Freedom of assembly would supposedly be allowed again, but only after the meeting of APEC‘s global elite. To back Thaksin‘s protest ban, representatives with the Campaign for Democracy said that state security and intelligence agencies were lobbying NGOs not to plan any rallies (Ibid.). Police threatened to invoke the Immigration Act in order to revoke the visas of foreign activists who threatened national security with protests during APEC (Wassayos 3 Oct 2003). Within Thailand, a contingent of oppositional politicians and human rights advocates denounced PM Thaksin‘s authorization of blacklists of NGO groups and protesters (Mongkol & Anucha 4 Oct 2003). The first to face the visa ban, according to a police source, was the spiritual movement, Falungong. By contrast, NGOs such as Forum Asia, the Confederation for Democracy, Labour Democracy Group, Focus Group and the Institute for Asian Culture Development, were allowed to continue their plans to protest the US, Burmese and Chinese Governments. Included in the groups‘ combined authorized events was an anti-war campaign lead by Giles Ungpakorn on Oct 19th (Wassayos 3 Oct 2003). Outside of the authorized domestic NGO groups, seven foreign groups considered threatening to APEC security were placed on watch-lists and their visas were banned. PM Thaksin said foreign NGOs were ―not welcome‖ during the meetings although, ―They will be welcome here after the summit…They should know what I mean‖ (Nation
424 13 Oct 2003a). A week later, when anti-APEC protests were still being planned, Thaksin said, ―These people (APEC delegates) will bring investment money to Thailand…Unfortunately, some ghouls are going to hold street rallies, and this is very bad for the country‘s image‖ (Thaivisa 2003a). Amid these imaginary threats, after a security meeting at Supreme Command, intelligence agencies issued a ―high alert‖ that TV and radio stations were at risk of seizure by anti-globalization protesters during APEC. Contradicting this alert, the Royal Thai Police said there was no evidence of any specific plot to take over a TV or radio station (Bangkok Post 13 Oct 2003a). The ―high alert‖ was reported within in a news story of the planned march at Central World Plaza, the visa ban and government watchlist. Thus, the alleged ―plot‖ was the written equivalent of the visual juxtapositions between planned protest and coercive security preparations discussed above. To counter the growing APEC meeting protest movement, the prime minister‘s advisor, Lt. Gen. Trairong Intharathat, a former armed forces preparatory school classmate of Thakisin, created a nationalist NGO called ―Thai Pen Thai‖ (―Thais are Thais‖) or the Thai Liberation Club. The group‘s alternate English name was a reference to how Thailand was ―economically free‖ after repaying it‘s IMF economic-bailout debts. With start-up donations of 400,000 baht, the group intended to ―encourage people to act as hospitable hosts to the Apec meeting and be patriotic‖ (Wassana 13 Oct 2003). Lt. Gen. Trairong distributed Thai national flag stickers for car windshields, and called for people to fly national flags to welcome APEC delegates. This nationalist NGO, supposedly devoted to celebrating Thai ―freedom,‖ was created at the same time Muslims being monitored and harassed throughout the country.
425 The president of the Council of Muslim Organisations of Thailand, Nitti Hussan, reported, ―Some Muslim people have been asked to stop working for the time being, while others have been harassed by security people spying on them and following them everywhere‖ (Aphaluck 14 Oct 2003). Nitti described how a Muslim groundskeeper at Sanam Luang was suspended until the conclusion of APEC, and Muslims in the hotel industry were being ―kept under close supervision‖ (Ibid.). As reports of state suppression mounted, the planned APEC protest was under heavy government pressure to move its start-point from the former World Trade Center to Chulalongkorn University. Activists were told that the original protest route was near the hotels of ―high-ranking APEC delegates from the United States and Russia,‖ and thus the move was suggested on the basis of ―security concerns‖ (Kultida & Pradit 15 Oct 2003). Political Science professor, Giles Ungpakorn who planned the march, said that the route change infringed on rights of expression. According to the press, Prof. Giles asserted that, ―the objective of the rally would remain unchanged: to oppose the US invasion of Iraq and the government‘s sending of
Figure 78: Police dogs preparing for APEC
Thai troops, and to pressure the government not enter into trade or military agreements with Washington without first seeking for people‘s consent‖ (Bangkok Post 17 Oct 2003a). Importantly, the protest was originally called an ―anti-globalization‖ march, but was now simply described as ―a rally against US President George W Bush.‖ Along with this story of the planned march, the ever-present media juxtaposition of images of security preparations continued with a photo of the police dogs of the state (Fig. 78).
426 Adding to the pressure to relocate the protest, Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha declined to say whether force would be used to ―ensure compliance‖ to the protest relocation (Bangkok Post 17 Oct 2003b). Repeating strategies used in 1970s-era right-wing mobilization, Army chief Chaisit Shiniwatra called for Ruam Duay Chuay Kan radio station listeners to be the ―‗Eyes and ears‘ of the government during APEC‖ (Ibid.). Gen. Chaisit Figure 79: ―‗Eyes and ears‘ of the government during APEC‖ Photo: Jetjaras na Ranong
also said that an army anti-riot team of four hundred soldiers would support the police if protests ―got
out of control.‖ And once again, the story of the planned protest was run side-by-side with a photo of security preparations (Fig. 79). This photo was of an officer on the roof of the Stock Exchange of Thailand watching the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center with binoculars. With these forces marshaled and the use of force enabled, Police Director General Sant met with the media during a Queen Sirikit National Convention Center security check. He said that force would be used against any ―wayward‖ APEC demonstrations that ―crossed the line‖ (Apiradee 18 Oct 2003). The BPP‘s Narasuan police PPU was to be deployed at the following day‘s planned protest.
427 Thus, under intense government pressure, including high-level official‘s threats of coercive force if the protest continued as planned, the march on Sunday, Oct 19th was moved from the Central World Plaza to the new starting location at Chulalongkorn University. The march was now billed specifically as an ―anti-Bush‖ protest, focusing on the US War on Terror in the Middle East, not on APEC‘s globalist economic plans. PM Thaksin‘s deployment of several hundred Thai troops to Iraq, mostly army engineers,
Figure 81: A widelydistributed protest poster for the 19 Oct 2003 anti-Bush rally
was an issue highlighted by the demonstration along with the overall anti-Bush message. One of the ubiquitous posters distributed by march organizers was a black and white picture of George W. with the words ―Stop Imperialism‖ in Thai and English in red with the printed meeting location, ―World Trade Center,‖ hastily crossed out. Many activists carried banners with slogans such as ―Arrest world criminal George Bush‖ and ―Bush is the real world terrorist‖ (Thaivisa 2003a). A giant representation of Bush in a Superman outfit (the ―S‖ chest logo replaced with a ―$‖) with a swastika belt buckle holding a missile dominated the march. Others wore black robes and skull masks. Protesters focusing on APEC itself were minimal, although one Figure 80: Bush as Nazi-Superman (the giant Swastika belt buckle is not pictured).
person held a sign ―APEC: Welcome to
Disneyland.‖ Anti-Thaksin banners, signs, or t-shirts were non-existent.
428 Hundreds of police, in uniform and plainclothes, monitored the demonstration as it progressed towards the Siam Square and MBK shopping complexes to the west. Also highly visible were many plainclothes ―undercover‖ officers with radios on the edge of the demonstrators. Towards the end of the march, perhaps one hundred female riot police were lined up in formation. Traffic boxes were staffed with western intelligence ―advisors‖ who monitored the protest. Nearby, a police van was stationed with a satellite uplink and a camera monitored the crowd, using what appeared to be biometric monitoring technology. To counter the government surveillance, protesters recorded state authorities on video in case force was used by police (Mongkol 16 Oct 2003). At the end of the march, speakers further lambasted Bush and some burned incense sticks Figure 82: Police satellite linked surveillance van. Photo by author, 19 Sept 2003
in front of an image of Bush in a
modified ritual to ―drive away evil spirits.‖ Organizer Giles Ungpakorn said at the really, ―By insisting on staging today‘s protest we have retrieved our Thai people's dignity and reaffirmed our right to protest although the government tried to intimidate us…We have to go ahead and question Thaksin‘s government about what it will secretly give the United States in terms of military and economics‖ (Ibid.). I joined this protest, not only to observe the state response in light of the threatened use of coercive force, but also because I agreed with the original anti-APEC message of the demonstrators. At the end of the march, in the small park near Siam
429 Discovery Center, protesters could write messages on large lengths of paper. I began writing in Thai, ―Thaksin is using APEC to create a police state,‖ but only got as far as ―Thaksin…‖ when one of the organizers of the protest (or perhaps just the person who brought the paper sheets) stopped me. He discouraged me from writing any message critical of Thaksin and told me that this was a protest against US President Bush. Exhausted from the march, the plainclothes police and the internationally-aided government satellite surveillance, I left without comment. Several days before the beginning of APEC, a Bangkok Post editorial reviewed previous security efforts for public events in Bangkok. In 1991, the Queen Sirikit National Conference center was opened and first used for the World Bank conference. For World Bank elites, a new road was constructed for the exclusive use of participants to travel to the conference. The United Nation‘s UNCTAD X development meeting in February 2000 saw protesters clashing with a large security force. The meeting became internationally notorious for the security breach which allowed a foreigner to smash a pie in the face of Michel Camdessus, head of the IMF. In comparison, according to the editorial, the preparations for APEC made security preparation for these events insignificant. The Bangkok Post editor went on justify these preparations using past threats to the Thai state as mere prelude to the threats it now supposedly faced, Thailand has faced threats from violent groups in the past, particularly communists and separatists. These groups posed serious dangers. The southern bandits even attacked the nation‘s highest institution. But the menace of international terrorism is an unprecedented threat to Bangkok, its life and its guests for the Apec meetings…. It is a sign of these terrible times that such measures are necessary. It is a sign of competence that authorities are taking them calmly and professionally (Bangkok Post 6 Oct 2003b).
