Thailand must stop scapegoating migrant workers

Burmese youths arrested on Koh Tao case deserve better.

A handout picture taken and released by the Thai police on October 3, 2014 on the southern island of Koh Tao shows two men (center and 2nd right, wearing helmets and bullet-proof jackets) accused of killing two British tourists on the island last month as they re-enact the crime scene for investigators

By Michael Sainsbury
Bangkok:  Last Tuesday, a pre-trial hearing was held for two fresh-faced young Burmese men who stand accused of the brutal early morning slayings in September of British backpackers Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, on the diving paradise island of Koh Tao.

Bar workers Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, both 21, were suddenly arrested at the end of the third week of a fruitless, bungled inquiry as the police investigation came full circle — back to the 5,000 plus people from Myanmar who, in an unusual demographic mix, well outnumber the local Thais on Koh Tao.

The arrests, and the handling of the case, have shone an extremely harsh light on the way Thailand’s police treat millions of Myanmar, Lao and Cambodian immigrant workers in the country.

Such police treatment stretches back decades and has been documented during that time by groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and local migrant worker advocates.

A 2012 report by HRW documented harassment and violence towards migrant workers and refugees at the hands of police. Here is just one example:

“Police apprehending improperly documented Burmese on the street usually demand payments in a broad range of several hundred baht up to 1,000 baht [about US$30] or more. A person unable to pay on the street and taken to a police station will normally pay in the high hundreds to be released, with wide variation that can go into the low thousands. If they are taken to an Immigration Detention Center or to the border, the payment normally rises to 1,000 to 4,000 baht, but can go considerably higher depending on the perceived ability of the person to pay.”

The police handling of the Koh Tao murder case has shown a toxic mix of incompetence, media posturing, finger pointing, and outright lies. But it has been, more troubling, underpinned by a disturbing lack of due process and behind the scenes politicking.

The four groups that make up Koh Tao’s unique demography are Thais who own the land and many businesses, Western expatriate business owners and workers (mainly dive instructors), tourists, and Burmese migrants. Many of the latter group are illegal, yet they constitute between 60 to 70 percent of the island’s population and are the most vulnerable, least able or least likely to put up a legal fight.

It was the Burmese who were targeted first by police, though there was not a shred of evidence that this group was more or less likely to have committed the crime.

Thailand relies on foreign workers for its economic well-being. They are an integral part of the Thai success story — the country’s emergence as one of the world's leading tourist destinations and a major regional manufacturing hub. Yet they are treated worse than second-class citizens and are constant scapegoats for the police.

I spent five days on the island immediately following the murder. The crime scene, on a patch of sand nestled in an outcrop of granite at the end of Sai Ree beach, the main sandy strip on the inhabited side of the island, had not been taped or roped off. Media representatives, police, locals and tourists strolled through the lead up to the spot — a strip where key evidence has been found.

For the forensic team, which would return four days after the killing, it was a contaminated nightmare. After working through a farrago of false leads — especially a bizarre bisexual theory regarding the male victim’s best friend — and all but ruling out migrant workers after one week the police turned their attention finally to local Thais.

But, as the shadowy world of politics and local strongmen seeped into the investigation, the focus returned once more to the Burmese. In a trice, the two accused were arrested, confessed and were charged. Those confessions have since been recanted, they were finally afforded legal representation but still Thailand’s authorities are pressing ahead with the case.

So egregious has been the treatment of the two accused that Myanmar’s President Thein Sein made a direct personal appeal to Thailand’s Prime Minster Prayuth Chan-ocha on the latter’s first overseas visit since being formally made PM. Thein Sein asked Prayuth to ensure the case was “clean and fair” — a not-so-subtle inference to the fact that it has, so far, been anything but.

As rights groups have noted, this sort of treatment for the Burmese and their fellow migrant workers from Cambodia and Laos by the Thai police is business as usual.

Each time a serious crime is committed in Thailand, particularly a rape or murder, without an obvious perpetrator all fingers instantly point to the migrant workers.

It’s unclear just how many migrant workers live in Thailand, estimates range up to four million with the Burmese making up a large majority of more than three million compared with 600,000 from Cambodia and 200,000 from Laos: more or less in line with their respective populations of 50 million, 15 million and six million.

Yet however the Koh Tao case finishes up, it seems unlikely that much will change in police dealings with migrant workers. There may be some platitudes mouthed at official levels to ensure that Thailand’s vast economic interests in Myanmar are not disturbed.

The biggest fear now for the two alleged murderers, the young men from Myanmar who have been deprived of basic legal rights, is whether they can survive. As external pressure on Thailand grows, the latest being the arrival of British police observers, the Thai police have publicly expressed fear that the accused may “commit suicide”. Take that, as you will.

Michael Sainsbury is a Bangkok-based journalist and commentator.

Source: ucanews.com