Thailand rounding up its own people into camps

Drug addicts in Thailand will be treated next week

The Ministry of Interior has picked next week to get all drug addicts across Thailand clean. Deputy Permanent Secretary for Interior Mr Surapong Pongtadsirikul has disclosed that there are approximately 30,000 drug addicts who have not been treated so far since the 3rd phase of the drugs eradication program has begun.

During 20-27 February, 2011, drug abusers in Bangkok will be brought to the rehabilitation centers to get clean. There will be those who are encouraged to receive treatment on their freewill and those who will be forced against their will. A rehabilitation camp will be open for addicts elsewhere in Thailand where a rehab center is scarce.

This, remember, is a country with a history of abusing and killing its citizens in its internal drug wars.

The International Harm Reduction Association and other NGO’s have responded:

A coalition of international and Thai health and human rights organisations have voiced their fears that the Thai government’s planned round up of people it suspects are using drugs will trample on human rights and potentially rekindle widespread abuses of vulnerable people.

The organisations responded to an official announcement that the Ministry of the Interior intends to force thousands of people suspected of using drugs into detention centres and keep their names on official registries for future monitoring.

In a letter to the Thai government, the organisations wrote, “These plans for mass detention and forced treatment raise considerable human rights concerns, especially given Thailand’s history of nationwide punitive and ineffective anti-drug campaigns…there is no way for the Government to implement a campaign to forcibly ‘treat’ tens of thousands of people who use drugs without widespread human rights abuses taking place.”

So, where is Yury Fedotov and the UNODC? Why aren’t they jumping in to stop this abuse? Do human rights not matter?

And where is the U.S. State Department? They’ve got no problem jumping in to object to Bolivia’s innocuous amendment about coca. Where’s their objection to this?

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15 Responses to Thailand rounding up its own people into camps

  1. Outlier says:

    This is not something we can stand for. The drug policy reform groups need an action alert ASAP. Call your representatives and Senators and let them know that the United States needs to take diplomatic action to prevent this. Also you can call Senator Kerry who as head of the foreign relations committee needs to be aware of this. His DC office number is 202-224-2742.

  2. DdC says:

    The US Drug War Against the Akha People

    “On to the CND itself UNODC Director Antonio Maria Costa noted the successes of international drug control (in his opening address) in limiting deaths associated with illicit drugs… He urged European governments to increase pressure to reduce demand for drugs, and warned that societies have the drug problems they deserve…he had also said this at a high level drug policy meeting in early February, and I was shocked by the brutality of this comment.”

    The US Drug War Creates Mass Death of the Akha (Thailand) 2006

    From Disease and Starvation. Death Rate As High as 20% in Some Villages. Forced Relocations, No Land, No Food, No Jobs. Data Supported by Independent International Reports.

    Use Google to Search This Site.
    There Are Hundreds of Drug War Articles in News

    Pics: 1. An Akha woman with a baby who has had fever several days. 10 children died in this village of fever or intestinal upset in the last year. Most children in these villages are not protected by mosquito nets.
    2. Now with little land and no income, food for children is scarce. Milk is unheard of.
    3. Many children are sick.
    4. Severe poverty haunts villagers after the David J. Wise Drug War.

    US DRUG WAR DEATH PICS –
    Killings Paid For With YOUR Tax Dollars

    Official UN Filing UNOHCHR, Geneva –
    Detailed Case Accounts of the Killings

    The US Drug War is the only governmental policy of ANY country that directly results in the death of Akha people. Up to 20% of some villages died as a direct result of the US drug war.

    The US Drug War has a violent effect on Akha communities that goes beyond just police prosecution of would be offenders. Military and police violence against the Akha has been a standard event in Thailand. Extra-judicial killings and killings for no reason are what the Akha expect.

    The US Drug War has served the Thais well as a convenient cover for these acts that go back thirty years. A clean line between hill tribe drug running and police-army drug running has never been made.

    Documenting corpses first hand, or beaten prisoners, illustrates the level of brutality against the Akha in Thailand by Thai police and army. The effects of this brutality is that these security forces can get away with many other acts, and it aids Forestry in taking away the rice lands. The Akha become afraid to speak out. Enforcement in this way increases prostitution and trafficking in persons.

    The criminalization of drugs in the Akha region, a place that Americans aggressively exported drugs FROM, has the effect of ethnic cleansing, giving the local authorities every excuse to “please America” and at the same time do what they want to the locals. If the same aggressive methods were used in Bangkok among Thais, the country would need several more prisons to hold all the people and the whole issue would get true scrutiny.

    Obama Should See the Human Cost of his Drug War in Asia

    Akha Dying Like Flies in Laos
    David J. Wise, Robert Gelbard –
    “Architects of Death” for the Akha of Laos

    While Americans live in relatives security, with refrigerators full, individuals in the US Government set policies in motion around the world which bring about the deaths of thousands of people, their only fault being that they are not on America’s “protected specie” list.