430 The rhetoric of terrorist threats dominated APEC preparations as well as its planned discussions and agenda. Tej Bunnag, head of the APEC 2003 Secretariat predicted, ―I‘m sure a good deal of their time will be taken up with talk on international terrorism…Since Los Cabos we have had attacks in Bali and Jakarta, so international terrorism has been brought to Southeast Asia and we can feel it directly‖ (Reuters 3 Oct 2003). The 2001 APEC meetings were in Shanghai, one month after 9-11, which caused meeting ―security‖ to become the dominant theme. Indeed, even the food served to delegates was obsessively scrutinized using Figure 83: Wives of APEC delegates participate in a cooking contest. Photo: Sarot Meksophawannakul
an army of twenty thousand health workers. Hundreds of chefs, waiters, waitresses, and dishwashers at each of
the sixteen hotels housing APEC delegates were made to submit to rectal swab examinations as a condition of their employment during the meetings (Phermsak 17 Oct 2003). Like modernized ―royal tasters‖ used to prevent attempts of regicide, samples of food served were to be injected into mice. Department Of Medical Sciences Chief Somsong Rugpao said, ―We‘ll have a result within a minute. If it‘s safe, we‘ll tell the waiters to start serving‖ (Ibid.). In similar archaic throwbacks, at the Phuket finance meeting, the wives of APEC finance ministers participated in a ―cooking contest‖ at the Dusit Laguna Hotel while their husbands plotted global economic schemes (Fig. 83).
431 The terrorist obsession of the APEC preparations coercively affected the lives of security personal. Not only did the tens of thousands of Thais, tasked with the minutiae of preparations, work countless hours of unpaid overtime, in some cases, their participation in the security preparations negated their insurance policies. In one case, Immigration Police Sgt Maj Patamakorn Preehajinda reported that ING Aetna Osotspa Life Assurance Co refused to extend her husband's accident insurance because his job with the security centre of the military's Supreme Command, tasked with APEC VIP protection, was too much of a risk. The insurance company initially failed to provide any explanation as to why continuation of her husband‘s life
Figure 84 ―A worker renovates the Ananta Samakhom Throne hall in preparation for its use as an informal meeting vanue during the Apec summit in October.‖ Photo: Chanat Katanyu
insurance policy was refused. When pressed, according to Pol. Sgt. Maj. Patamakorn, ―the firm claimed that there were reports of possible attacks against VIPs including bombings. So they said my husband's life could not be insured‖ (Wassayos 25 Sept 2003).
APEC Agendas and Royalist Rituals With terrorist rhetoric at fever pitch, PM Thaksin parroted the globalist agenda that supposedly justified the security lockdown. At his opening address to the Phuket APEC finance ministers, Thaksin said, ―We continue to be subjected to various downside risks, particularly in the form of non-traditional threats such as terrorism, drug trafficking and the emergence of epidemic diseases like Sars…Dealing with such threats demands close regional synergy and worldwide cooperation‖ (Parista & Wichit 5 Sept 2003).
432 Amid all of the bizarre security preparations of mice injections, tuk-tuk driver commandos, and motorcycle spies, it is easy to forget APEC‘s global economic agendas. One of these agendas is the merger of operational strategies among police groups, specifically regarding money laundering. Financial Intelligence Units are formed and standardized internationally using agencies like the Egmont Group to implement the continual merger of FIUs (discussed earlier this chpater). At the time of APEC 2003, Thailand‘s AMLO FIU was seeking information from Indonesia for details on suspected JI terrorists which reportedly used Thai banks to fund regional operatives (Ibid.). Indonesian Ambassador Makarin Wibosono, at the August 2003 APEC financial meetings in Phuket recommended all 21 participating nations sign the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism by the time of the October meetings. This convention is a legal method to further systematize the financial surveillance operations of many nation-states towards globalized centralization. Like the juridical approaches to globally-centralizing the economic and intelligence capacities of member nations, APEC is designed for those countries to centralize information and surveillance technologies as well. One important method of this agenda is the standardization of biometric technologies, scanning biological and chemical characteristics and comparing the scans to a centralized database. One of the justifications of employing this technology is to identify terrorist suspects who may undergo plastic surgery to change their facial characteristics. Hambali allegedly had surgery prior to his arrest in Ayuttaya (see ―Chameleon‖ photo in Fig. 66). The use of this technology is couched in the condescending terms of cultural evolutionism of development. Ambassador and Thai Foreign Affairs Minister, Akrasid Amatayakul,
433 internalized this ideology by saying, ―Advanced countries in the Apec region, such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan, already have technologies like this, but some developing economies were reluctant to adopt them due to their high costs (Supalak 21 Aug 2003). Further technologies of the criminal justice and military industrial complexes are integrated with one another, creating a surveillance and control blanket of profitable, related systems. One example is the Advance Passenger Information System (API), touted by APEC planners as a way of integrating passenger information forwarded and shared among member nations prior to a passenger‘s arrival. In addition, at the 2002 APEC meetings in Los Cabos, Mexico, delegates adopted the Secure Trade in the APEC Region (STAR) initiative. The goal of STAR is for all twenty-one APEC countries to implement the same electronic, x-ray and satellite tracking systems for both human passengers and other ―cargo‖ (Ibid.). Finally one of the key ―anti-terror tools‖ created at the Chiang Rai meeting of APEC planners was the APEC Counter-Terrorism Task Force, another bureaucratic mechanism to implement these new technologies and to operationalize APEC security planning. Royalist rituals provide spectacle-based legitimacy to the APEC‘s economic domination and global surveillance technologies. These rituals were previewed in the 2002 Los Cabos meetings in Mexico with the dance of the kinnaree – the mythological half-woman half-bird from the
434 other-worldly Himapan forest known for friendliness, dance, and song. For the 2003 meetings, the Anantasamakom Throne Hall in the Royal Palace underwent major renovation (Fig. 84). The throne hall was part of the meticulous minute-by-minute planning for the APEC ―world leaders‖ (Anjira 30 Aug 2003). Ninety minutes were reserved for the throne hall, before the delegates were moved to the west wing for lunch and photographs. The use of the throne hall, constructed in 1907, provided continuity and connection to the reign of the absolute monarchs as well as an opportunity for revisionist history. The Bangkok Post suggested that this throne hall is used for Constitution Day because King Prachadipok (Rama VII) ―presented the country‘s first charter to the people in 1932‖ (Ibid.). This ―presentation‖ fails to mention how in 1932, Thai citizens demanded freedom from absolute monarchy and a coup was employed to remove power from Rama VII. Royalist rituals were integrated within gift presentations of the continual pampering of the APEC leaders. The Thai government spent more than one billion baht for the APEC meetings, and this display of wealth was ostentatiously evident. APEC leaders were given silver-threaded silk shirts made by Thailand‘s best weavers. During the massive royal barge procession where two thousand boatmen on fifty barges filled the Chao Praya river along with a laser light and sound show, the delegates dined on Benjarong porcelain (which they were to take home with them). The cost for the thirty minute show was estimated at 60 million baht ($1.5 million USD) with
435 security costs of 139 million baht, double the costs of the show itself (MSN 13 Oct 2003). On Thaksin‘s orders, the navy launched flying Yi-Peng lanterns and floating baskets (krathong) in a ―necklace of light‖ on the Chao Praya River (Wassana 18 Oct 2003), a temporally incongruous use of the Loi Ktrathong ritual. Despite these spectacular displays, one editorial noted, ―For the public at large, their main exposure to this beast called Apec has come from radio and television spots, and the odd message flashing overhead at some traffic thoroughfares, along with indicators of the weather and traffic‖ (Bangkok Post 3 Sept 2003a).
The APEC Summit and its Aftermath This is fascism. Fieldnotes, 20 October 2003 With the massive security preparation performance concluded, the ritualized spectacle of APEC commenced. From October 14th through 21st, Bangkok opened to senior officials, ministers, and CEOs of APEC while closing itself off to its own citizens. Some critics erroneously focused on the ―lack of substance,‖ of the meetings since it was formed in 1989, noting derisively that ―In 1993, it agreed that all leaders would wear the same outfits for the annual photograph‖ (Bangkok Post 13 Oct 2003b). These critiques deliberately fail to understand the economic and political power of APEC and the many other organizations of the global elite, which mask themselves behind ritual and glossy photo opportunities. Nevertheless, Thaksin assured members of the Pacific Basin Economic Council in its August meeting
436 in Seoul, ―I can tell you that Apec87 will never be the same after Bangkok‖ (Ibid.). Despite the ―lack of substance‖ argument, APEC‘s centrality in globalization was clear: Apec - which accounts for about 50% of world trade and more than 60% of the world‘s gross domestic product - can set the direction for global trade. Apec has become a centre of bilateral and regional free trade, including the Asean Free Trade Area, the North America Free Trade Association and the Singapore-US FTA. Others are to follow, including the Asean-China FTA (Ibid.). These overwhelming statistics which demonstrate APEC‘s central role in consolidating global trade. Nevertheless, prior to the meetings, the Nation ran an article using Walden Bello of Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South which assures readers that ―the APEC meeting is nothing.‖ Bello said, ―The leaders just come together and talk and talk and talk. It is not binding
Figure 85: ―12 Reasons Why Thai People Don't Need to Be Afraid of Globalisation.‖
negotiation and doesn't produce any decisions that are dangerous to developing countries‖ (Pennapa 20 Aug 2003). Instead, ―global civil society‖ will focus on the WTO meetings in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003. Because this NGO is literally ―focused‖ on how globalization ―hurts the developing countries of the Southern Hemisphere‖ Bello and his group tout the APEC meetings as a distraction. In fact, APEC functions in a similar way to the WTO and countless other global financial bodies. In the 2007 APEC meetings in Sydney Australia, WTO policies were the ―number one priority‖ for APEC‘s ―global law makers‖ (The Australian 23 Jan 2007). Like Bello‘s ―APEC is nothing,‖ comments, there was a broader popular consensus that the APEC meetings could simply be imagined out of importance especially in the context of Thai nationalism. In 2003, prior to the APEC meetings, a 87
This was the preferred capitalization of ―Apec‖ in the Thai English-language media.
