By Max Constant
BANGKOK
A massive purge within the Thai police force continued Thursday after the junta chief-cum-prime minister gave southern officials 10 days to clean up all human trafficking camps following the discovery of mass migrant graves.
The Nation reported that 38 police officers were “transferred to inactive posts” -- a Thai euphemism for disciplinary sanction -- in the provinces of Songkhla, Ranong and Satun after dozens of corpses of Muslim Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were found near the Malaysian border. Those transferred included officers from the immigration and the marine police.
The move brings the number of sanctioned police to more than 50 as 13 officers -- including Satun’s police chief -- were punished earlier this week.
The number of Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals suspected to have died at the hands of smuggling gangs rose to 32 on Wednesday when six more victims were discovered on a forested hill in Sadao district in Songkhla.
The corpses, buried in shallow graves, were found around 4 kilometers from a trafficking camp discovered last Friday, which contained 26 bodies.
Police General Putichat Ekkachan, the southern region’s deputy-police chief, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday that a total of 18 arrest warrants were issued in connection to human trafficking, with 11 of those wanted -- including five local officials – already being arrested.
Earlier in the day, deputy-government spokesman General Sansern Kaewkamnerd had told the Bangkok Post that under General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s 10-day deadline, officials would be penalized if illegal detention camps were found after the set date.
“Local authorities are required to report to the government via the provincial administration department chief if they find any state official involved and cannot deal with the problem,” he said.
Initial signs of military involvement in smuggling activities have also begun emerging.
Thailand’s army chief General Udomdej Sitabutr told reporters Wednesday that a Songkhla-based regiment commander had been transferred on suspected links to the smugglers.
Four soldiers in the province are also being interrogated after villagers accused them of holding some Rohingya captive and requesting money for their release.
An NGO director working on the issue who preferred to remain anonymous due to the Thai military’s record of filing legal cases against those implicating personnel in human trafficking told Anadolu Agency that migrant accounts suggested some involvement.
“According to information given by migrants, some uniformed and armed Thai men are boarding the smugglers’ boats when they arrive close to the Thai coast,” the director said. “They could belong to paramilitary units made up of volunteers which abound in the region.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees reacted to the discovery of the camps by expressing its “deep concern” in a statement Wednesday.
“It is distressing to hear that people who escaped difficult conditions back home have had to put their lives in the hands of ruthless smugglers, only to be killed before they could reach safety,” said James Lynch, the Commission’s representative for Southeast Asia.
The UN agency called for “a regional effort to end human trafficking” and “law enforcement measures accompanied by efforts to reduce the need for migrants and refugees to turn to smugglers in the first place.”
The gruesome discovery of the corpses has shocked Thailand, which is under heavy pressure from the U.S. and European Union for its paltry record on human trafficking.
Last year, it was given the lowest possible ranking in a U.S. State Department's human trafficking report, while earlier this month the EU gave Thailand six months to improve efforts in combating illegal fishing by trawlers on which migrants are used in “slave-like conditions.”
Most of the Rohingya who end up in the camps are from Rakhine state in Western Myanmar.
After violent clashes in the summer of 2012 with Buddhist Rakhine, they began to flee en masse to find safety and work in Malaysia and beyond.
At first, they boarded rickety boats controlled by human smugglers -- which sometimes sank during the trip across the Andaman Sea -- but since last year they have been travelling on larger vessels.
Bangladeshis are also increasingly using human smugglers to go to what they see as the economic promise of Malaysia. But some of them -- along with the Rohingya -- are kidnapped and forced to board the boats.
Once arriving near the Thai coast, they are taken by truck to camps hidden in the jungle and detained until their families pay ransom.
They are then left to attempt to cross the border into Malaysia.
