Naming and shaming in Samut Prakan, Thailand

The Samut Prakan police station is holding its monthly Naming and Shaming Event!

Friday December 14th 2007.

     At the back, the Police Chief (standing and lecturing everyone on the evils of theft).  Alongside him, his trusted  police officers.

     In front on the table:  all the stuff that had been stolen.  Money, a knife, mobile phones, etc.  And of course a pile of blue plastic bags containing the methamphetamine Ya Baa.

     In front of the table, the thirty or so men in their twenties arrested for these petty thefts.  Chained to each other, looking dejected and made to sit on the three rows, some with leg chains.  More than half of them are migrants from Cambodia or Burma, probably working as fishermen or in the fish processing factories in the town.

     The crowd of local people gathered around to gawp and photograph are probably pleased with the police results.  Many in Samut Prakan believe the stereotypes of migrants all being criminals. 

     According to the bystanders, anyone found dealing in ya baa could get up to five years in Khlong Dan Central Prison, the local prison in Samut Prakan. 

     Although it is a good prison, it is overcrowded.  Richard Barrow, a Samut Prakan English teacher who blogs, says that a cell with 23 bedmats will sleep over 50 inmates somehow.

        According to Bangkok police statistics, five per cent of the Thai population regularly take the pink tablets.  Long distance lorry drivers, motor-bike taxis drivers and other manual workers all get encouraged to use ya baa to help them through their arduous work.  Local migrant fishermen, too, use it to keep going at night, hauling in the nets. 

     People in Thailand lived with this. Ya baa was produced in huge quantities in both Burma and Laos.  The UN estimates that each day, 25,000 pills get sold in Bangkok.  In the year 2000, 800 million were consumed in Thailand.  It was OK as long as only the unskilled workers used it.

    But then, the middle-class bright young things in Bangkok's Siam Square began to use ya baa as a lifestyle drug.  And people began to worry.

      So in 2003 Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's then Prime Minister,  promised to wipe out ya baa drug use within three months.  And he closed all entertainment places in Bangkok by 1.00am each night.

     The (corrupt) Thai police were told to get results, whatever it took, according to the Thai press.  Police statistics show that 2,275 people (many of them allegedly innocent people) were shot and the drug planted on them.

     On December 2nd Thaksin announced that Thailand was now drug free (from ya baa).

     Many Thais were pleased, especially the more conservative country dwellers.  But others were incensed by the abuse by the police service. 

     The king himself rebuked the Prime Minister twice in public (something never done before) and asked for a full report.  He probably got a whitewashed version.

    Meanwile, use of ya baa is rising again.  And these young men will need to wait a further three or four years before they get released.

     Further down the road from the police station, these children are getting their first taste of democracy.  Their banners tell the adults in Samut Prakan to vote in the national elections.  Clearly they are enthusiastic about democracy and voting.

     Sadly no one is watching but me.