In the most recent batch of Wikileaks cables released over the past few days, two in particular caught our attention. Both are related to human rights in Thailand. After all of the events in the South and long records of human rights violations by the military, police and Border Patrol Police, PPT just finds these cables startling for the light they throw on the U.S.’s lack of official concern for human rights. Of course, we have read Chomsky, so we know, but we never cease to be amazed when we see the “system” at work:
The first cable is about human rights screening for Exercise Balance Torch which was to be held from 11 April to 3 June 2005.
As authorized per Ref A, U.S. Embassy Bangkok verifies that the Department of State possesses no credible information of gross violations of human rights by any of the Thai units listed in Para 2, as of this date. Embassy Bangkok’s Political Officer Robert J. Clarke is the verifying officer for the Department of State.
… Selected units are:
ROYAL THAI BORDER PATROL POLICE (BPP)
– 4th Region BPP Headquarters Combat Patrol Unit
– 4th Region BPP Headquarters Sub-Division
– BPP Region IV Headquarters, Songkhla
– BPP Battalion, Sub-Division 41, Region IV, Chomphon
– BPP Battalion, Sub-Division 42, Region IV, Nakhon Si Thammarat
– 4th BPP Sub-Division 43
– BPP Battalion, Sub-Division 44, Region IV, Yala
– BPP Training Battalion, Sub-Division 8, Region IV, Nakhon Si Thammarat
– BPP Training Battalion, Sub-Division 9, Region IV, Songkhla
PROVISIONAL NARCOTICS SUPPRESSION BUREAU
– NSB Division 1, Sub-Division 5 – Surat Thani, Phuket, Songkhla, Narathiwat
– NSB Division 2, Sub-Division 5 – Chompun, Krabi, Hat Yai
OFFICE OF NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD (ONCB)
– Regional Narcotics Control Center (South)
ROYAL THAI MARINE POLICE (RTMP)
– Royal Thai Marine Police, Sub-Division 3, Surat Thani
– Royal Thai Marine Police, Sub-Division 4, Songkhla
– Royal Thai Marine Police, Sub-Division 5, Phuket
BOYCE
The second cable also relates to Exercise Balance Torch.
JUSMAGTHAI has requested that the Embassy/State Department complete human rights vetting for units that have been selected to participate in Exercise Balance Torch (BT) 05-2 from 11 April – 3 June 2005. To meet internal DOD advance deployment deadlines, they have requested that the review of human rights reports and files be completed no later than eight weeks prior to the exercise, if possible.
… The Embassy possesses no credible evidence that any of the units listed below in paragraph four have committed gross violations of human rights. The Embassy has important information, contained in paragraph 5, about one of the units. Please advise whether the Department has any relevant information on the units listed in paragraph four below.
… Participants in the Exercise are as follows:
ROYAL THAI ARMY UNITS
Special Warfare Command, 1st Special Forces Division, 1st Special Forces Regiment – (approx. 20 personnel)
1st Army Area, 1st Infantry Division, 1st Infantry Regiment (approx. 440 personnel)
2nd Army Area, 3rd Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Regiment (approx. 220 personnel)
4th Army Area, 5th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Regiment (approx. 220 personnel)
ROYAL THAI NAVY
HQ, Special Warfare Group (approx. 50 personnel)
¶5. Thai media reports indicated that members of the 25th Infantry Regiment were involved in the April 28, 2004 assault upon militants holding the Krue Sae Mosque in Pattani Province. 32 militants who had occupied the mosque and who were part of a series of regional attacks against Thai Government institutions and murders of Thai officials were killed by Thai special forces who stormed and retook the mosque. An independent commission was set up by the Royal Thai Government to investigate the incident and concluded that excessive force was used in retaking the mosque. The investigation did not/not name the 25th Infantry Division as having committed human rights violations. MG Surapun Wongthai, G-3 for the Royal Thai Army, has assured JUSMAGTHAI that no members of the 25th Infantry Division have been implicated, or are expected to be implicated, with excesses associated with retaking the mosque. Post notes that an added feature of the training these units will receive in this exercise is an expanded human rights training course. Embassy Bangkok Political Counselor Robert J. Clarke is the verifying officer for the Embassy/Department of State.
BOYCE
Not one human rights violation to be found amongst this group of police and military!
Well, at least one action in the South is mentioned (and then defended and ticked off)…. We might add that, by 2010, many of these units had been involved in several more events that call into question their human rights records, in the South and in violently putting down protesters in 2009 and 2010.
Update: And if readers thought that more serious vetting might have been taking place, see this cable:
¶1. (U) DOD (OSD/POLICY), per Ref A, has requested that the Embassy/State Department complete further human rights vetting for the 25th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division, 4th Army Area, a unit that has been selected to participate in Exercise Balance Torch (BT) 05-2 scheduled from 11 April – 3 June 2005.
¶2. (U) The Embassy has reviewed its previous vetting (Ref C) on the 25th Infantry Regiment, and made additional inquiries of an academic and an NGO that monitor human rights abuses involving security forces in Thailand. The Embassy possesses no credible evidence that the 25th Infantry Regiment or its personnel have committed gross violations of human rights. Please advise whether the Department has any relevant information on this unit.
¶3. (U) Embassy Bangkok Political Counselor Robert J. Clarke is the verifying officer for the Embassy/Department of State.
BOYCE
The stated vetting includes: media reports, a Thai government report that has already been seen as a whitewash, one academic and one NGO, with the latter two only completed as a follow-up. Not even Tak Bai and the War on Drugs are considered. Remarkably shoddy work, perhaps deliberately so give the U.S.’s long engagement with the main human rights abusers in Thailand – the military and the police.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 