SIGNS OF SOUTHERN HUMAN RIGHTS IMPROVEMENTS, BUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BANGKOK 004201 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MLS AND DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/02/2017 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KDEM ASEC TH SUBJECT: SIGNS OF SOUTHERN HUMAN RIGHTS IMPROVEMENTS, BUT PRISONER ABUSE ALLEGATIONS PERSIST REF: BANGKOK 3813 (SECTARIAN TENSIONS SIMMER) Classified By: Charge d'Affaires a.i. James F. Entwistle, reason: 1.4 ( b,d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) During the most recent Poloff travel to the South, many academics and civil society leaders indicated the southern human rights picture has improved since the September 2006 coup. Several human rights NGOs allege, however, that some military and police officials are still arbitrarily arresting, abusing and in some cases executing suspected insurgents. Of note, however, is that there have been no reports of disappearances since the September 2006 coup and high-ranking Army officials have publicly acknowledged some detainee mistreatment while vowing to take corrective action. Officials may also hope to create a vacuum of support for insurgents by sending some detainees to "reeducation camps" for several months following their arrest, although this may backfire and worsen an already tense situation in the troubled region. We will continue to urge RTG officials to ensure that their counter-insurgency efforts comply with international standards. End Summary. HUMAN RIGHTS RESPECTED, BUT NOT UNIFORMLY -------------- ¶2. (C) We traveled to Yala and Pattani in southern Thailand on July 25 and 26 to meet government officials, academics and civil society groups in these two restive southern border provinces. Many academics and civil society leaders indicated the southern human rights picture had improved since the coup, with police and military officers no longer causing the disappearance of suspected insurgents; this represented one tangible and notable improvement. Additionally, many indicated that the treatment of most of the approximately 300 suspects arrested since June (reftel) was on the whole satisfactory and without incident. However, human rights activists expressed grave concern over the arbitrary arrest and detention of some ethnic-Malay Muslims and also blamed the security forces for the torture and mistreatment in recent months of several detainees at the Wiwat Santi detention facility at the Royal Thai Army's (RTA) Region Four Ingkayut Borihan military camp in Pattani province, as well as other detention facilities, information these groups had received from released detainees or their family members. Human rights NGOs also remained concerned about the extra-judicial killing of community leaders, Muslim religious students, and others believed by local security officials to have connections with insurgents. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES DETAILED ... -------------- ¶3. (C) Representatives from the Young Muslim Lawyers Association (YMAT),a legal aid and human rights advocacy group in the south, provided Poloffs with the most detailed information regarding recent alleged human rights abuses. Claiming they were aware of at least half a dozen incidents of detainee mistreatment, YMAT attorneys provided details of two allegations of detainee mistreatment at the hands of the security forces. Their accounts, however, could not be independently verified or substantiated. ¶4. (C) The first case involved Sukri Adam, an ethnic-Malay Muslim arrested in April whom security forces accused of beheading an ethnic-Thai Buddhist. YMAT said that Sukri told members of his family that military officials beat him with a glass bottle, forcibly immersed his head in water, grabbed him by the neck and raised him above the floor while he was detained at the Ingkayut Borihan military camp. According to YMAT, Sukri was held at the camp for ten days and military officials only permitted Sukri's relatives to visit him for three days before abruptly discontinuing his daily family visitation rights. ¶5. (C) YMAT also alleged that security forces were BANGKOK 00004201 002 OF 003 responsible for the death of Ataree Sama-ae, a 25-year-old resident of Hat Yai who died of severe head injuries on July 22 after leaving the Ingkayut detention facility. YMAT attorneys could not specify whether the injuries had been sustained after his arrival at Ingkayut or during his arrest. Security officials allegedly transported him to Yala hospital, approximately 30 minutes from the camp, but the doctors were not able to save his life. YMAT attorneys said local Army officials denied any responsibility in Sama-ae's death. The case is currently under investigation by higher-ranking Army officials and the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand. ¶6. (C) YMAT attorneys and other rights groups claim that while officials at Ingkayut and other regional detention facilities permit family members and a detainee's village and district leader to visit, the military prohibits detainees from meeting with an attorney. Under Thai law, access to an attorney is only guaranteed when a prisoner has been formally charged with a crime, whereas many detainees at Ingkayut and other detention facilities are held under an emergency decree which permits officials to detain suspects without charge for up to 30 days. ¶7. (C) The Human Rights Watch (HRW) representative in Thailand also expressed to us concerns about an Army program to transfer detainees from Ingkayut and other southern detention facilities to military camps -- which government officials call "reeducation camps" -- in Ranong, Chumporn and Surat Thani provinces. Detainees at these camps participate in a 4-month vocational training program after they are released from Army detention facilities. While HRW confirmed the