Ask most Australians what they know about the south of Thailand, and they will probably think of beautiful beaches and island sunsets.
But Thailand’s south is also a place of intense political violence, as a trio of human rights groups have just revealed.
In a new 120-page report, the Cross-Cultural Foundation, the Duay Jai Group and the Patani Human Right Organisation recount the use of torture by military and paramilitary personnel in the south.
Drawing on careful documentation from 54 cases - 32 within the past two years - the groups present a grim picture of conditions in Thai military and paramilitary custody.
Within 24 hours, a spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command...had denounced the report and threatened its authors.
Among the types of torture detailed are mock executions, sexual assault, electrocutions, beatings, and the use of stress positions, extreme temperatures, loud noises, dogs and other means to terrorise detainees accused of involvement or contact with separatists in the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia.
Disturbingly, the report notes that soldiers torture detainees not only at army camps but also in a variety of other sites, including at the compounds of some Buddhist temples where they are stationed.
When the rights groups released the report at an event last Wednesday, prominent human rights lawyer Somchai Homlaor stressed that it was “not the intent of the report to discredit the performance of security officers in Thailand”. Rather, the groups are concerned that the continued use of torture by the military in the south make everyone less secure.
The army did not see it that way.
Within 24 hours, a spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command, a counterinsurgency unit known for its history of violence with impunity going back to the 1960s, had denounced the report and threatened its authors.
Major General Banpot Poonpien said that the groups had fabricated the stories of torture to attract funding from abroad. He asked what mandate they had to investigate state officers’ work. And he warned that their appeals to international law, rather than domestic processes, might be defamatory.
Torture is not a crime in Thailand. On the contrary, laws mostly protect perpetrators.
The major general may be unaware that as a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, the government of Thailand is already committed to make its domestic law comply with international standards.
But although Thailand has agreed on paper to eliminate torture, in practice it has done nothing towards this goal.
Human rights groups, among them the Asian Human Rights Commission, have documented the use of torture by the military and paramilitaries in Thailand for decades.
The mandate for this work is the mandate of universal human rights. In Thailand it is an essential mandate, because there, like most other countries in Asia, no state institutions have ever taken responsibility to investigate and prevent torture.
Torture is not a crime in Thailand. On the contrary, laws mostly protect perpetrators. Additionally, any time survivors of torture talk about it, superior officers rise to defend their subordinates and threaten complainants.
A wave of new accounts of torture in army camps and at so-called safe houses followed the coup of 2014. Not only in the south, but also in Bangkok and other parts of the country, torture got a fillip with the army’s latest power grab.
Perhaps Australians should be asking their government some critical questions about the backing it gives Thailand’s military.
The coup and subsequent reports of human rights abuses brought the usual mouthing of concern and downgrading of official ties by governments abroad. But for the most part, foreign relations with Thailand have been unaffected by events of the last couple of years.
The Australian government maintains especially close relations with its Thai counterpart.
Australia’s armed forces join together in high level talks and exercises, and Thai army officers receive training in Canberra. Australian soldiers cooperate with their peers in Thailand to the tune of some $5.7 million of taxpayers’ money annually.
Perhaps Australians should be asking their government some critical questions about the backing it gives Thailand’s military.
Why, after decades of close cooperation, are the Australian armed forces still seemingly unperturbed when their Thai comrades torture with impunity?
Maybe it is about time that Australia’s support for the Thai army is tied to discernible improvements of human rights on the ground.
Australians could start by insisting that the government of Thailand pass a law to give the Convention Against Torture effect in domestic law, and set up a special agency to investigate and prosecute perpetrators.
They should also demand that for all the dollars spent on the Thai army, a comparable amount go to groups dealing with the damage that torture has caused to people’s lives, whether survivors or their families.
Above all, Australians need to be much stronger in their insistence that Thailand’s army depart from politics and remain confined to the barracks. Until then, it will be hard to envisage a Thailand free from torture.
Basil Fernando is the director of policies and programs at the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong.
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