437 massive mural from Thai artist Sutee Kunavichayanont appeared on the side of the MBK mall in Bangkok. The mural was entitled, ―12 Reasons Why Thai People Don't Need to Be Afraid of Globalisation.‖ The mural depicted a Thai boxer stomping of the face of a sleeping (or unconscious) white man in a suit. Sutee‘s tenth reason listed in the ―Identities versus Globalization Catalogue‖ was ―10. Peaceful country (no
Figure 86: ―12 Reasons Why Thai People Don't Need to Be Afraid of Globalisation.‖
terrorists) : ―Ua-athorn Arintaraj‖ (―We Care‖ S.W.A.T. Team)‖ (Sutee 2003). These nationalist sentiments were quickly eclipsed by the local footprint of the APEC security juggernaut. During the actual meetings, the entire metropolitan area was visibly altered. As discussed previously, traffic diversions, road blocks, and media announcements provided indications of the location of high security venues. One open secret was the hotel which would lodge George W. Bush. The hotel was referred to as ―Bush‘s towering, white concrete hotel‖ (Reuters 20 Oct 2003). Coverage of traffic closures in The Nation singled out the GRAND HYATT ERAWAN HOTEL in bold capital letters, discussing the extensive security measures there which included the fictional claim that ―non-working, non-credentialed personnel will NOT be permitted access to the hotel‖ (Nation 20 Oct 2003). I visited this hotel during APEC several times
438 and, apart from the metal detectors and dogs at the front entrance, I was permitted entry without any specific credentials.88 George and Laura Bush were at army headquarters on 19 Oct for a short meeting with Defense Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya, three armed forces chiefs, senior military officers, Korean and Vietnam war veterans, West Point Alumni and ―800 soldiers who joined UN peace-keeping forces in East Timor and Afghanistan‖ (Wassana 18 Oct 2003). These eight hundred soldiers submitted to background checks by Secret Service and the Joint US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG)
Figure 87: Pres. Bush at Thai army headquarter 19 Nov 2003
(Wassana 16 Oct 2003). For Bush‘s subsequent address to two hundred army officers, the podium was moved forty-five degrees away from a large flagpole which, US handlers asserted, would look like a ―sword‖ behind him if the platform was placed in front. In addition his back was towards the United Nations building ―for security reasons‖ (Ibid.) and he was pictured in front of hundreds of camouflaged soldiers. Technically, Bush was visiting the army not as a member of APEC, but as a guest of the king. Obviously, this 88
The Grand Hyatt Erawan is the same hotel famous for its massive ―spirit house‖ Erawan Shrine (San Phra Phrom) which became a model for spiritually-based economic success and was copied by other businesses creating their own massive shrines including the statue of the elephant god Ganesh at the Isetan shopping centre, the statue of Vishnu mounted on a celestial Garuda at the Intercontinental Hotel, and the statue of the rain god Indra at Amarin Plaza, and the Trimurti (representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Hindu gods symbolising creation, preservation and destruction) at the Zen department store in the shopping complex formerly known as the ―World Trade Center‖ across the street from the Erawan. Shortly after midnight in 2005, two years after the APEC meetings, the Erawan‘s statue of Brahma was defaced by a twenty-seven year old man with a history of mental illness. The man was immediately beaten to death by two street sweepers who witnessed his act of desecration. Although the statue was quickly visited as an act of respect by then-Prime Minister Thaksin, and replaced with a more elaborate metal sculpture using pieces of the original, the defacement of the statue was seen as an ill omen for the Thaksin administration and for Thailand itself. Before the end of the year, Thaksin was deposed in a military coup leading the country into a perpetual state of martial law. Thus the Grand Hyatt Erawan is a spiritually symbolic site of offerings, sacrifice, and state ritual.
439 meeting was highly symbolic: the US was publicly paying its debt to the 447 Thai troops (mostly army engineers) in Iraq under the ―coalition of the willing.‖ Prior to these meeting, US security agents searched ―every square inch‖ of army headquarters and created a security plan with the JUSMAG and the United States Information Service (Wassana 15 Oct 2003). Thai Army officials said a votive prayer for deities to prevent rain from moving the ceremony to an indoor auditorium, although they declined to say to what deity votive offerings were made (Wassana 18 Oct 2003). Predictably, US News reported the previously-discussed SAM missile threat as a clear and present danger to APEC, ―Thailand's freewheeling capital, Bangkok, is undergoing a kind of urban lockdown this week…. The unprecedented security is but the latest sign that the region is finally taking terrorism seriously‖ (Kaplan 20 Oct 2003). I wanted to view APEC security first hand, and headed to every major hotel hosting APEC dignitaries. Walking into the Oriental Hotel, I made my way around a checkpoint on an adjacent street corner without incident. Evidently, my plan to ―dress up‖ proved a useful way to avoid police scrutiny. The police and military presence in the city was palpable, but porous. In their enthusiasm for ―clearing out the city‖ with a declared national holiday, APEC planners seemed to forget that most people only budgeted for return visits home during major Thai celebrations, such as songkran. Thus, Bangkok did not have the empty quality it exudes during that April holiday, especially with visible police surveillance on rooftops overlooking hotel entrances. Instead, most people stayed at home, and many sat out on the streets drinking, a bizarre visual juxtapositon for a citywide security lockdown.
440 Hoping to document heavy security, I perversely hoped that accessing the hotel interiors would be relatively difficult. Performing my role as a ―farang in a suit,‖ however, I was unaccosted at nearly every hotel I visited; I was not searched or subjected to suspicious examinations of any kind. I wandered through lobbies, atriums, hotel bars, hallways, elevators, stairwells, ―guest‖ areas and was never questioned. In a nearly empty dance club in the Hotel Conrad, I spotted an obviously ―undercover‖ agent who seemed bored with the special detail assigned to him. We struck up a polite conversation about the APEC meetings, in which he told me about the importance of protecting the country from terrorists. ―How long do you have to work tonight?‖ I asked. He said, ―Until midnight, then I get relieved.‖ ―That will be a relief‖ I joked. ―Is your unit in charge of this hotel, or just a part?‖ ―Our duty is special details throughout the city. This is actually a pretty easy one.‖ ―And you are with the Royal Thai Police, right?‖ I asked. ―Yes, Santibaan.‖ He answered, indicating that he worked for Special Branch Division. I asked, ―Seems pretty quiet all over the city. Have there been any problems?‖ ―No. Definitely quiet. It‘s important to show force though.‖ At that point, a cell phone call interrupted us, and I thanked him and said goodbye. The only hotel where guests were searched upon entry was the Grand Hyatt Erawan, the not-so-secret location which housed US Pres. Bush and his aides. In contrast to the hands-off security of the other hotels I visited, the Erawan entrances were equipped with
441 temporary metal detectors for the occasion. The security officers running the equipment were foreigners, presumably US Secret Service or US Marines from the embassy down the street, assisted by Phuket police officers in suits. Here, my ethnographic kit bag, packed with recording equipment, a video camera, and various other electronics did not escape scrutiny. I specifically selected a full kit to observe if a ―foreigner with a bag‖ would cause any incident. The bag was given a cursory search, and I was free to wander around the main areas of the hotel. Understandably, the hotel was nearly deserted, nonAPEC delegates seemed to find it difficult to relax under such guarded conditions. On the morning of the summit on 20 Oct, the full phalanx of air, road, and river security was in place including twenty thousand Thai troops and soldiers. As world leaders dined on the shores of the Chao Praya on Monday evening, two thousand naval officers, including Thai SEALs, closed the river to all traffic as planned (Ibid.). In another act of royalist ritual surrounding APEC, Navy chief Chumpol Pajjusanon had performed a ceremony of sacred offerings on Oct 13th to the barge figure-
Figure 88: Immigration detainees during APEC
heads (Wassana 18 Oct 2003). Throughout the city, police checkpoints blocked traffic and
searched vehicles. The city did empty out to some extent, due to the national holiday declaration and security lockdown. The BTS was noticeably less crowded, reminding me of the small number of elevated train-users when I first rode it in 2001. At the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok‘s Suan Plu, detained foreigners awaited deportation. Throughout the city, residents held mixed reactions to the appearance of
442 order and quiet. Pichai, a fifty-seven year old taxi driver, theorized that Thaksin wanted the city to appear traffic-free to APEC leaders, ―He wants foreigners who come here to think Thailand is orderly…But the Thais are the ones who will suffer‖ (MSN 13 Oct 2003). By contrast, fruit vendor Mat said, ―We have to put on a good appearance‖ (Ibid.). These interviews confirmed informal conversations I had with people about APEC. Some were mildly critical, usually expressing their displeasure at Pres. Bush, to the exclusion of the other elite delegates converging on the city. Most, however, expressed the importance of ―keeping a good image‖ of Thailand, to make things ―clean‖ and ―orderly.‖ Repeatedly, it was the ―appearance‖ and ―image‖ of the country that was stressed as important to maintain during the delegate‘s visit. After the appearance of order was successfully created, there were security celebrations for a terrorist-free APEC. For example, the one hundred and thirteen provincial police on George and Laura Bush‘s security detail celebrated in Phuket on Nov 1st. Deputy Phuket police chief Pol Col Decha Butrnamphet served as commander of the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel ―frontline command centre‖ along with eighty-three provincial police officers from Phuket, twenty from the 8th region and ten from the Ko Samui police station (Wassayos 26 Oct 2003). The provincial police officers reportedly were chosen for the high-profile detail because of their experience working with tourists and guarding public figures. The party was paid for with a twenty thousand baht cash reward from police commander Sant. Inevitably, many of the ―temporary‖ surveillance and intelligence-gathering efforts put in place for APEC, once in place, became permanent fixtures in post-APEC Thailand. For one, Gen. Pallop Pinmanee announced several days after APEC that the
