|
Thailand Criminal Activity and the Narcotics Trade
The crime rate appeared to have risen throughout the 1970s
and early 1980s--perhaps an inevitable by-product of a society
changing under the pressures of population increases and economic
and social modernization. The TNPD reports revealed increases in
murder, assault, theft, armed robbery, smuggling, and petty
violations. The major share of these criminal activities occurred
in Bangkok and some of the larger towns in outlying areas. The
high incidence of theft by youthful gangs also caused the police
considerable concern.
In general, organized crime appeared to be rare, except for
the illicit trade in opium, heroin, and cannabis, which persisted
in spite of ever-increasing government efforts during the 1970s
and 1980s to cope with a problem that had not only serious
domestic implications but also escalating international
repercussions. The drug trade had originated with the growing of
poppies as a traditional primary cash crop by hill tribes in the
Thai section of the notorious Golden Triangle--a mountainous
border region including parts of Burma and Laos. For many years
peasant cultivators in this region produced a major share of the
world's opium.
According to estimates by the Thai government and
international drug-control agencies, the average crop year
yielded from 500 to 1,000 tons of opium, which, when processed in
clandestine laboratories, produced from 50 to 100 tons of heroin.
An estimated one-half of each annual crop found its way into the
world market, destined primarily for addicts in Western Europe
and the United States. The other half supplied users in Thailand,
Malaysia, and other Asian countries. ln the late 1980s, it was
believed that Thailand alone had roughly 500,000 addicts who
depended on illicit supplies of opium and heroin. For years the
Thai government maintained that there were relatively few opium
users among the cultivators. But a medical survey, conducted in
1976-77 by health researchers from Chulalongkorn University,
indicated that the rate of addiction in 6 sample villages varied
from 6.6 to 16.8 percent of all inhabitants over the age of 10.
This survey and subsequent studies convinced the Thai leadership
that trafficking in illegal narcotics had become a domestic
problem requiring action, rather than a low-priority
international problem.
The opium-heroin trade of the 1980s stemmed from a history of
international political machinations in the countries of and
around the Golden Triangle--a maze compounded in more recent
times by increasing profitability. The hill tribes grew the
opium. Insurgents and separatists in Burma transported it. Yunnan
Chinese living in northern Thailand taxed it, and Chaozhou
Chinese (overseas Chinese living in Bangkok and Hong Kong) bought
and exported it. Any clear understanding of the complicated
system requires careful study of the region's ethnic and
political hierarchy.
The Chinese appeared to have been heavily involved in the
opium trade, but that was mainly before the advent of Mao Zedong.
The Yunnan Chinese who traded in opium were a hodgepodge of
private armies, including representatives of the Guomindang
(Kuomintang--KMT) forces that fled China at the time of the
communist takeover in the late 1940s. The rebel Chinese bands in
the Golden Triangle were the remnants of the KMT who were unable
to escape to Taiwan but instead sought refuge in Burma. Over the
intervening years their fanatical anticommunist attitude kept
them active in southern China as well as in Burma, Laos, and
northern Thailand. For many years their fierce independence and
swashbuckling military courage was regarded by many Western
governments as helpful in stemming communism in Southeast Asia.
That attitude, however, predated the international heroin problem
and the rapprochement between the West and China.
The Chaozhou Chinese (originally from Chaozhou District,
Guangdong Province) traced their roots in drug trafficking back
to the days of organized crime in Shanghai after China's defeat
in the Opium War (1839-42). Operating their maze of syndicates
from Hong Kong, the Chaozhou Chinese had a virtual monopoly on
the illicit opium and heroin trade, and the technology they used
in converting opium to more easily transportable heroin was
handed on to Chinese living in Thailand. The syndicates'
intricate system of international couriers operated within
Thailand to transport drugs both to local dealers and to the vast
array of worldwide customers.
