Amnesty Int In Thailand - Useless

[dyinganimal]

Dysfunction at AI Thailand

Law Pha, a young hilltribe man who has spent more than ten years in Thai prisons for his first and only drugs offence, told me in May 2006, “I’ve been trying to contact Thai human rights organizations, but I never hear anything from them. Can you please call any of them to contact me?”

For several years I’d been sending reports about hilltribe and prisoner issues in Thailand and neighboring states to many human rights groups, but like Law Pha I’d also not received any reply from most of them. Then on 29th June 2006 an email came from Mr. “Pat” Pongpols Samsamak, campaigns coordinator at Amnesty International (AI) Thailand, asking me to visit their office in Bangkok.

On the afternoon of 19th July 2006 I spent three hours explaining hilltribe and prisoner human rights issues in Thailand to Pat, Ms. “Noi” Pornpen Khongkachonkiet also working at AI Thailand, Ms. Puttanee Kangkun of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), and a volunteer at the AI office. A substantial quantity of detailed information was handed over, while these people expressed interest in helping to support the human rights of hilltribe prisoners in Thailand.

I was surprised at how little they seemed to know about these issues, and also at Puttanee’s later question about why I did this work. (My reply was that I was trying to help people who badly needed help and were getting little or none from elsewhere.)

Pornpen agreed that hilltribe prisoners could write to her at the AI office, and that she would keep me informed of their letters by email. Pat and Puttanee expressed interest in visiting hilltribe prisoners. I told them about Law Pha and the many other hilltribe prisoners who wished to see them.

A week later, on the afternoon of 26th July 2006, I had a second meeting at the AI office with Pat and Puttanee. More detailed information was provided about visiting and helping hilltribe inmates at the women’s prison in Bangkok, situated only a few kilometers away from the AI office, where conditions were of particular concern. A donation of 12,000 baht (about

$300) was handed over to start this work specifically to support hilltribe prisoners.

On 10th August 2006, Pat, Puttanee, human rights lawyer Khun Chang, as well as Ms. Kwang and Ms. Anable from AI, visited Ms. Bu Mue Emily Soe, a hilltribe inmate at the women’s prison. The lawyer gathered information from Bu Mue concerning several sick and elderly hilltribe prisoners and a young woman who had given birth to a son while there in prison.

Not until September 2006 did I hear from Pat and Puttanee about this prison visit. The lawyer’s report was short and added little to the information I’d already given them. No concern was expressed about conditions at the prison, or the treatment of sick, elderly and pregnant inmates. The report did not comment at all on why there were so many hilltribe inmates at the prison.

Nothing was mentioned about the possibility of release on medical grounds.

There was a complete lack of any investigative criticism of what is undoubtedly one of the worst prisons in Thailand.

Functionally Derelict

It soon became obvious that AI Thailand, founded in 1995 as part of the world’s oldest and largest human rights organization, is seriously short of competent skills for research, coordination, management and accountability.

The information, donation and time given to people at AI Thailand, rather than helping to support the human rights of hilltribe prisoners as intended has actually frustrated and not furthered their cause one iota.

Bu Mue wrote in late 2006: “On 20th August 2006 I wrote to Ms. Pornpen with another letter for you, and asked her to send it to you. I don’t know if she got my letter or not. Until today I don’t have any response from her.”

Chit Win Sein, a hilltribe man held at Klong Pai Central Prison, wrote in September 2006: “I’ve written to Ms. Pornpen in Bangkok, but until now I did not receive any news from her. I would like to know what is her problem.”

Asok Wei Yee, a young hilltribe man held at the youth prison in Pathumthani, informed me in October 2006: “I wrote to Ms. Pornpen asking her to come to see me about the petition for the King’s pardon, but I’ve still got no answer from her.”

Rattanachai Kaitshie, a hilltribe man who has been seriously ill with bronchitis in Klong Pai Central Prison’s hospital, reported to me in November 2006: “I wrote a letter to Ms. Pornpen. I gave her the names of hilltribe and Burmese (inmates) who are very sick in hospital here. I told her to send an email to you about what I wrote.”