443 national intelligence coordinating centre in Suan Ruen Rudee, formed for ―APEC-related matters‖ would continue to focus on international terrorism as a permanent institution (Wassana & Nattaya 23 Oct 2003). Gen. Pallop who served at the time as both deputy director of the center as well as the deputy director of ISOC, also said that Joint Operations Centre 106, ―set up years ago to fight terrorism,‖ would move from Supreme Command headquarters to the new Suan Ruen Rudee headquarters. Prior to this announcement, the Joint Operations Center 106 already coordinated a National Security Council ―master plan‖ to respond to terror threats (Bangkok Post 16 Sept 2003). The new permanent national intelligence coordinating centre, which subsumed this master plan, run by Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, centralized intelligence from the National Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, Special Branch Police and the Armed Forces Security Centre (Wassana & Nattaya 23 Oct 2003). Thus, APEC was used as a pretext to further centralize the Thailand‘s intelligence structure. Spectacles of the Globalist Elite after APEC APEC served as a template for other massive security spectacles in Thailand that followed. In 2005 the eleventh United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice met in Bangkok over an eight day period. To coordinate the ―heavy security blanket‖ for the meetings, a new joint operations center, headed by Deputy PM Chidchai Vanasatidya at the Supreme Command compound, was opened to coordinate eight thousand Metropolitan Police Bureau officers, military guards and intelligence operatives. ―The protective measures will be as intense and comprehensive as those implemented for (APEC), except that coverage will be extended to other at-risk targets such as oil rigs, refineries, dams and power plants‖ (Nation 17 Apr 2005). Highlights of this massive security spectacle included:
444 1. Fifty-seven vehicles used in motorcade escorts with twenty-eight more vehicles as support units and fifty motorcycles on standby at the centre as a backup force. 2. Two hundred and sixty four surveillance teams stationed on high-rise buildings. 3. Four ―quick response units‖ on alert with six squads remaining on standby. 4. Four twenty-member SWAT teams, ―including one with air transportability.‖ 5. Fourteen anti-riot police companies, ―each 150-man strong, plus an extra company comprising only female officers.‖ 6. Forty-one K-9 teams from the Army and Border Patrol Police with twelve other teams acting as backup units. 7. Fifty-eight new checkpoints locations throughout Bangkok. 8. Four mounted police teams with twenty-four mounted officers as backups. 9. Forty one fire-fighting active regiments with eleven more on standby. (Ibid.) It is important to note that coverage of this event provided these meticulously specific numbers as well as reporting the event security in future tense: these were the planned security measures for the event. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) functions in similar ways to APEC to centralize information among ―ASEAN police chiefs‖ and focus on terrorist threats at major international events. In early Sept. 2003 (reported as ―their third meetings since the Sept. 11 attacks‖), ten national police chiefs from ASEAN‘s ten member countries met in Manila and Again in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to greater cooperation and information sharing for major public events in 2003: the ASEAN summit in Bali (Oct.7), APEC in Bangkok (Oct. 20-21st) and the Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam in December (Bangkok Post 12 Sept 2003). The Bangkok Post reported ―these meetings were remarkable for their consensus…Two years ago, commanders bickered over details, fought for the right to command and tied information exchanges in red tape. Now, as the authoritative Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies of Singapore noted:
445 ‗There‘s a new sense of seriousness‘‖ (Bangkok Post 15 Sept 2003). The article continues: In the category of ‗think globally‘, the army commanders of the Philippines and Indonesia issued a joint call for regional military exercises with a focus on terrorism. This is the first such call in the 36-year history of Asean, which was formed to pursue economic goals and has scrupulously stayed away from military matters. On their side, police chiefs invited the Australian police commissioner to their conference - recognition that there are no actual borders in the efforts to combat terrorism, cross-border crime and trafficking of people and drugs. Police chiefs also seemed to recognise at their Manila conference that it was important to ―act locally.‖ They know the campaign against terrorism will be won ultimately at the community level (Ibid.). This meeting demonstrates how the economic globalization agendas of ASEAN, APEC, WTO, etc., operate in tandem with a global policing agenda. The security grids and event preparations set up in each host city serve as a public spectacles in their own right. The local security spectacles reflect the broader regional agenda of shared security cooperation, and both aspects are demonstrations of order through economic domination. Host countries benefit from international legitimacy by integrating these demonstrations with globalist economies. Simultaneously, the events provide local states with excuses for performative displays of their capacity for coercive force. Based on the arrest of Hambali in 2003‘s Operation Black Magic, subsequent APEC meetings continued to use the exaggerated disorder of the terrorist threat as a raison d‟etra, both as a topic within the summit, and an excuse to create continual security preparation spectacles in each host
Figure 89: ―World Leaders attending the APEC 2006 Summit in Hanoi dressed in áo dài and áo gấm.‖
446 country that followed. The theme of the APEC 2006 in Hanoi and Hoi An, Vietnam (which UNESCO declares as one of its ―world heritage towns‖) was ―building a dynamic community for the sake of sustainable and prosperous development,‖ (Tre 17 Sept 2006). Although APEC‘s ―sustainable global community‖ propaganda was highlighted, the meetings offered a convenient excuse for numerous, largely unpublicized, security crackdowns by the Vietnamese government (Crimmins 6 Dec 2006; VNA 20 Oct 2006). The months leading up to APEC 2007 in Australia were marked by a contrived media drama linking the Sydney ―race riots‖ of Dec 2006 to an ―unprepared‖ police force that demands substantial augmentation for the meetings. Significantly, the meetings were described as ―the last international showpiece event before John Howard goes to the polls in October‖ (Salusinszky 21 Oct 2006). Predictably, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) declared that Australia‘s ―security outlook remains complex and dangerous. It warned Australia remained a target for terrorist attacks‖ (Ibid.). Australia‘s APEC preparations mirrored Thailand‘s: a public holiday was declared for Friday 7 Sept 2007, and news coverage included information such as: Although venues remain a closely guarded secret for security reasons, it is understood Darling Harbour and the Opera House will be the centre of activities at APEC. The taskforce in charge of APEC security has already conducted counter-terrorism exercises to test security and readiness for the APEC meetings and at Sydney airport…The federal Government has allocated $216.3 million, including $68 million, in security provisions to host APEC. This is in addition to $195.5million spent on new security initiatives and policing at major airports in the wake of the Wheeler review into airport security. Mr Hazzard's report paints a picture of a police force under-resourced, under-trained and, above all, devoid of effective leadership (Ibid.). The supposed ―security crisis‖ of Australia‘s police force was revealed as a manufactured media contrivance when juxtaposed with the tough words of ―former‖ US intelligence
447 agent and ―al-Qa‘ida expert,‖ Malcolm Nance who said, ―Osama bin Laden knows Australia is a one-shot nation - if there is any attack, the full brunt of law-enforcement will come down and al-Qa‘ida is finished here‖ (Stewart 26 Oct 2006). If Australian law enforcement is strong enough to ―finish‖ al-Qa‘ida by using its ―full brunt,‖ where is the crisis that desperately calls for a nationwide security overhaul? Nevertheless, Australian media sources agreed with this ―al-Qa‘ida expert‖ that the Sydney APEC meetings were a ―dream target.‖ These sources imaginatively theorized that an attack would ―likely to be on a grand scale and could include simultaneous bomb blasts in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (Stewart 26 Oct 2006). These imagined scenarios are important elements in the rhetorical amplification of violence surrounding other regionalist associations. Simultaneously ―combating terrorism‖ while ―accelerating economic integration‖ continue to be major policy points for ASEAN meetings. For the 2007 meetings in Manilla, Reuters reporters noted that, ―guns and money are likely to overshadow the theme of ‗One Caring and Sharing Community.‘‖ Like the APEC summits, ASEAN meetings are also spectacular security showcases that simultaneously service of the economic integration agendas of the global elite. The 2003 APEC security ritual, was a localized site of this agenda‘s integration where global order shored up state order. This global state ritual is the central hub around which Thailand‘s terror narrative was spun.
The Shadow State: Terrorists and Insurgents In May 2002, a Buddhist monk involved in a land dispute entered the Thai parliament compound, fired a shot from an AK47 assault rifle he had concealed in his robes, and demanded to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister. The ensuing standoff
448 ended when an anti-riot officer posing as a television crew member disarmed the monk while another officer handcuffed him. ―I am not under the influence of drugs,‖ he said. ―I am ready to have my urine tested‖ (Tumcharoen & Manop 23 May 2002). In contrast to this local narrative of state order, which despite bearing the trappings of terrorism, was treated as an isolated chaotic fluke, Thailand‘s evolving terror narrative was told with a specifically global cast of characters, including the ―big fish‖ of Hambali. As discussed previously in this chapter,
Figure 90: A buddhist monk, armed with an AK 47, storms Government House in 2002
the Hambali arrest created the opportunity to cast Thailand as a ―new target for JI‖ in the global War on Terror performance. Hambali supposedly sent $2 million USD to a ―bomber‖ who would, conveniently, plan another act during APEC. Prior to APEC, the Thai government supposedly was watching ―100 terrorists‖ of Pakistani, Libyan, Palestinian, and Iranian origin (KCD 20 Aug 2003). The global policing project to coax various nations in Southeast Asia to get ―on board‖ with a united approach to terrorism was underway for several months prior to the showcase arrest of Hambali. Prior to Hambali‘s arrest, globalist media outlets were relentless and specific in their calls for a response to ―Thailand‘s Rising Terrorism Problem‖ (Brown 17 Jul 2003). With dull precision, international weeklys produced a repetitive narrative of fear and danger within Thailand and across its borders. Newsweek, for example, reported how ―the Buddhist nations of Southeast Asia were bystanders in the war on terror until May 28‖ until a string of arrests of suspected terrorists transformed the countries into ―Fighting Buddhas‖ (Cochrane 30 Jun 2003).