assurances given to us by government officials in the South that participation in these training programs was optional for Ingkayut detainees, HRW believes that prisoners from other camps in the area were threatened with prosecution for aiding the insurgency if they refused to participate. HRW and other groups say that the Army hopes to create a vacuum of support for insurgents by preventing detained individuals from promptly returning to their villages. ... WHILE MILITARY OFFICIALS ISSUE DENIALS -------------- ¶8. (C) We raised these human rights concerns during our trip to the South with RTA Major General Chamlong Bunsong, the Chief of Staff for the Fourth Region Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC). General Chamlong flatly denied the allegations and claimed that "no incidents have taken place" and that under the policy of the Prime Minister it is "forbidden to torture." He claimed that the military was providing training to military interrogators specifically to ensure the humane treatment of detainees. ¶9. (C) When pressed, General Chamlong indicated that only Thai-based human rights organizations would be permitted to investigate torture allegations at Wiwat Santi -- which the Army has renamed the "Reconciliation Promotion Center", according to press reports -- while foreign organizations would not be permitted to enter the facility since camp operations are an "internal matter." General Chamlong said that the Army permitted family members and lawyers to visit detainees -- whom he referred to as those "invited for interrogation." ¶10. (C) Over the last several weeks, an Army General serving in the National Legislative Assembly told HRW, and the press later quoted high-ranking Army commanders, that the military acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated at Wiwat Santi. These officials publicly vowed to investigate and take corrective action, including punishing those who may have tortured prisoners. HRW confirms that internal investigations of abuses have taken place at Ingkayut. HRW added, however, that while some abusive interrogators have been transferred, none has yet to be prosecuted. VISIT TO INGKAYUT -------------- BANGKOK 00004201 003 OF 003 ¶11. (C) Despite repeated requests to enter Wiwat Santi, Army officials declared the facility "off limits" to us and only permitted a 10-minute drive around the Ingkayut camp with a military escort in our vehicle. Army officials also denied requests to take photographs or meet with detainees. While awaiting our military escort outside the camp, we observed approximately 12 detainees, most apparently in their teens or 20's, being transported on the back of a pickup truck from the camp's visitor center, where an estimated 100 family members had gathered to visit them. ¶12. (C) One academic closely affiliated with Angkana Neelapaijit, the wife of missing (and presumed dead) human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, said that Angkana had within the last several months toured the Wiwat Santi detention facility and determined that no human rights abuses had taken place. He added, however, that Angkana has often exercised self censorship when criticizing government abuses, not because she fears for her safety, but rather because she does not want to be seen as a mouthpiece of the insurgents. ARBITRARY ARREST AND INCENDIARY TACTICS -------------- ¶13. (C) Human rights NGOs decried to us what they considered harsh arrest tactics that were often viewed as arbitrary and capricious, despite claims by Army officials that these were resulting in the apprehension of insurgents. YMAT described one case where officials arrested the four working adult members of a Yala family, leaving the family's unemployed women and children to fend for themselves. YMAT attorneys also denounced recent police dragnets in which the authorities arrested all men under the age of 40 at Bannang Satah in Yala province and Bacho in Narathiwat province. In these raids, YMAT said the Army's tactics of blocking the towns' roads for up to three days were unnecessarily harsh and inflamed tensions. Another NGO leader indicated that resentment of the security forces often resulted from destruction of mobile phones or the uncompensated confiscation of property that frequently occurred as a by-product of arrests. ¶14. (C) In one encounter with human rights activists, we met Dolmeeya Bahakhiree (protect),a 24-year old Muslim whom police picked up on a Yala street with four other youths on June 29 and held in detention for 20 days at the Yala Police Region Nine Forward Command. Dolmeeya said the police accused him of being behind the bombing of a teacher in Yala several weeks earlier, based on his possession that day of commonly available pictures of the victims of southern violence. While Dolmeeya indicated that the police treated him well and permitted his family to visit him after he had been detained for three days, his attorney was never allowed to visit. He blamed the authorities for creating unreasonable hardship for him and his family. COMMENT -------------- ¶15. (C) While the accounts we heard in the South of some improvement in the overall human rights situation are encouraging, the continued allegations of mistreatment by Army and police officials are troubling. Although high-level officials acknowledge that heavy-handed tactics do not serve their own ends in quelling the insurgency and have promised to investigate allegations of torture, regional commanders and low-level officials often operate with impunity while the only punishment for guilty officials -- if it is levied at all -- is reassignment. We will continue to work closely with human rights organizations to monitor the situation and we will continue to encourage government officials to ensure their counterinsurgency efforts meet internationally-accepted human rights standards. ENTWISTLE