THAILAND: DRUG WAR II HAS STARTED

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DRUG WAR II HAS STARTED

The second wave of skewed statistics underway

The Northern Narcotics Control Office (NNCO) reports that it is ready to
launch the second War on Drug campaign, and has more than 4,600 suspects on
the blacklists.

This time, the NNCO officers would seek more cooperation from
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local residents as sources of
information rather than just the official government sources.

The director of NNCO, Pithaya Jinawat, said that following the first War on
Drugs campaign last year, held in compliance with the government's policy,
more than 23,000 drug dealers were stopped, of which 7,000 dealers were
killed and the other 16,000 dealers surrendered to the authorities. These
dealers came from the names of 101,000 drug traffickers on the blacklists.

He expressed thanks and gratefulness to the Third Army Region commander and
the border patrol police (BBP) for their assistance in the drug suppression,
arrests and confiscation of properties.

During this second War on Drugs campaign, each district has been instructed
to build up a strong community liaison to monitor the drug situation, while
the Department of Local Administration should monitor all government
officials, especially the Power of the People volunteers.

During Drug War I, many those involved with drugs came from those
volunteers, he said. Many of them had purchased fake ID cards.

In this second operation, which will run from March 8 - June 8, 2004, the
office has collected more than 4,600 names of drug dealers. This operation
is being carefully and covertly implemented because some dealers could hire
top lawyers to plead their cases, leading the courts to dismiss the charges.

Director Pithaya also spoke on the case of the Chiang Mai Provincial
Administration Organization member for Hot district, saying that further
steps would be taken to prove his guilt and ensure punishment. He insinuated
that this case was involved with not only police but also some prominent
organizations.

He was also looking to China and Burma to provide cooperation on this
serious issue. He finally noted that when they received enough details this
would result in more arrests of the drug dealers.

With 101,000 names on the blacklist in Drug War I and only 23,000 accounted
for (7,000 killed), this leaves 78,000 still at large. This time, the figure
is given as only 4,600 suspects on the Drug War II blacklist, which prompts
the question as to what happened to the other 73,400?