By Max Constant
BANGKOK
Thailand’s junta chief-cum-prime minister has issued a 10-day ultimatum for authorities to locate and report all human trafficking camps in the south, following the discovery of dozens of bodies of Muslim Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants.
Commenting on General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s order, deputy-government spokesman General Sansern Kaewkamnerd told the Bangkok Post on Thursday that if illegal detention areas were found after that date, officials would be penalized.
“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 added.
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 province.
The corpses, buried in shallow graves, were found around 4 kilometers from a trafficking camp discovered last Friday, which contained 26 bodies.
Following the camps' discovery, authorities have arrested three Sadao officials and suspended Police General Sunthorn Chalermkiart, police chief of Satun -- a province neighboring Songkhla -- from duty.
Twelve police officers in Songkhla were also transferred Monday to inactive posts – a Thai euphemism for disciplinary sanction – on suspicion of having received bribes from traffickers, or “in order to facilitate the investigation,” reported The Nation.
The Post cited police spokesman Pol Lt Gen Prawut Thawornsiri as saying Thursday that 38 officers had been transferred to inactive posts and would face a disciplinary investigation – and harsh punishment if found to be involved in human trafficking.
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, including by addressing the root causes driving people to undertake these dangerous journeys.”
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.