    If you have information to add to the situation on the Akha in Laos please contact us.

    David J. Wise
    Architect of Death for the Akha in Laos
    Search David Wise – Some Material

    The US Govt. is not elected to run the governments of any of these countries, so it is a mystery how the US can come in and set up policies that kill people who never voted for them?

    ONGOING CASES
    The Global War on Tribes Dec. 6, 2010

    In this article by Zoltan Grossman, the empire building intentions of the US are clearly spelled out, making sense of missionary behavior in Thailand among the Akha. No independent indigenous left to themselves to rule themselves, take over everything, gain control of the resources. The self happy missionary can think they are doing some good for Jesus but in the end they are the ones that don’t know that they are being used by a machine to deprive the indigenous of everything they have. Despite glaring proof of what is going on, such as this article, missionaries willingly go along or buy deeper and deeper into denial of what is going on. They supervise genocide, they implement genocide, they are the field agents of genocide and have no escape from their deeds.

    US PRAISES THAI DRUG WAR!
    (several older links need converted or google.)

    “What marijuana can do is help you enjoy life through better health by providing relief for a wide variety of ailments that very often afflict people over fifty.”
    – Evan Keliher

    Nothing to think about…

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    ………./’/…/…./……./\
    ……..(‘(…(……..,~/’…’)
    ………\……………..\/…./
    ……….”…\………. _.
    …………\…………..(
    …………..\………….\

  3. Pingback: Tweets that mention Thailand rounding up its own people into camps « Drug WarRant -- Topsy.com

  4. Scott Northcutt says:

    Content deleted. Spam.

    • KingEup says:

      Kill dealers so we create job vacancies for new dealers?

      Why would I, or anyone, support a job creation scheme for drug dealers?

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        That post was spam King Eup. Notice the ad for “generic Cialis”.

        King Eup? I don’t even know how to pronounce that. Would it be King Oop? or King eYup? King yoop? Are you any kin to King Tut? Somebody stole his penis you know. No fooling:

        http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2010/07/king_tuts_penis_its_missing_from_him_and_the_new_dam_exhibit.php

        “But one thing you probably won’t find anywhere is Tut’s penis. That’s because it’s apparently missing, possibly because it was teeny-weenie.

        That’s the scoop from New Scientist reporter Jo Marchant, who discovered that the penis seemed to have been removed from the body at some point after the mummy was first unwrapped in 1922. The reporter believes the reason may be because Tut could have suffered from from Antley-Bixler syndrome, a mutation that leads to, among other things, elongated skulls and poorly developed genitalia.

        In other words, Tut’s fans didn’t want people making fun of the size of his, ahem, sphinx.”
        .
        .
        “After all, no one seems to know where, exactly, the penis is these days. Its last appearance seems to have been in 1968, when a CT scan discovered it hidden in the sand surrounding the mummy.”

        I think they need to offer an NQA reward for information leading it’s recovery.

        Here’s another king with the same problem, but this guy found his:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDss8V2OME4

  5. darkcycle says:

    Duncan, I might pay $9.95 to join THAT discussion….

  6. Tony Aroma says:

    Why would we object? It’s not that different than what we do here in the good ol’ US of A. Instead of “rounding up,” we call it arresting, and instead of “camps,” we call them prisons. At least rehab is part of the Thai process, as opposed to just punishment here. Now that I think about it, the Thai government should be objecting to our treatment of drug users.

    • darkcycle says:

      I believe the “treatment” for people convicted of drug offenses in Thailand is a bullet in the back of the head. Granted, it will end the user’s troubles with drugs, but don’t you think that model is a little extreme?
      I think the “treatment” talked about in Pete’s post is really rounding up “undesireables” and forcing them off to camps without any due process.

    • Paul says:

      Tony:

      Absolutely right. I was just about to post pretty much the same thing you just said.

      What matters is the result, not the process. We keep yapping about due process, rights, and the majesty of the law, but the result is more than 2 million in prison, most of them black. And millions upon millions who have been hassled by the Man, marked as criminals for life, and financially ruined.

      Ignore the talk, and watch the actions. It’s difficult, because the media and the politicians are constantly putting forth their ideas, spin and propaganda, but if you just keep your eye on the results, you will see clearly.

      This is not to excuse Thailand from what it is doing. Last time I checked the chart, Thailand was the world’s number four jailer by either percentage of population or in absolutely numbers (I cant’ remember which). By comparison, the U.S. is number one in both.

      America cannot be both the Land of the Free and the world’s top jailer at the same time.

  7. Kp99 says:

    You say that one of the reasons marijuana is illegal is because of ‘Personal Career Advancement and Greed’ can anyone tell me how they can advance in their career unfairly through marijuana? Thanks.

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