US and Thailand: Allies in torture

Shawn Crispin in the Asia Times writes US and Thailand: Allies in torture. The article is well worth a read and really puts to shame our domestic reporting on the issue.

"As one of the US's most trusted regional allies, Thailand was a logical and secure destination for situating the secret interrogation facilities. Although Thailand is conveniently not a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, it has signed onto the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which broadly protects human rights, including the right to a fair and speedy trial for those charged with crimes.

Although the US ratified the ICCPR in 1992, it has in the intervening years frequently violated the covenant on the twisted and some say spurious legal argument that several of its articles are not 'self-executing'. With the prosecution of its 'war on terror', the US has more recently persuaded several of its regional strategic allies - including Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines - to either ignore or reverse their prior multilateral commitments to rights-protecting international laws and covenants like the ICCPR in exchange for preferential trade and military deals. "

"Thailand has been lured into such practices from the highest echelons of the US government. Former US Homeland security director Tom Ridge, during a presentation in 2004 to foreign journalists in Bangkok, praised Thailand for Hambali's apprehension, but when questioned about whether the commando-style arrest represented a violation of Thai sovereignty, he replied that he was not knowledgeable concerning the relevant Thai laws. President George W Bush in a press conference before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Bangkok months after Hambali's arrest referred to Thai special branch counterterrorism chief General Tritos Ranaridhvichai as "my hero" for his role in the sting operation. "

"Now the bigger security question for Thailand and the wider region concerns what role the US may be covertly playing in Southern Thailand, where an increasingly violent Muslim insurgency and counteractions by Thai security forces have by some estimates resulted in over 2,800 deaths since December 2004. While Washington is far and away the Thai military's largest supplier and closest foreign trainer, both governments have studiously maintained that the US has played no role whatsoever in counterinsurgency operations in the Thai south. The recent revelations about the CIA's secret prison on Thai soil have cast new doubts on those assertions, however."

And perhaps the most depressing part: "Rights advocates monitoring southern Thailand's conflict note a striking similarity between the torture techniques US agents are known to have used against terror suspects held in both Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with those now in practice by Thai security forces against suspected Thai Muslim militants." It now seems other nations can refer to US torture techniques.

Ok, maybe the end is the most depressing: "But by foisting on its regional allies the worst of the Bush administration's rights abusing excesses - including alleged torture, renditions and running roughshod over international laws - the US's professed claim to promote democracy in the region has never rang more hollow in the wake of the CIA prison revelations. And yet there's considerably more at stake than a mere loss of diplomatic face. For those who believe that Bush and senior members and foreign envoys of his administration should one day face trial for war crimes for their controversial and many argue illegal prosecution of the US's "war on terror", the CIA's and US Embassy's actions in Thailand should provide yet another disturbing store of evidence for international lawyers and rights advocates to build their case. "