Faced with increasing use of illicit drugs among young people
in the United States in the 1960s and a rising incidence of
addiction among its servicemen in Vietnam, the United States
government focused on the flow of heroin from Thailand. On
September 28, 1971, the two governments signed a memorandum of
understanding, reaffirming their intention to cooperate with each
other in combating the illicit international traffic in dangerous
drugs. Under the terms of the accord, the Thai government agreed
to step up its efforts to eliminate poppy production and to
control narcotics traffic within the country. The United States
agreed to provide support, such as training, equipment, advisory
assistance, and funds, to improve the effectiveness of the Thai
programs. For several years the cooperative efforts of the two
governments produced limited results, partly because certain
corrupt senior Thai officials in the bureaucracy, the army, and
the police had personal interests in the drug trade.
By the 1980s, successive Thai governments had played an
increasingly effective role in the suppression and control of
illicit drugs originating in Southeast Asia. The agents of the
Narcotics Suppression Center, established under the TNPD, were
highly regarded by foreign narcotics representatives for their
efficiency and incorruptibility. Personnel of the Provincial
Police and the BPP received training in narcotics work, and new
equipment--including helicopters--had been procured to aid in
aerial surveillance. Coordination between the TNPD specialists
and Interpol provided the Thai with valuable information and
suggestions from the police representatives of countries such as
Canada, France, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United
States as well as the metropolitan police of Hong Kong. Many
foreign governments, including the United States, assigned
professional narcotics specialists to their embassies in Bangkok
to work with the Thai government on the illicit drug problem.
Thai citizens, threatened by the problems stemming from drug
abuse in their country, strongly supported such measures as
preventive education, treatment, and rehabilitation. In addition,
tough amendments were added to the Criminal Code to deter those
trafficking in narcotics. Legislation passed in March 1979
mandated the death penalty or life imprisonment for persons
convicted of possessing, manufacturing, or transporting more than
100 grams of heroin. Despite limited success in the legal and
enforcement areas of antinarcotics programs, the Thai government
and its foreign advisers believed that the most logical long-term
solution lay in persuading the opium-growing hill people to
abandon their traditional crop and switch instead to other cash
crops, such as coffee, beans, tea, and tobacco. This effort
received aid from the United Nations, which started a pilot
project along these lines in 1973. The United States provided
funds to assist in the development of a highland marketing system
for the hill tribes' produce and for a system of roads to provide
growers with easier access to lowland consumers.
During the 1980s, as the number of narcotics addicts in
Thailand continued to grow, the Thai government renewed its
attention to narcotics eradication and interdiction programs.
These efforts received strong support from the United States and
other countries. Thailand and Burma, always suspicious neighbors,
increased cooperation in the effort to eliminate narcotics
traffic along their border. The two governments arranged for
limited intelligence exchange on narcotics refineries and trade
routes along the border and also cooperated in combined tactical
missions against the narcotics traffic. Progress in the battle
against illicit narcotics was slow, partly because of the vested
interests of certain influential figures within Thailand. It was
also difficult to combat the problem because of the remote and
rugged terrain and the international border. Observers predicted
drug traffic would continue for many years to come and might
never be completely eradicated.
* * *
Although an abundance of material exists concerning various
aspects of national security in Thailand, there are no definitive
studies in English that provide the entire picture. Readers
interested in further details on the country's insurgency problem
may consult former United States Agency for International
Development officer Robert F. Zimmerman's succinct 1976 article,
"Insurgency in Thailand," and former United States special
assistant for counterinsurgency George K. Tanham's informative
book Trial in Thailand. Hans U. Luther's extensive
article, "Peasants and State in Contemporary Thailand," provides
an informative explanation of the insurgency's socioeconomic
basis. Thomas Lobe's well-researched and provocative monograph,
United States National Security Policy and Aid to the Thailand
Police, offers interesting exploration of the myriad problems
encountered in counterinsurgency efforts through the mid-1970s.
Moreover, a clear picture of the roles and activities of the
kingdom's prime internal security force is offered in Thomas Lobe
and David Morell's chapter, "Thailand's Border Patrol Police:
Paramilitary Political Power," in Supplementary Military
Forces, edited by Louis A. Zurcher and Gwyn Harries-Jenkins.
An understanding of national security policy is greatly assisted
by the chapter on Thailand in Strategies of Survival by
Charles E. Morrison and Astri Suhrke. But no analysis of the
national security situation, using publicly available sources,
would be possible without the extensive coverage provided by the
periodical Far Eastern Economic Review. (For further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of September 1987
|
