The Royal Thai Army has formed a new Thahan Phran (or Ranger) regiment for special duties in Chiang Saen, Chiang Khong and Wiang Kaen districts along the Mekong River in Chiang Rai province. The regiment has a skull and dagger insignia, and is responsible for curbing human trafficking and other illegal movements across the Mekong into Thailand from northwestern Laos.
Several different companies from the regiment, which is headquartered at Pakthongchai near Khorat, have been deployed to the Mekong districts since 2005. These include 945 Company, which was based at Vieng Mok in December 2005; 963 Company, which was based at Doi Pha Tang in 2005-06; 949 Company, which has a base just on the southern outskirts of Chiang Khong; 951 Company, which was at Doi Pha Tang in June 2007; 958 Company, which had camps from Huay Yen to Ban Don Dee, on the river road from Chiang Khong to Chiang Saen in 2006; and 948 Company, which was camped along that road in June 2007. One of the camps is directly opposite Ban Nam Koeng in Laos, and the Rangers cooperate closely with the Laotian authorities, informing them when they force illegal crossers to return to the Lao side.
This area has become the new vector for trafficking narcotics into Thailand, as well as women from Burma, Laos and China. In the last few years, there has also been a substantial number of North Korean citizens being trafficked into this area of Thailand. Estimates vary, but the total number caught since 2004 is likely to exceed 1,000. Those arrested are taken to Chiang Rai jail, then transferred to a jail in Bangkok before being resettled in South Korea. After the long and harrowing journey from North Korea down through China, and then through northwestern Laos, they are often beaten and abused when arrested in Thailand.
[Des Ball is the author of The Boys in Black: The Thahan Phran (Rangers), Thailand's Para-military Border Guards (White Lotus, Bangkok, 2004), and co-author with David Mathieson of Militia Redux: Or Sor and the Revival of Paramilitarism in Thailand (White Lotus, Bangkok, 2007).]
I guess I need to buy them, but does either book deal with the use of non-Thai paramilitaries and militias- like the KMT in the 1960s and 1970s- by the Thai government?
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Des
Would be interested to see what you have to say about the use of the Thahan Phran or Or Sor in the South.
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Great, another bunch of shake-down artists migrant workers have to bribe.
Is this the same military unit that was forcing Hmong refugees to return to Laos last year?
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Just to blow my own horn for a moment, a report I did last year for World Vision on human trafficking across the Lao-Thai border is now publicly available for download here:
http://www.no-trafficking.org/content/Reading_Rooms/reading_rooms_pdf/world%20vision%20trafficking%20report.doc
It is chiefly a literature review and summary of available data, aiming to highlight gaps where further research and/or intervention is needed. WRT police and army groups like this, I would say that they do little if anything to prevent true “trafficking”, instead preferring to spend their time extorting accumulated wages from returnee (illegal) migrant workers.
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I find this volume plus the more recent “Militia Redux: Or Sor and the Revival of Paramilitarism in Thailand (White Lotus, Bangkok, 2007).” extremely useful and unique at getting at the largely **untransparent functionings of government institutions in the provinces**, the forestry department and police being two other important institutions. These books provide a valuable institutional history and background that is extremely difficult to piece together from Thai sources by oneself, if this is not your speciality. Hopefully they will cover the other militias in the border area one day, the Aw-paw-pa-lo, Chaw-paw-po-lo (rough attempt at transliteration). To get this background info after first being familiar with the anecdotal-hearsay tales surrounding militia operations from locals, Matthew McDaniel, and personal experience is enlightening (whoops, not the Buddhist kind).
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The logo is really friendly…
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