449 As these reports created the appearance of a nation awash with new terror threats, Pol. Gen Sant travelled to Narathiwat to attempt a public relations event with the provincial Islamic committee. There, he asserted that the arrest of two Muslim religious teachers and a physician, Waemahadi Wae-dao, on suspected links to JI was ―neither politically motivated nor intended to please the United States‖ (Bangkok Post 20 Jun 2003). He denied that the arrests were made based on instructions from US officials, and said that the three men were members of JI. He also denied that police had any involvement in the June 11th abduction and disappearance of Dae-ard Tohpuyu, a Islamic school Manager in Satun province. Sant‘s visit also announced the deployment of one thousand police (with special consideration to officers with military backgrounds and knowledge of the Yawi southern dialect) to Southern provinces (Ibid.). Beginning with the arrest of an Egyptian rector and two Thai teachers of a Phnom Penh-based Islamic boarding school on suspicions of terrorism the summer of 2003, brought Cambodian and Thai official responses predictably in line with the global war on terror. On 10 June, Thai police arrested three men for planning an alleged string of embassy and tourist bombings during APEC. The arrests occurred days before the Cesium ―dirty bomb‖ incident described earlier in the chapter. Newsweek reporter, Joe Cochrane, summarily gloated, ―Now, after seven arrests in Thailand and Cambodia, no one imagines Buddhist lands are beyond terror‖ (Ibid.). ―Quite the opposite,‖ Cochrane asserts, ―All the suspects stand accused of belonging to Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist network associated with Al Qaeda that has been on the run since 9-11.‖ This tired fiction is prevalent in nearly every mainstream media account of post 9-11 terrorism. The agenda is simple: creating a unified global response to the threat of terrorism. The details
450 of coverage vary regionally, but remain doggedly committed to the overall project. As exemplified in the Newsweek article, More than 140 JI members have been arrested since the Bush administration began pressuring Southeast Asian countries to get tough on radical Islam. The largest Muslim nations in the region--Malaysia and Indonesia--have been hunting JI with special vigor since it was tied to 202 deaths in last October's bombings on Bali, a Hindu island whose residents had falsely believed it was off the map of Muslim terror. Now nearby Buddhist countries fear they present equally vulnerable targets (Ibid.). The article goes on to dictate the crafted biography of Jemaah Islamiah in comically simple terms: JI was formed in the 1960s with the goal of uniting Indonesia, Malay-sia, Singapore and the southern Phil-ippines in a Pan-Islamic state. Lately, it‘s been branching out. Rohan Gunaratna, a terror expert based in Singapore, says JI's operational leadership fled to Thailand after Malaysia began cracking down on the group in late 2001 (Ibid.). Cochrane then explains one of the arrested ―suspects,‖ Arifin bin Ali, upon interrogation, identified three other Thai southern Muslims as ―members of his terrorist cell.‖ With dramatic portent, this exemplary announcement of the global terror agenda mentions that Hambali, who was arrested two months after the article was published, probably visited Cambodia in 2002. Articles such as the above are entirely predictable in their purpose: they envisage a growing threat, create a climate of perceived fear, and if followed in subsequent weeks and months, the threat quietly disappears upon closer examination. On 29 Aug 2003, police released four Pakistanis and Afghan nationals arrested by the Thai Crime Suppression Division were subsequently cleared on all charges of ―terrorism‖ (Wassayos 30 Aug 2003). In another example, terrorism charges against all of the members of the above ―terrorist cell‖ plotting APEC bombings of embassy and tourist sites, were
451 dropped due to insufficient evidence (Wassayos 23 Aug 2003). This occurred despite the obviously planted evidence of a map used to select and survey targets (Bangkok Post 3 Sept 2003b). A trained terrorist cell to possessing a city map identifying obvious and easily locatable targets strains credibility and imagination. In the 9-11 equivalent, the bombers would possess a US map with Washington DC and New York highlighted conveniently for later prosecution. Similar to ―terrorist suspects‖ arrested with fear and fanfare, trumped up charges were used to create terrorists out of internet users. Police in Bangkok, taking a page from the insular police state of Singapore, arrested one of the city-state‘s nationals, Kevin Chia in an apartment in Bangkok‘s Sathorn road. Based on information from the Singaporean embassy, he was tracked using the ISP and telephone number he used for an internet connection. He allegedly posted death threats to the message board of hualamphong.com against Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and threatened to bomb embassies during APEC. The details of the threats were not published, and his postings on the message board were removed, making it impossible to evaluate Mr. Chia‘s threat to APEC. However, police sources downgraded his threat status from ―terrorist‖ to ―radical holding extreme views‖ (Wassayos & Manop 10 Oct 2003). Machinations such as these were a key element of constructing a public awareness of terrorist threats in line with the global war on terror. Also employed in this strategy was the construction of foreigner watch lists based on names supplied by the CIA and FBI. The use of US watchlists provides an intimate method of integrating the Thai intelligence apparatus with the US equivalent. Significantly, ―this was the first time
452 Thailand had screened incoming and outgoing persons so meticulously‖ (Prayuth & Kavi 26 Nov 2003). Thus, we see a fairly integrated operation of creating a culture of terrorism and counter-terrorism within Thailand in a half-year time span. Beginning just before the arrest of Hambali and following past the conclusion of the APEC summit, an awareness of fear and threat of terrorism was systematically manufactured using various media-based informational control operations. Hambali‘s arrest reunited US-Thai counter-terrorism cooperation, as highlighted by Pol. Maj. Gen. Trirot and reported by Shawn Crispin. Following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Thai intelligence located suspected ringleader Ramzi Yousef (Ibid.). In a previously secret case from 1998, a US national attempted to sell classified documents concerning US nuclear weapons, and was arrested by Thai intelligence agents. In 2002, the FBI and Thai intelligence conducted a joint raid on a travel document forgery ring with suspected Al Qaeda ties. The arrests were kept secret, ―hoping to maintain the confidence of foreign investors and tourists‖ (Ibid.). Thai officials also alerted US and Canadian intelligence of an airline flight by suspected Al Queda operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah from Bangkok to Oman on 15 Jan 2002, information which lead to his arrest. Jabarah was interrogated by the FBI, and supposedly detailed a host of Al Qaeda terror plans for Thailand, information contained in a report that Thai official suspect was leaked in order to ―spur the Thais to more aggressive action‖ (Ibid.). Tritot was given an award by the US for his ―work in pursuing the war on terror‖ during a July 2002 visit to Thailand by US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The breakdown of the FBI/Thai counter-terror relationship soured in late 2002, largely resulting from the refusal of Thai police officials, on several occasions, to arrest
453 US-Identified ―suspected terrorists.‖ In these cases, Thai police claimed that insufficient evidence existed, thus the arrests would violate the Thai constitution (Crispin 13 Feb 2003). Thus, Thailand, previously the major ally of US military and counter-terror doctrine, presented a ―big new hurdle‖ in US efforts to extend the War on Terror to Southeast Asia (Ibid.), specifically its efforts to apprehend members of Jemaah Islamiah after the Bali bombing. Adding to this tension, which was abated conveniently in the arrest of Hambali, was an internal FBI report which alleged ―that rogue Thai military officers had offered training in explosives and light weaponry to 20-30 Jemaah Islamiah operatives in a secret jungle camp in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat, where Muslim extremists are believed to be active‖ (Ibid.). Furthermore, Pol. Maj. Gen. Trirot, denies that the jungle camp exists although the US continued to insist that the report is accurate. Trirot, who trained formally with the FBI said, ―Many FBI agents don't really know Thailand. They have three people working in their offices in Bangkok. I have agents all over the place in southern Thailand…We deal in facts. They deal in fiction, like writing novels‖ (Ibid.). Prior to the arrest of Hambali, numerous media reports serviced the US War on Terror line that Thailand was a dragging its feet in counter-terrorism agenda. An article in US policy mouthpiece, The New Republic, serves as a veritable hit piece on the antiterror preparations of Thailand. The author, Kurlantzick, characterized Thailand‘s immigration bureau as ―hardly cutting edge.‖ Kurlantzick goes on to reiterate the popular opinion that, ―While civilian organizations are making strides in combating terror, the same cannot be said about the Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine, and Thai militaries, which are not only brutal but in many cases have ties to Islamic militants themselves. US
454 aid for these armies may backfire, fueling more radicalism and terror.‖ The anti-terror executive decrees, Hambali‘s arrest, and the APEC security ritual signaled a renewed Thai state interest in adopting the agendas of the global war on terror. This interest grew to fever pitch as bombings and violence intensified in Thailand‘s South, after the last of the APEC delegates went home. The chaos of southern Thai violence was deliberately exacerbated and manipulated by Thai statecraft.
Fanning the Southern Flames What Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) documents erroneously call the ―Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand‖ (2007) was created in a crucible of colonialism, counter-insurgency and government provocateurship. The British ―advisors‖ of Force 136 (the code name for the British Southeast Asian ―Special Operations Executive‖ during WWII) crafted the Anti-Japanese People‘s Liberation Army (AJPLA) into a trained insurgent force in Malaysia (Hurst 2003:21-2). Under British tutelage, they learned effective ambush techniques, and were armed with the weapons that were used against the convoys of un-armored police trucks in the Malayan mountains (Ibid. 10). With script-like progression, the AJPLA transformed into the AntiBritish People‘s Liberation army and then into the Malaysian People‘s Liberation Army (MPLA), the ―communist terrorists‖ (CTs) of the British Emergency. This is the template of Western military covert operations: training, arming, and equipping a dedicated ethnic insurgency only to be ―surprised‖ when former allies become enemies. The exact template created brushfire wars, insurgencies, and ―terrorism‖ throughout the globe manifesting in Afghanistan, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala, and countless other strategic locations. The violent blowback of these operations emerges with such
455 predictable precision; it is a calculated covert technique of creating state-sponsored terror, subsequently justifying further repression. Thus, when the MPLA was forced across the Malaysian Thai border as a result of the British Malaysian Emergency, the Thai government was given, not an insurgency problem, but a state-making solution. Throughout the 1950s through the present day, the continuous ―separatist‖ insurgency in the south can be traced directly to the British-trained MPLA. This insurgent lineage was then nurtured in a decades-long environment of government provocateurship and violent statecraft. The southern provinces and its Muslim minority are a supposed anathema to the Thai monarch-Buddhism-nation social control agenda. In practice, however, the continual violence and chaos in the southern provinces serves as an excuse for continual state incursion and coercion. For example, the morning call to prayer at many mosques in Yala, Narathiwat, and Pattani competes with government broadcasts of the national anthem through PA systems in a calculated state psychological operation. The southern provinces are the only location specifically mentioned in Thai police policy papers. Security there is ranked in importance just under protection of the monarchy: To consolidate the police forces of all the agencies in strengthening security, safety, and peace and order along the borders and in areas within five border provinces in the South by increasing the intensity of the performance of work in respect to gathering intelligence, patrolling, and preserving the safety of individuals and premises, as well as strictly curbing and suppressing all kinds of actions that affect the economic, social and political stability of the nation (Royal Thai Police 2001c).
