Bodies Dumped--20 People Killed and Dumped in Creek in Northern Thailand by Phairath Khampha 9 February 2002 Up to 20 people believed to be migrant workers from Myanmar were killed under mysterious circumstances last week and their bodies dumped in a creek in northeastern Thailand. Residents of Wan Phar village spotted seven bodies on January 30, 2002 and seven more the next day, floating in the Mae Ra Mao creek in Tak province, said Thongmuang Sittikaew, the village headman. It appeared that they had been stabbed and shot to death, Thongmuang said. None of them had any clothes on and all looked to be rather young, he said. The dead were Karen migrant farm laborers who were killed by their Thai employer to avoid paying them wages for the one year they had worked. Later, two more Kareni bodies were found. In a demonstration of how racist society still is, the local police when initially informed of the slain bodies by villagers living nearby, did not bother to investigate after learning that those who died were members of an ethnic minority. There was a fear that heightened official rhetoric in Thailand against the perhaps million-strong Lao population scraping a desperate living in the country has encouraged some Thais to feel that such "unwanted guests" get what they deserve. "We've been expecting something like this to happen. There is an ugly mood around. We've warned all refugees not to leave the camps," said one Karen refugee official forced to live in exile. Even by the brutal standards of endemic cross-border violence, this appeared a particularly nasty crime. Karen, Thai and Western observers in the area said that although widespread forced labour, compulsory bribes and taxes and numerous extra-judicial killings had driven countless thousands of Karen in Laos towards the Thai border, this elaborate massacre was not something either Laotians or Karen were likely to have carried out. "In Burma [and Laos] you can get a bullet but not usually like this. This is gangster stuff of the kind only Thais normally dream up," said one international human rights worker. "These people are so vulnerable it's quite possible they were killed for simply demanding their pay. Maybe they were someone's surplus workers. This is all too cmmon among Thai businessmen." More than a million, mostly Karen, refugees live in camps in Thailand supported by international aid organisations. "Fatigued" Thai governments have flatly refused to consider expanding this number, which means even the most desperate possess at best temporary work cards; at worst they find themselves in the hands of crude gangsters. The Government of Thaksin Shinawatra has engaged in a campaign to have all the "surplus" Laotians pushed back across the border. The refugees in official camps appear safe for the moment but underground workers - frequently labelled "diseased" and "criminal" by officials - are clearly vulnerable. If they refuse or create trouble during their expulsion, a "final solution" is adopted. Thailand's Labour Ministry announced on February 6 that it would start vigorous new raids, in co-operation with the security forces, to round up illegal workers. The irony, said one Thai businessman in Mae Sot, was that for all the furore over illegal immigrants, many businesses would collapse if they could not employ cheap foreign labourers prepared to do the dirty jobs Thais turn down. "Its our big secret. Thais won't do this kind of work [picking fruit, cleaning fish, sewing shirts] for reasonable money. We need these people and they are desperate to come here. That's why they will come back and that's why we will employ them and that is why some of us need to kill them when their cost to us become too high." Local officials, being part of the scam, did nothing to retrieve the bodies and eventually the villagers, unable to bear the stench, pushed them downstream with poles toward Moei River where they sank without trace, Thongmuang said. The village is 4 kilometres from Moei river, which forms the border between Thailand and Myanmar. The area is 370 kilometres northeast of Bangkok. Border patrol police began a search for the bodies in the river on February 3 after the news was published in Bangkok newspapers. The official apathy was apparently due to the fact that the victims--seven women and seven men--were not Thais and that some of the officials were somehow involved in the scam. From their facial characteristics, they appeared to be ethnic Karen people from neighboring Myanmar, Thongmuang said. He said the villagers got a Karen guerrilla army operating across the border in Myanmar to inspect the bodies, but their leader, Maung Chit Thu, said the dead did not belong to his group. Villagers said they heard sounds of shooting on January 28 near the hamlet of Sob Hwe Par Pong, also on the banks of Mae Ra Mao creek. The dead were Karen migrant farm laborers who were killed by their Thai employer to avoid paying them wages for the one year they had worked. Migrant workers are paid at the end of their contract, which is usually for a year. This is not all the uncommon in Thailand's corrupt, immoral society. Or, they could have been hired to do criminal activities and were killed after the job was done, said officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. Labour smuggling links seen - 4 killed in similar manner in 2001 A conflict about illegal workers or drugs was probably behind the murder of 14 Karen workers whose bodies were dumped in a stream, police say. Pol Maj-Gen Winai Nilsri, commander of the Border Patrol Police Region 3, said police were looking at two possible motives: conflicts in the drug trade or smuggling of illegal migrants. The seven men and seven women were aged from 14-45. Pol Maj-Gen Winai said that in a similar case in 2001, the bodies of four alien workers were found floating in a stream. Police investigations found the victims had been killed by a job brokerage gang which lured them to work in Thailand. The gang slashed the workers' throats after getting brokerage fees from them. Pol Col Saksin Klansanoh, commander of the 13th special task force, said illegal smuggling of alien workers was rampant in Mae Ramat district and this sort of thing was not unusual. Thongmuan Sitthikaew, head of Wang Pha village in the district, said the victims were illegal workers. Two more Karen found The dead bodies of two more Karen men were found on february 4 in Mae Lamao stream in Mae Sot district, Mae Sot police said. Pol Lt-Col Ampol Wongyai, deputy superintendent of Mae Sot police station, said the victims had their throats cut like those found on February 2. The two bodies were sent to Mae Sot hospital for an autopsy. Tas Jaipanta, a villager who found the two bodies, said he believed the victims were illegal workers from Burma. Local security officials believe the victims were killed because they had witnessed illegal activities while administrative officials suspected a conflict over wages. Lt-Col Maung Chit Tu, a battalion commander of the pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, said no villagers under his care were reported