72 to be indicted over Thai people trafficking
Print Edition
THAILAND yesterday said it would indict 72 people including a senior army officer over human trafficking after the plight of desperate Myanmar and Bangladesh migrants stranded at sea triggered international outcry.
The multi-million dollar trafficking trade has until recent months flourished through Thailand’s southern provinces and onto Malaysia — the desired destination of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
A Thai crackdown in May led to the unraveling of vast people-smuggling networks with thousands of migrants abandoned in open waters and jungle camps by traffickers, a crisis that eventually forced a Southeast Asia-wide response.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General of Thailand (OAG) said it had issued an order to indict 72 people charged on 16 counts mostly over human trafficking, including more than a dozen state officials of all levels.
“We will not let influential people rise above justice,” Wanchai Roujanavong told reporters in Bangkok.
The charges include human trafficking, involvement in international crimes, taking and bringing illegal migrants and malfeasance.
“The OAG has given priority to the issue — as it is a big group of people involving international systems.
“It has caused a lot of damage to the country as dead bodies were found,” Wanchai said, referencing the grisly discovery of dozens of migrant graves in abandoned traffickers’ camps along the border with Malaysia that sparked the trafficking crackdown.
Among the suspects is Lieutenant General Manas Kongpan, charged with being a major smuggling kingpin in the lucrative trade. He remains the only military officer charged with complicity in people smuggling.
None of the suspects will be bailed, Wanchai added, while a further 47 suspects — mostly Thais but also including Bangladeshi and Myanmar nationals — are still on the run.
Around 4,500 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were left stranded in Southeast Asian waters in recent months, ping-ponged between countries that were reluctant to accept them.
The migrants finally landed ashore on Malaysian, Indonesian, Bangladeshi, Myanmar and Thai soil. In recent years tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, where they are loathed by the Buddhist majority.
Many Rohingya live in bleak camps with restrictions placed on employment and travel.
They have increasingly been joined on the perilous crossing in the Andaman Sea by economic migrants from neighboring Bangladesh seeking better opportunities in Malaysia.
Thai police say they have now successfully dismantled the trafficking network through the kingdom.
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