456 Thus, the violent and chaotic ―southern problem‖ as integral to the construction of the Thai state. In Thailand‘s terror narrative, the APEC security ritual, including the dramatic arrest of Hambali, served as an informational awareness campaign for the global War on Terror. From renewed-imagination of the terror threat, the southern provinces were became a primed performance space for another violent spectacle. Between these two spectacles, Thaksin predicted just after APEC on Halloween 2003, ―I think the situation in the three southern provinces (Pattani,
Figure 91: ―Security situation well under control: Thaksin sees no more problems‖Photo: Apichit Jinakul
Yala and Narathiwat) can be kept under control‖ (Wassana & Yuwadee 31 Oct 2003). Thaksin referred to the deployment of the military in operations with the police that would eliminate all of the problems in the south. ―Before they (the military and police) always disagreed because their scope of responsibility was clearly separated. Now, with an integrated operational plan, they can be more flexible‖ (Ibid.). Physically embodying the government response was the deployment of armed sentry boxes, resembling portable toilets, which Army Chief Gen Chaisit Shiniwatra demonstrated in a press event how the southern security situation was ―well under control‖ (Fig. 91). A series of previous Thai state responses intentionally provoked violence, alienation, and insurgency in the chaotic South. On June 11th, 2003, Dae-ard Tohpuyu, manager of a Satun Islamic school went missing. Suspicion immediately fell on the police, prompting Police DG Sant to deny police involvement in the abduction on 19 June while he was in Narathiwat (Bangkok Post 20 Jun 2003). Several months later, then
457 Supreme Commander, Gen. Surayud Chulanont (made PM after the 2006 coup) met with Islamic religious leaders to ask them to ―cooperate‖ with the Thai military, Joint Civil Affairs Directorate, and National Security Council. During this two-day meeting, religious leaders were asked not to ―shelter or provide assistance to terrorists‖ (Wassana & Apiradee 12 Sept 2003). Gen. Surayud also said that the number of JI members in Thailand was less then nineteen, the number reported by local media. Samai Charoenchang, chair of the Islamic Committee for Bangkok disputed the existence of terrorist organizations in the south altogether. He asserted, ―It is common criminals who continue to instigate chaos in the South‖ (Ibid.). Following the arrest of Hambali, the approximately five million Thai Muslims (seven to eight percent of the total Thai population)89 were increasingly tied to ―militant Islam‖ by both state officials and global War on Terror high priests. This officially-led demonization was exacerbated by a series of state provocations following the APEC security ritual. In October 2004, more than three thousand Muslims protested outside a police station in Narathiwat‘s Tak Bai district in the southern provinces. More than 1,300 protestors were taken to the Forth Army Region, Forward Command located 130 kilometers away from the protest site, a relocation that took more than six hours on this occasion. Protestors were packed into army trucks so tightly that seventy-eight detainees were found dead of suffocation and dehydration when the trucks arrived at a Pattani army base. PM Thaksin‘s initial reaction was to support army‘s official version of events. The protest had taken place during Ramadan, prompting Thaksin to say of the victims, ―This is typical. It‘s about bodies made weak from fasting. Nobody hurt them.‖ He also used 89
In Thailand‘s Southern Provinces, Muslims make up a numerical majority of eighty percent, but are nevertheless benefit the least from Thailand‘s economic growth (Kersten 2004).
458 the incident to claim that a vacuum of state power existed in the ―anarchy‖ of the south that must be restored (Tejapira 20 Feb 2004). The Tak Bai incident followed an earlier episode of military violence in April 2003 when more than a hundred Muslims were killed when the army stormed a mosque said to be occupied by militants. Videos of the Tak Bai incident circulated on the internet showing body-armor clad Thai police and soldiers firing M-16s from a group of trees outside the Tak Bai police station. In one video, Figure 92: Tak Bai incident April 2003.
five or six bodies are seen in a pile, while other
protesters are seen in handcuffs. Later, protesters, covered in dirt and dust with their hands handcuffs behind their shirtless backs are lined up on the ground before being loaded onto the military trucks. Detaining crowds of men in this method (lying down shirtless with hands secured behind their back) is a longstanding technique of physical order and submission in Thailand. The photos of the Thak Bai arrests are reminiscent of photos at the Thammasat massacre in 1976 (Bowie 1997). Similarly, at the student brawl of 1 Sept. 2003, large amounts of students were detained using this method, a trope of coercive Thai state order. The Tak Bai incident exacerbated the growing violence in southern Thailand, and led to the implementation of social control technologies to control the chaos of the ―southern problem.‖ Representing a new method of informational control, one of the state ―solutions‖ was the introduction of ―smart‖ citizen ID cards. Thaksin threatened to fire everyone associated with the project if they did could not implement it in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat by March 2005. The first 1.3 million of the card for a total 12
459 million residents were issued by October 1st, 2005. The use of these RFID-imbedded cards allowed the government to enforce its new ban on dual citizenship. Indeed, the press coverage of this new national ID card asserted that the cards would ―separate lawabiding Thai nationals from separatist militants holding dual citizenship‖ (Yuwadee 23 Feb 2005). RFID-based surveillance technologies are touted globally as an ordered solution to disordered problems. Criminal justice industrial complex profiteers continue to employ these technologies to assert economic and informational dominance. This generation of surveillance and profit continued unabated while deaths linked to violence in southern Thailand surpassed 3,000 people between January 2004 and May 2008 (AFP 18 May 2008).
SECTION CONCLUSION: Enacting Thailand’s Terror Narrative As this section demonstrated, Thailand‘s terror narrative was a manufactured drama of contrived threats demanding operationalized order. State agents are found on both sides of this paradigm of provocateurship, embodied in Thai Rangers linked to bombings and executions of Thai police officers in Thailand‘s south, or US ―advisors‖ supervising satellite surveillance of protests on the streets of Bangkok. In example after example, the performance of coercive force is burgeoned by assertions of economic and informational control (including the profitable technologies of social control that underlie these performances). In the case of APEC, the performances of the state‘s capacity for coercive force service global economic integration. The seeming paradox of chaos and order is mirrored by the seeming conflict between the ―outmoded‖ model of sovereign nation-states and the impending empire of global state ―governance.‖ State spectacles of order through chaos such as Thailand‘s APEC ritual, southern violence and subsequent
460 state of exception gain legitimacy from integration with the same global political economies that simultaneously undermine state dominance. With this global state paradox in mind, Chapter 6 demonstrated that the state security grid is a multi-dimensional manifold of social control. First, it is created in the pageantry of royal protection where police policies, training doctrines, and security strategies augment the monarchy‘s symbolic gravitas. Second, the mundane patrols and sublime special privileges of ―VIP‖ protection publicly reward elite members and institutions of the state‘s economic base. Third, the state‘s capacity for coercive force is expressed in a variety of police paramilitary units that exhibit a specialized and fetishized potential for violence. This violent potential makes PPUs (SWAT teams) critical agents in the enactment of the modern state imaginary. Furthermore, the militarized ―special tactics‖ knowledge capacity of these units is internalized throughout the Royal Thai Police. Finally, in the armored phalanxes and social control technologies, demonstrated in the anti-Cambodian counter-riots and routine embassy-based protests, a state‘s riot squads are part of its symbolic coercive expression. The anti-riot units are designed not to destroy dissent, but rather to create a tense dialogue of potential violence and counterviolence whenever they are deployed.
The ordered appearance of the deployment
strategies, uniforms which assure anonymity, and overall silence of police tactics can easily mask the riot squads riot-based origins. The chaos of the crowd, the violent mob, and the screaming voices of dissent make the anti-riot squads of the state possible as well as meaningful.
461 All of these performative elements were harbingers of the 2003 APEC spectacle, described in Chapter 7, where the state security grid was perfected in a city-wide security lockdown. The police checkpoint performances, like riot control incidents and royal protection spectacles, served as training grounds, sites of practice, and zones of public conditioning for increasingly elaborate displays of the state‘s coercive capacity. All of these methods were utilized in the preparation and execution of the meetings in the service of the global economic dominance of APEC. The meetings demonstrated the state‘s coercive potential and justified public submission to routinized searches and social control. The global economic interests of the APEC security ritual also created a broader narrative of terrorist threats and perceived Islamic insurgency. This terror narrative contributed directly to the state‘s ability to sustain long periods of martial law as new endless cycles of terror and counter-terror are formed. The thousands of yellow-clad supporters of Thailand‘s royally-backed coup may have indicated that Thailand‘s integration with a ―New World Order‖ has already occurred.
462
Chapter 8 - Conclusion A state of exception (-) a social-political space of force ruled by a law beyond the law, where the distinction between fact and law has become blurred. Begoña Aretxaga (2003:405)90 In Bangkok in 2001, I often walked past a giant billboard that came to symbolize the processes described in this dissertation. The yellow and red sign for the Pirelli tire corporation read, ―power is nothing without control.‖ State order is constructed and expressed in spectacular ritual displays. However, it is in the continual drama around the sign, its context, that the full expression of the thesis is revealed. Over the weeks and months, the small grove of trees in front of the sign, a green rarity in the endless concrete of Bangkok‘s urban jungle, continued to grow. At first, they
Figure 93: Tire advertisement with greenery and power lines. Photo by author: Feb 2001
covered up the blue uppercase letters of the message, ―POWER IS NOTHING WITHOUT CONTROL.‖ By the time I completed the pre-dissertation research and went back to the US, the trees were tall enough to obscure the sign entirely. When I returned to the city in 2003, the trees were neatly pruned and the sign was revealed again. Over the course of that year, however, as the tropical sun and rain conducted their performance, the chaotic tangle of the tree branches grew skyward,
90
Here, Aretxaga cites Agamben‘s Homo Sacer (1998) as well as Hart and Negri‘s Empire (2000) and Schmitt‘s Political Theology (1985:[1922]).