missing. Official indifference to Karen deaths Thailand's ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires, among other obligations, that it undertake to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction, the rights recognised in the Covenant, without distinction of any kind such as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Seen in this light, the Thai authorities' handling of the massacre of the 20 minority ethnic Kareni was disgraceful, taken into consideration one of the paramount rights recognised in the covenant - the right to life. In a demonstration of how racist Thai society still is, local police when initially informed of the slain bodies by villagers living nearby, did not bother to investigate after learning that those who died were members of an ethnic minority. This forced the villagers to push the bodies down the Moei river in order to get rid of the stench, making it even more difficult for the local police after they decided they had better investigate when number of dead rose to 20. The police's reluctance to investigate the death of the 20 Karen ethnic villagers - who were blindfolded and with their hands and feet bound, their throats cut and decomposed beyond recognition - was appalling. Sadly, this has stemmed from indifference by the Thai authorities to people of ethnic minorities. Consequently, Interior Minister Purachai Piumsomboon had to order the police to get more involved in the case. But this was only after the story started to appear in the internaitonal media. Otherwise, no one could car eless. The police chief, meanwhile, tried to comfort the public by saying no Thais were among the 20 dead. But that was not the point. What is pertinent here is the crucial provision under the covenant, ratified by Thailand, which stipulates that every human being has an inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her life. Thus, the crucial issue is the protection of all people under Thailand's jurisdiction, regardless of race or country of origin. One of the strongest theories about the deaths - repeatedly told to reporters by police - was that the victims were part of an illegal activity and that they were killed as a warning to others not to mess around with the mastermind. The suggestion here is that the killings were only of concern to the people involved - in other words, their business - and that it would be a waste of time for the police to investigate. Which, given how lawless Thailand often is and how corrupt the police and other government authorities are, is pretty well always the case. Another theory suggested by police was that the 20 slain Karen villagers, seven of them women, were involved in a local business which illegally trafficked labourers from Burma. It appears, a fact that the police seemed not too keen to discuss, perhaps because they had a hand in the affair, that they were illegal migrants who had worked for years without being paid and were killed by their employers. Whatever the real reason behind the fate of the 20 Karen, one thing was certain: their inherent dignity as human beings and their inherent right to life were violated. As one of the state parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Thailand understands full well that it is obliged to undertake to ensure that any person, including the 20 Karen ethnic villagers in this case, whose rights or freedom are violated, shall have an effective remedy. The effective remedy, in this case, would justice for those who died. It is the obligation of the police to find the people behind these brutal slayings and prosecute them, and then eliminate any illegal operations that put human lives at risk. But given that the perpetrators a undoubtably members of the economic and political elite, the Thai police will just let sleeping dogs lie. In any way, life is very cheap in Thailand. So who could care less? Investigation urged into mass murder of 20 Karens The network of foreign labour rights groups urged the National Human Rights Committee to look into the mass murder of the Karens found dead in the stream in Tak province. Fourteen local groups under the network of NGOs working for foreign workers and families in Thailand on February 8 publicised an open letter demanding the National Human Rights Committee's probe the deaths of the 20 Karens whose bodies were found in the stream of Mae Ramat district. The letter demonstrated attempts had been made to make the public believe the Karens were murdered in Burma although their bodies were found afloat in a Mae Ramat stream flowing into the Moei river. The groups were annoyed by press statements made by some border patrol police officers who said it was common for illegal immigrants to be killed in such a manner. The network urged the authorities to take serious action and bring the culprits to justice under international laws on civic and political rights, children's rights, and anti-discrimination against women rather than allow these sorts of killings to continue with impunity. This suggests the Thais are still rather uncivilized, backward and barbaric. Border closed as inquiry ordered - Hundreds of police brought in to help The Thai army shut border checkpoints in Mae Sot and Mae Ramat districts while an inquiry continued into the unexplained deaths of the people whose bodies were found. A major investigation has been set up into the murders, involving hundreds of police from Mae Sot, Mae Ramat and Tha Song Yang districts and border patrol police from the 345th and 346th companies. They were ordered to establish the motive for the killings. The Thai military and Burmese authorities in Myawaddy were co-operating. The border closure was ordered on February 10 by Lt-Gen Udomchai Ongkhasing, the Third Army commander. Pol Maj-Gen Sewek Pinsinchai, the provincial police chief, said crossings at Wang Kaew and Mae Kit Mai villages in Mae Sot district and Wang Pha village in Mae Ramat district were temporarily closed. The murder investigation was being headed by Pol Lt-Gen Boonpen Bampenboon, he said. ``At least 10 people have been interrogated,'' Pol Maj-Gen Sawek said. ``We suspect either smuggling of workers or drug trafficking across the border was the motive. As far as we know, those killed were not Thais. We are trying to determine if they were killed at the spot where their bodies were found, or taken there from elsewhere.'' On January 27, before the first seven bodies were found, 61 illegal Burmese immigrants were arrested by local authorities and troops near Mae Phasa village in Mae Sot district. They were led to the village from the border by Som Jaikaewthi, 33, and were about to go separately to various provinces for jobs. Those arrested were handed over to the Tak immigration office pending deportation. Mr Som was charged with smuggling aliens into the country. Shortly afterwards, it was reported that Thai and Burmese job brokers met near the village. A few days later the first seven bodies were found. The Mae Lamao stream supplies tap water for the village so the residents dumped the 14 bodies downstream, where they would float down into the Moei river.