Brutal reality behind junta's benign face

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Brutal reality behind junta's benign face

While the international community and Asean reward Burma's government for its cautious reforms, the army is looting, burning and destroying village farms and forcing thousands of Kachin civilians into makeshift camps

Published: 28/11/2011 at 02:02 PM
Newspaper section: Spectrum

Ure Seng Raw, a rice farmer, sits on a rough bench in the small bamboo hut she now calls home and explains why she endured a tough two-day mountain walk from her village of Rawt Jat to live here.

front-line Kachin Independence Army soldiers take a break. — Photo by Zen Myat

''The Burmese army shelled our village on June 15. We were scared. We could see unexploded shells around the houses. We were worried the soldiers would take us as porters and rape our daughters.''

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: Writer: Phil Thornton; Position: Writer

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felixqui
Post : 83
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Discussion 5 : 28/11/2011 at 05:00 PM5
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the number of meth heads won't increase. They will need less money. Teh police will be more able to deal with actual crime, like theft, so it is very realistic to expect everything to improve were drugs all legalized.

Legalisation is known from states like Portugal to NOT lead to any sharp increase in drug use.

The results of the current policy are also known failures - it is not sensible to persist in a known failure, doing the same things and expecting different results.
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dao
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Discussion 4 : 27/11/2011 at 09:42 PM4
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Legalizing drugs sounds good in theory for cutting drug dealer profits .Just try to imagine meth heads smoking legally on your street corner .I dont think they are going to stop stealing cause its legal .I dont think social problems will disappear .It might kill drug addicts faster though .Was that the idea ?
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peter1956
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Discussion 3 : 27/11/2011 at 12:42 PM3
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Certainly agree with D#2. Unfortunately the vast majority of Thai voters are naive enough to be fooled by the PT's (aka Thaksin's) policy of war against drugs. People who are interested in drugs issue should read the following news which reported on the finding of a high-level international panel declaring: "The global war on drugs has failed." The 19-member commission draws from a broad political spectrum: former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan; former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana; former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia—all countries that have faced brutal drug violence, former US Secretary of State George Shultz and former US Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/drug-war-has-failed-report_n_870096.html
or
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576359913339364414.html
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felixqui
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Discussion 2 : 27/11/2011 at 11:57 AM2
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And teh single best way for Thailand to stop the illegal drug profits would be to legalise drugs, which could then be produced cheaply in Thailand by respectable local business people, not thugs, which would immediately cut police corruption, and judicial corruption, which would lower the cost of drugs thereby reducing crime to buy drugs, and which would make treatment easier.

Come to think of it, the only people who benefit from criminalising drugs are ... scum: gangsters, corrupt police and officials, tax-stealing enforcers and so on. Not a single decent person benefits from making drugs illegal, and users, their family and society all suffer needlessly because drugs are illegal. This is not rational: why would any sensible society deliberately set out to reward scum as is clearly the case with current anti-drug laws?
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dao
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Discussion 1 : 27/11/2011 at 10:45 AM1
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Soon as drug production is stopped these military groups wont have money to buy weapons and bullets .Soon as Thailand does something about drugs crossing borders like using cheap available street dogs to be trained as sniffer dogs to find drugs the situation will improve .Selling drugs can only benefit a few .Opening up a country free of armed fighting militias will benefit everyone .
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Brutal reality behind junta's benign face | Bangkok Post: news