Promoting Surakiart labeled 'immoral'

Promoting Surakiart labeled ‘immoral’
By Martin Petty, ThaiDay, 22 July 2006

The Thai government is “immoral and dishonest” for promoting Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai as the next UN secretary-general while continuing to enforce emergency rule across the Muslim South, a leading human rights group said.

The Asian Human Rights Commission said the government was “pursuing a policy of extrajudicial killing” with its emergency decree in the southernmost provinces, and urged the international community to shun Surakiart’s bid.

Surakiart’s bid “should be rejected by all countries with a genuine concern for human rights,” AHRC said in a statement.

Bill Fernandez, AHRC’s executive director, said it was “offensive” to promote a man who held key positions during a time when his government “consistently flouted international law and snubbed the best efforts of UN officials to improve human rights in its country.”

The decree, in use for over a year in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, allows arrest without warrant and detention for 30 days without charge, while giving security forces immunity from prosecution.

Southern Muslims say the emergency rule has allowed arbitrary arrests, beatings, torture and murder while bringing about few prosecutions.

The insurgency in the deep South has claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people over the last two-and-a-half years, with government forces powerless to prevent the bloodshed.

On Wednesday, Philip Alston, the UN’s special rappoteur on extrajudicial killings, said the decree made it possible for security forces to “get away with murder” making impunity “look like the official policy.”

Fernandez of AHRC said the government had to clean up its act or face rejection by the international community. “They can’t have it both ways,” he said.

Surakiart will attend an ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur next week where he will try to court the support of China, India and Japan, which are also attending. – ThaiDay