I never received any message at all from Pornpen about Rattanachai’s letter.

In fact I have not been informed by Pornpen, or by anyone else at AI Thailand, about any of the letters sent by hilltribe prisoners to her at the office!

Rattanachai became critically ill early in February 2007. He had chest pains and was vomiting blood. Prison officials reluctantly took him to a large outside hospital. The doctor who saw him there apparently rebuked the prison officials for not bringing him sooner. Prisoners who are unable to pay or get outside support for medical treatment, which includes most hilltribe prisoners, are often left to suffer with woefully inadequate treatment in prison. Rattanachai was again taken to the outside hospital on 27th February

2007 on the outside doctor’s order to reluctant prison officials. He’s now continuing to survive in the prison hospital.

While Rattanachai has been in the prison hospital many hilltribe and Burmese inmates have passed away there. His case partner, Moses Saengpo, died on 6th October 2006. Kyaw Soe Naing died in the prison on 24th November 2006.

During 2006 twenty-two inmates died in Klong Pai’s prison hospital. As of 2nd May 2007, eight prisoners had passed away so far this year.

Meanwhile, there’s been no response at all to this suffering, or letters asking for help, from Pornpen, Pat, Puttanee or any other human rights staff in Thailand! No support, help or even acknowledgement have been forthcoming from AI Thailand or AHRC staff for hilltribe prisoners since their one prison visit on 10th August 2006! This is despite AI Thailand having been given donation funds and copious information specifically to enable them to do this work!

Morally Bankrupt

After months of hearing nothing from AI Thailand staff, or from Puttanee of AHRC, it was eventually learned in April 2007 from Kwanravee, the new campaigns coordinator at AI Thailand, that Pat had left AI. He hadn’t informed me, and he hadn’t informed Kwanravee about the hilltribe prisoner information and donation funds provided to AI Thailand. In fact Pat left AI taking the donation funds with him! He has since changed his story about how some of the funds were used on the one prison visit in August 2006. As a result of this mismanagement, the funds have not been available to help hilltribe prisoners, even if there was anyone at AI Thailand or AHRC competent enough to use the funds responsibly.

In May 2007, I heard from Pornpen that she too had left AI and was busy in a new job - so busy that she could do absolutely nothing with the letters she acknowledges she received from hilltribe prisoners. I’ve repeatedly requested her and other AI staff to forward the letters to me, as some of them contain messages addressed to me, but so far even this task has been beyond them!

Hilltribe prisoners continue to suffer dire poverty, human rights abuses, and even to die in Thai prisons without any apparent concern from AI or AHRC staff in Thailand, although they have been given the facts and means to support these unfortunate people. Pat and Pornpen have been found irresponsible, incompetent and morally bankrupt. Puttanee has expressed some sorrow for the lack of action on this issue, but she has done nothing more.

AI claims to stand against the death penalty and torture. Many hilltribe prisoners in Thailand are held in iron shackles for years under the shadow of the death sentence. At the women’s prison not far away from the AI Thailand office in Bangkok are several hilltribe women with the death sentence. It seems that no such facts appear in the Thailand section of AI’s

2007 report. In fact the report is pathetically inadequate in its reporting about human rights concerns for prisoners and ethnic hilltribe minorities in Thailand. I wonder why?

One tiny hope that hilltribe prisoners have, while they struggle to survive in Thai prisons under draconian sentences even for first offences and minor drugs charges, is a King’s pardon. To file a petition for a King’s pardon hilltribe prisoners usually require help with Thai writing skills and stationary materials. They must pay for this, like everything else in a Thai prison. Repeated requests for such assistance have fallen on deaf ears at AI Thailand.

