Top Thai general surrenders
A three-star Thai army general wanted on human trafficking charges handed himself into police yesterday, as the United States called on Myanmar to treat minority Rohingya Muslims as citizens to solve the root cause of the migrant crisis in Southeast Asia.
Lieutenant General Manas Kongpan voluntarily attended police headquarters in Bangkok yesterday morning.
Manas, a long-serving army officer in Thailand's south, arrived at police headquarters dressed in his military uniform and made no statement to a waiting press pack.
But the country's top police officer said the 58-year-old denied the charges against him.
"(He) contacted me to surrender and to fight the case," national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung told reporters.
"He said he has no involvement in the case -- in other words he denied the charges," Somyot added.
Thai police have yet to detail what role Manas is alleged to have played in the country's once thriving people smuggling and human trafficking trade.
According to the Royal Thai Army website, Manas was the commander of the upper south province of Chumphon in 2013, before taking a senior position in Songkhla, which borders Malaysia, reported AFP.
He was moved this year to the Royal Thai Army Headquarters in Bangkok to act as an adviser -- although it was not immediately clear in what capacity.
The army has suspended Manas and launched an internal probe since the arrest warrant was issued against him on Sunday.
Rights groups have long accused Thai officials of turning a blind eye to -- or even complicity in -- the trade of migrants through its southern provinces and into Malaysia, but until now no military personnel have been implicated.
Thai police say they have issued 84 arrest warrants in connection with their people smuggling and human trafficking investigation, with 51 suspects detained so far, including some local officials.
Southern Thailand has long been known as a nexus for lucrative and largely unchecked smuggling networks through which persecuted Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar would pass on their way to Malaysia.
The extent of the trade -- and the brutality of gangmasters who ran it -- was laid bare last month when a Thai crackdown led to the discovery of scores of jungle prison camps on both sides of the Thailand-Malaysia border that were run by smuggling gangs. So far more than 150 graves have been uncovered in the camps where many victims were held for months in miserable conditions until relatives paid hefty ransoms for the release of their loved ones.
US President Barack Obama has sought to make Myanmar's transition to democracy a legacy of his presidency, and Washington is stepping up pressure on the Southeast Asian nation to tackle what it sees as the root causes of an exodus of migrants across the Bay of Bengal that the region has struggled to cope with.
Myanmar does not recognise its 1.1 million-strong Rohingya minority as citizens, rendering them effectively stateless. Many have fled the apartheid-like conditions of the country's Rakhine state. Myanmar denies it discriminates against them.
"Rohingyas need to be treated as citizens of Burma," US Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard told reporters at a press briefing in Jakarta, using the country's former name.
"They need to have identity cards and passports that make clear they are as much citizens of Burma as anyone else."
Obama said on Monday that Myanmar needed to end discrimination against the Rohingya people if it wanted to succeed in its transition to a democracy.
Politicians in Myanmar were focused on a historic general election scheduled for November, Richard said, which was hindering political discussion of the status of the Rohingya, who are deeply resented by many of Rakhine's Buddhist majority.
Richard said she would like to see all Myanmar's political leaders address the issue. Opposition leader and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced international criticism for failing to speak out on behalf of the nation's many ethnic groups, including the Rohingya.
However, Richard said that the United States was not considering imposing sanctions on Myanmar over the issue, but that sanctions were always "in the diplomatic toolbox".
Meanwhile, Surat Thani police chief Maj-General Aphichart Bunsriroj said a small unrest by Rohingya residents at a local shelter had nothing to do with the ongoing crackdown or instigation by any outsiders. A police force deployed earlier to maintain post-unrest order at this facility has been withdrawn and replaced by a few patrolmen, he added.
Comments