463 eventually overtaking the sign‘s metal message once more. In this periodic performance of order, chaos simultaneously grows, until it is deemed ―out of control‖ and is violently pruned, temporarily managed, and ultimately allowed to grow again. In spectacular displays of the state, be they SWAT team raids or anti-drug black magic rituals, the ―threat‖ of disorder is integral to the rituals of order. In each case, the localized process of constructing state order in individual states conceals a similar ongoing process toward the creation of a de facto global state. Whether order manifests in the tire advertisements of multinational corporations, or the security, surveillance, and social control rituals of APEC and other incarnations of the global economic elite, the process is one of incremental subserviance to encroaching globalism. In ritualized global displays of order, in which the G8 summits, WTO control grids, and Olympic security spectacles are some of the key performances, individual nation-states play the role of sites of outmoded chaotic disorder. With increasing frequency, global agencies of moral order (UNHCR, UNICEF, INTERPOL, ICC, etc.) are portrayed as the only solution to the state‘s petty inter/intra state rivalries, ―tarnished‖ human rights ―records,‖ and archaic nationalism. From this perspective, the violent barbarism of the Thai drug suppression campaign, the comical hypocricy of the War on Dark Influence (derailed by Chuwit‘s sexualized lunacy), and the draconian declarations of Samak‘s pre-APEC comparison of Bangkok‘s homeless population to stray dogs, can seemingly only be remedied through international oversight and transnational control. Pradoxically, when Samak was a mere Bangkok governor rather than the Thai Prime Minister, a meeting of the global elite provided the excuse for near-total state control. For the purpose of opposing this increasingly-powerful globalist myth, I reiterate a
464 statement made in my introduction: While the rampant state deceptions and violent coercions described in the above chapters are obviously deplorable, I am not interested in producing an expose on Thai police corruption in service of furthering an agenda of internationally-mandated ―professionalization.‖ Quite the contrary, as the following discussion illustrates.
Redeeming Asia’s Keystone Kops By far the most common question most people ask when they hear that my research concerns the Thai police is, ―Are they pretty corrupt, right?‖ In recent years, the most widely circulated international news stories featuring the Thai police focus solely on their comedic value as corrupt or inefficient. In 2007 a story circulated in the international news wire that Thai police who were found guilty of ―misbehavior‖ and ―petty corruption‖ were going to be issued armbands emblazoned with the Japanese Sanrio Corporation icon, ―Hello Kitty®.‖ Acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division, Pongpat Chayaphan somewhat famously said, ―Simple warnings no longer work…This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor…Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It‘s not something macho police officers want covering their biceps‖ (Mydans 7
Figure 94: ―A police officer in Bangkok shows a pink Hello Kitty armband.‖ Photo: Yasushi Ukigaya/Kyodo News, via Associated Press
465 Aug 2007). Family and friends bombarded me with more than twenty e-mail forwards of the article, particularly its New York Times variant; an indication of the story‘s widespread circulation. Hidden in plain site within this coverage are telling details obscured by the story‘s subtext of corruption and incompetence: only ten armbands were made, none were yet issued, and the practice was planned only for the Crime Suppression Division, not the Royal Thai Police as a whole. In light of such a limited distribution, the massive international press interest in the story is indicative of the Thai police role in this case: demonstrating the logic of totalizing ―international law enforcement.‖ Media stories highlight CSD acting commander Pongpat‘s international training experience with the US Secret Service and the Canadian police, and his desire to modernize the Thai police, ―even though we lack the highest technology, equipment and mind-set‖ (Ibid.). The New York Times Asia press stringer, Seth Mydans continues, ―Pink armbands for misdemeanors are a start. Stronger measures could be next for corruption and extrajudicial killings.‖ Thus, the Hello Kitty headlines applaud the plucky desire for ―professionalization‖ from the new guard of Thai police trained under Western police patronage, while simultaneously degrading the Asian bureaucracy for its alien foreignness, incompetence, and corruption. Hello Kitty‘s vacant eyes seem to inquire, why can‘t you be more like your big brother, America, or your little brother, Japan? In a similar recent story with widespread international circulation, the Thai Police were again mocked for their incompetence when they issued a ―sketch‖ of someone who robbed the Ladprao branch of the Government Savings Bank in Bangkok wearing a motorcycle helmet. The assured anonymity of the suspect in question despite the
466 ―rigorously gathered witness statements‖ once again made the Thai police the target of international media derision. London‘s Metro mocked, ―The most stupid e-fit appeal ever‖ (Metro 6 Feb 2008), making reference to the Electronic Facial Identification Technique (E-FIT) biometric recognition system, a technology first proposed by the UK‘s Home Office in 1984. The ubiquity of this biometric technology in the burgeoning British police state puts an Orewellian spin on the media‘s use of Thai police as an international joke. Like most biometrics technologies, EFIT was incrementally introduced to the public and normalized Figure 95: Thai bank robbery suspect, 2008
through its repetition in public conditioning exercises of mass media, such as its regular appearance in the popular UK
television show ―Crimewatch.‖ Informational control is such that many Britons accept biometric surveillance technology as a necessary technique of modern police systems. The subtext of the Metro‘s Ladprao bank robber story is that biometric technology is a sophisticated example of high-tech Western police techniques, which police agencies of ―less developed‖ nations can only envy. The globally-disseminated Thai motorcycle helmet bank robber ―satire‖ articles are yet another example of the value of continued police ―professionalization‖ and global media conditioning operations that routinize new technologies of social control.
Good Cop, Bad Cop: The Royalist Junta “vs.” Thaksin Thus, in the international media, the Thai police are synonymous with corruption due to a well-known history of their association with the largesse of the anti-communist
467 period of the 1950s through the 70s, as well as from the publicity efforts of international human rights groups. In 2006, the Asian Human Rights Commission reported, In Thailand it has been known for some 30 years that there is a drastic need for reforms of the police. As far back as 1980 the parliamentary Administrative Committee recognised that ―the police department is hated and despised by all people outside of it‖ for reason of its corrupt practices and rampant abuses. Nothing has been done since then to change this miserable situation. Repeated attempts at change have been blocked by the power of the police themselves. That power has been steadily entrenched and has reached a new level under the current administration, with police or former police occupying senior posts from prime minister down, in practically every part of government (Asian Human Rights Forum 18 Jul 2006). The December 2006 coup was carried out in this context of widespread allegations of corruption and abuse in Thaksin‘s police-friendly government. That Thaksin‘s government was considered so corrupt that a military coup was necessary to ―restore democracy‖ at the hands of royalist generals demands a reconsideration of Thai ―corruption,‖ police ―professionalization,‖ and, especially, the monarchy. The global media spectacle of the 2006 coup largely depicted the royalist junta as peaceful champions of justice and the monarchy, opposed to Thaksin‘s rampant cronyism and corruption. In actuality, like so many so-called political rivalries throughout the globe, whether they adopt the costuming of East Berlin/West Berlin (Glaeser 2000), communist vs. capitalist, Hilary vs. Obama, Democrat vs. Republican, or the UN vs. the US reveal themselves as staged contests designed to divide subject populations against themselves. This divide and conquer strategy is a time-tested method of constructing ordnung from manufactured chaos. By monitoring media narratives of the coup, which appeared as international spectacles worthy of twenty-four hour attention, the global good-cop/badcop routine is revealed. The 2006 coup by royalist military factions plunged Thailand into perpetual martial law which has still not been lifted in many province despite the
468 recent election of their supposed ―opposition,‖ the People Power Party of Thaksin loyalists (the reincarnated Thai Rak Thai) led by admitted Thaksin proxy, PM Samak. In the national media, these claims are presented as part of the supposed rivalry between forces loyal to Thaksin, and those loyal to the royalist junta. Even after the elected People Power Party leaders were ―considering‖ lifting martial law in ―tourist-destination‖ provinces in the north, Thai Army Commander in Chief Gen Anupong Paojinda, said that martial laws were still ―necessary to prevent threats, including narcotics, from entering the Kingdom‖ (Nation 13 Feb 2008). This political pantomime (Williams 29 Feb 2008) of Royalists vs. Thaksin, as presented in academic circles and media circuses conceals an obvious fact: the Thaksinled government which supposedly necessitated the coup is back in power after two years of continuous martial law, but martial law is still in effect. Is there any real ―rivalry‖ at all? One ―side‖ offered continuous wars against drugs, dark influence, and terrorism, which led directly to nationwide martial law, while the other ―side‖ offers continuous military rule that still exists even after the re-election of their supposed ―opponents.‖ For Thai citizens, like their counterparts in other good cop/bad cop performances in states of exception throughout the world, the options for human freedom seem starkly limited (Marks 2005). Ritualized displays of order, social control technologies, and incrementally-increasing ―security‖ agendas seem to be the only games in town.
The Façade: Revisiting the Theatre State There is a feeling of rejoicing, but it is one of forced rejoicing. It is as if someone is beating you with a stick and telling you “your business is rejoicing!” over and over again. Eventually, you walk away muttering “my business is rejoicing.” Dmitri Shostakovich (Shostakovich & Volkov 1979)
469
Asserting that the ―rivalry‖ between the two most important opposing factions in current Thai politics is largely a false dichotomy raises the question of how conscious individual actors are in these performances of political theater. Are Thaksin-in-exile and Privy Councilor Prem in regular contact, plotting the intricacies of their next apparent political battle? Likely, no, although certain aspects of this supposedly oppositional political relationship might suggest otherwise. For example, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the initial figurehead leader after the coup and outgoing Deputy Prime Minister, had a ―brotherly‖ phone ―chat‖ with Thaksin Shinawatra in January 2008. In describing this intimate and friendly exchange, Sonthi said, ―In my opinion, the coup could not have happened without the public‘s support‖ (Nation 31 Jan 2008). Suriyasai Katasila secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Democracy suggested, ―This is clearly a case of political collusion by people at the top. They only think of their own space...It may be a power game played by people who have more power than Sonthi, and he has to comply‖ (Ibid.). Further suggesting this political deception, Democrat Party Abhisit Vejjajiva‘s announced in Feb 2008, that his party will set up a ―shadow government‖ to monitor the Samak-led coalition‘s performance (Kornchanok 31 Jan 2008). This term originated in NATO‘s ―stay-behind‖ forces in Italy after WWII in Operation Gladio revealing its alternate association: a secret government within the government. In the cold war era US, the ―Continuity of Operations Plan‖ created a shadow government structure which was enacted for the first time by the George W. Bush administration immediately after the 9-11 attacks. The structure involved more than a hundred officials from every department in the US Cabinet and executive branch in two secure East Coast Bunkers.