One reason to be concerned about hilltribe prisoners in Thailand is that these ethnic minorities make up a far larger proportion of the prison population than the less-than 2% they officially make up of the national population. On 16th June 2004, a petition on behalf of hilltribe prisoners in Thailand was sent to the King. On 27th July 2004, the Office of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary acknowledged receipt of the petition and said that “the matter as been referred to the appropriate authorities of the Royal Thai Government for their consideration.”

Political turmoil in Thailand has since hampered proposed law reforms.

However, the lack of any effective work, assessment and reporting by AI, AHRC, and other human rights groups in Thailand has been a serious failure which has frustrated human rights causes, and possibly contributed towards the turmoil the country is now in. Such a failure is a dereliction of the duty that these human rights NGOs proclaim to take upon themselves.

Ethically Blind

One astute observer has noted that human rights organizations are usually not very effective at exposing abuses within their own countries. Identity is perhaps the cause and solution of human rights issues. We can be blind to our own self-identities, beliefs and assumptions. True justice and rights, however, are necessarily above any national, cultural, ethnic, religious, or ideological identities. All human beings are to be considered equal concerning certain fundamental rights. To love our neighbor as ourselves is the epitome of true human rights practice.

Exclusive self-identities are like walls which can separate us and frustrate our love towards certain of our neighbors. Traditions, cultures, religions and ideologies are unfortunately allowed by bound self-identity to divide and conquer boundless life and spirit. A Thai person brought up in Thai culture is very likely to have unexamined attitudes towards prisoners and hilltribe people. Human rights workers especially need to openly and honestly examine their own attitudes, assumptions, and self-identities.

Otherwise they will be in serious danger of being exposed as blind hypocrites in deed, exacerbating the very universal human rights causes they proclaim to support, but in practice don’t!

As for AI Thailand and the AHRC, is any organization better than the individuals who work in it? Will Pat, Pornpen, and Puttanee be responsibly brought to account within their organizations? The mismanagement of information and donations within a human rights organization would be utterly repugnant and hypocritical. When words loudly proclaimed in their literature do not match their deeds on the ground there should be serious concern about such human rights groups, and whether we support them or not.

Hilltribe prisoners in Thailand are still awaiting replies to their letters from Pornpen or from other AI staff, as well as badly needed support that the effective use of donation funds given to AI Thailand for that purpose would allow, if it was not for the fact that these funds remain problematically in Pat’s personal pocket.

Law Pha now has the last words, written from Bankwang Central Prison in March 2007: “Regarding NGOs, Amnesty International and human rights organizations, I don’t have any trust in them and I don’t believe in whatever they are doing here… so forget about those people in Thailand. I wrote to Ms. Pornpen, but I never got a simple reply.”

Why not try getting a reply yourself:

Amnesty International Thailand,

641/8 Vara Place,

Lad Prao Soi 5,

Ladyao, Chatuchak,

Bangkok 10900

Thailand

Tel: 0-2938-7746

0-2513-8754

0-2513-8745

Fax: 0-2938-4756

www.amnesty.or.th

email: [email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.ahrchk.net

email: [email protected]

[email protected]

"Pat" pongpols Samsamak: [email protected]

"Noi" Pornpen Khongkachonkiet: [email protected]

Puttanee Kangkun: [email protected]

[p1p]

I'm sorry, but ThaiVisa is not the correct place to discuss such politically sensitive subjects as Thailand's treatment of her minority groups. Please take your concerns directly to Amnesty International's headquarters:

Web site www.amnesty.org.

Telephone: +44-20-74135500

Fax number: +44-20-79561157

Address: Amnesty International, INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT, 1 Easton Stree, London, WC1X 0DW, UK

You could also try contacting Human Rights Watch, http://hrw.org/ :

350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor

New York, NY 10118-3299 USA

Tel: 1-(212) 290-4700, Fax: 1-(212) 736-1300

hrwnyc (at) hrw.org

Or in London:

2nd Floor, 2-12 Pentonville Road

London N1 9HF, UK

Tel: 44 20 7713 1995, Fax: 44 20 7713 1800

E-mail: hrwuk (at) hrw.org