470 Key congressional members testified that they were not told that this shadow government structure had been enacted. In 2007, even members of the US House Committee on Homeland Security were denied access to the continuity of government plan. This international context illuminates Abhisit‘s statement regarding a Thai shadow government, ―Our party members will be selected to work along every ministry of Samak Sundaravej‖ (Ibid.). Is this a ―rival‖ political party or an occluded structure of unseen interests? Like the Thai Democrat‘s ―shadow government,‖ the state displays of order described in the preceding chapters can be seen as sophisticated façades: covert illusions surrounding a vast system of control. Like a muay Thai match in the boxing rings and arenas throughout Thailand, ―red‖ battles ―blue‖ interminably and interchangeably, while the most important battles are monetary and covert. The frenzied betting in the stands and the illegal ―fixes‖ that have already changed hands among coaches, military generals, and police watching the ring who already know the outcome before the rest of the ―spectators‖ are allowed to witness it. What is important is the performance of the spectacle; the display; the staged contest, reflecting a Geertzian cockfight: a deliberate simulation of the social matrix (Geertz 1973). Doubtless, there may be an inherent sublimity to the sheer audacity of the display, the calculated ruthlessness, the brutality, and even the beauty behind these staged spectacles. Walking through the lobby of my apartment house during APEC in 2003, on my way to observe what had become a nightly security spectacle, I saw the royal barge ceremony in the Chao Phraya River, ritually staged for the gaze of APEC‘s global elite. The image of these mythical gilded royal boats in the lobby‘s large flat screen television
471
Figure 96: Chao Phraya river spectacle during APEC 2003
filled me with something I was entirely unprepared for: awe. I was overpowered with the spectacle, a feeling which was exacerbated by the technological context in which I was viewing it: the otherworldly lighting, the quiet air conditioned comfort of the lobby, and the reproductive simulation of the flat screen conspired to create what I can only describe as a holographic experience. Like other anthropological encounters with extraordinary experience, this profound moment left me fundamentally altered (Young & Goulet 1994). I describe several such encounters elsewhere (Haanstad 2006), but this moment was less personally intimate as it was overwhelmingly indicative of the sublime, but mind-numbing power of the theater state. Moninque Skidmore describes this power within the context of the Burmese regime as ―karaoke fascism‖ (Skidmore 2004). Thailand‘s ―nation, religion, king‖ ethos is ideally suited to the production of this
472 peculiar regime of simulation (Baudrillard 1994). The institutionalization of statemandated devotion to these highly prescribed categories along with the suppression of criticism through lèse majesté laws, etc., demonstrates a proclivity towards fascism. Police are such an inherent part of the Thai ―shibboleth‖ of nation-religion-king (McCargo 11 Apr 2008), it is a bizarre turn of events that in the post-coup era they are somewhat associated with Thaksin‘s ―anti-royal‖ factions, much to the disgust and dismay of many police officers for whom devotion to the king is not only a duty, but a spiritual necessity. With Thai royalists asserting their political will and crafting their legitimacy to secure even more fervent public support in the form of ―yellow shirt fever,‖ Thai academics and scholars of Thailand (by which I mean us as well as them) are beginning to confront the internalization of such royalist myth-making. In many ways, this dissertation‘s previous fervent criticism of police, royalists, and globalists loses sight of emic perspectives that could be drawn from my Thai police ―informants.‖ In Vedic philosophy all experiences are maya (illusion), simultaneously ―real‖ and unreal. These are the spiritual underpinnings of the Thai national religious system, an amalgam of Theravada Buddhism, Hinduism and animism, and thus an emic construction of reality that can be internalized as my field experience. Geertz‘s ―webs of significance‖ (Geertz 1973:5) are compatible with the Thai religious worldview, as well as these symbolic (but not necessarily ―real‖) hyper-realities. In short, the police, royalists, and globalists I have often vilified in the above chapters are not only an aspect of the same consciousness, they are an aspect of ―my‖ own consciousness.
Order and Chaos in Human Consciousness In Fragment 123, Heraclitus says, “The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.” And in Fragment 54 he says, “Latent structure is master of obvious structure,” to which Edward Hussey adds, “Consequently, he
473 (Heraclitus) necessarily agreed…that reality was to some extent „hidden.‟” So if reality “[is] to some extent „hidden,‟” then what is meant by “theophany”? Because a theophany is an in-breaking of God, and an in-breaking which amounts to an invasion of our world; and yet our world is only seeming; it is only obvious structure,” which is under the mastery of unseen “latent structure.” Philip K. Dick (1987:29) The entire event transcends any true or false judgments. An entire event, with all of its probabilities included, obviously cannot fit within your current frame of reference. (Roberts & Seth 1974:459) Anthropology illuminates cultural constructions - the myriad of cultural patterns and choices, which despite centuries of colonialism and decades of homogenizing global capitalism masquerading as democracy, are still practiced and are still visible. Coupled with the ethnographic record, the nearly infinite variety of cultural constructions reveal kaleidoscopic social patterns; an almost arbitrary vibrancy of countless ways we can live and view life. The Buddhist and Hindu karmic worldview of most of the Thai police officers I study differs from John Locke‘s essay in 1690, reincarnating the ancient Greek Stoic concept of the newborn mind as a tabula rasa, the ―blank slate‖ inscribed by life and culture. Nevertheless, the Buddhists, Hindus, Stoics, and Enlightenment philosophers could perhaps agree that humans are not enslaved by an instinctual, animalistic, bloodthirsty, Hobbesian human nature. Contrary to the worldview heralded constantly by the all-seeing media eye, that we are surrounded by killers, terrorists and Machiavellian reality-TV contestants, we see less evidence of this propaganda in our own lives and lives of those we study. Perhaps it is disingenuous the preceding focus on coercive and often-maniacal state campaigns of public order that are largely exercises of fear, deception, and death. This focus is perhaps a deception of its own, and reveals the limitations of language as
474 much as the limitations of a culture of academic thought that often rewards an obsession with the negative. The countless blessings I received while conducting fieldwork, the smiles, the favors, the kind words, the courtesies, and the benefits of human kindness, often from Thai police officers themselves, are rarely recounted in my research, lost to a focus on often-deceptive forms of social control. I can only justify this misrepresentation with the assertion that after nearly a decade of research into this topic, I am convinced that these displays of order are not a national phenomenon confined to Thailand, but are evident internationally for the purpose of regional, and eventually, global control. Since the 2006 coup, Thailand is a country ruled by martial law, and the Western nations that continue to ―professionalize‖ its police and military are also burgeoning police states in themselves, if not officially by name. Nevertheless, despite what amounts to an increasingly desperate global political situation where manufactured threats, provocateurship, and intentionally divisive policies leading us into nothing less than a global police state, it is still useful to keep in mind how these possible realities are maya themselves. They are the necessary drama upon which the wheel of existence turns. The essential unity of the binaries of chaos and order, dark and light, one and zero is as evident in the apparent conflict between the liberating consciousness and the global surveillance state as it is in the seductive dualism of yin and yang (Baudrillard 1990). In short, the near-paralyzing depravity of the darkest recesses of the covert netherworld is merely one aspect of a unified consciousness experiencing itself subjectively (Hicks 11 Nov 1993). It is easy to lose sight of these admittedly abstract concepts when faced with the sheer horror of the capabilities and proclivities of the postmodern theater state. Eric
475 Olson, the son of Frank Olson, a US Dept. of Army employee who was unwittingly dosed with LSD as part of the CIA‘s MK ULTRA program in 1953 said, People have been so brainwashed by fiction…so brainwashed by the Tom Clancy thing they think, ‗We know this stuff. We know the CIA does this.‘ Actually, we know nothing of this. There‘s no case of this, and all this fictional stuff is like an immunization against reality. It makes people think they know things that they don‘t know and it enables them to have a kind of superficial quasi-sophistication and cynicism which is just a thin layer beyond which they‘re not cynical at all (Ronson 2004). US ―Spymaster,‖ Allen Dulles, told a Princeton alumni group in 1953, ―Mind warfare is the great battlefield of the Cold War and we have to do whatever it takes to win this (Ronson 2004). The ―Ordo Ab Chao‖ (―Order Out of Chaos‖) motto of secret societies and SWAT teams, is often described as a politicized Hegelian dialectic: problemreaction-solution. James Arthur describes the motto simply, ―Agendas are formulated designed to give the powerful more power. Chaos is created, and media blitzed. Then cries go out for solution. Laws are passed which could never have been passed without the chaos. The order, has reigned through deception of the masses, and the agenda is accomplished‖ (2000:40). The prevalence of this technique of covert statecraft is matched only by the ubiquity of chaos and its inherent unpredictability. As cryptovisionary Terrence McKenna opines, The real truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control, absolutely no one. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. There may be entities seeking control, but to seek control is to take enormous aggravation upon yourself. It's like trying to control a dream (13 Dec 1998). Perhaps intuitively aware of this dynamic, retired Thai police general Wasit Dejkunchorn — who wields enough continual influence in Thai state circles that a proposed 2007 police reform bill was known as ―Wasit‘s version‖ — wrote a revealingly-titled book Police Reform: Dream or Materializing Reality? (Patirup tamruat: fan ru cha penjing?)
476 (2007).91 As this dissertation demonstrates, the political alchemy of the police state forms and reforms in the crucible of chaos and order, a vessel containing its own construction of material reality and ephemeral dream.
91
The phrase I‘ve translated as ―materializing reality‖ (―Ja penjing‖) also translates to ―will come true‖ or something that ―will be realized.‖
477
NOTES
Figure 97: ―Wellcome‘s world: how the jigsaw fits.‖ From Brian Deer's investigation, ―Hard Sell‖ (Deer 27 Feb 1994).
478
Figure 98: Astronomical cross-quarter days, and their relationship to solstice and equinox points.
479
Figure 99 Above: US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) OPERATION COMMUNITY SHIELD, 19-29 July 2005. Left: DHS Secretary, Michael Chertoff announces the Operation at an ICE press briefing.
480
Figure 100: An APEC road closure map and timetable, would serve as a strategic boon to would-be ―terrorist planners‖ (Yuwadee & Manop 8 Oct 2003).
481
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