After three years of trying in vain to seek justice for her husband who mysteriously disappeared after being arrested by forest officials, Pinnapa "Mueno" Prueksapan has arrived at the painful conclusion long realised by the poor and powerless in this country.
"Justice does not exist," she said emphatically, her usually calm voice full of bitterness.
Her husband, ethnic Karen activist Porlachee, "Billy" Rakchongcharoen was arrested by Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, formerly chief of Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi province. No one has seen him since.
Billy was helping his relatives, a group of ethnic Karen, sue Mr Chaiwat for setting fire to their bamboo huts and rice barns in a series of violent forest evictions. He was heading home after compiling the Karen peasants' testimonies for a court case. Mr Chaiwat arrested him but insisted he later released the defiant activist.
April 17 marks the third year since the Karen activist's mysterious disappearance.
"We all know in our hearts what happened. Yet the law cannot do anything," Mueno said sarcastically. "It's useless talking about justice."
Her appeal to the Department of Special Investigation to handle Billy's case was turned down. The reason from DSI: Mueno has no right to lodge an appeal because she is not legally married to Billy.
Imagine Mueno's hurt. Imagine her bitterness, the mother of Billy's five children.
When I first met Mueno three years ago, the grief-stricken widow was still full of hope. Who can blame her for losing heart now? Apart from the DSI's refusal, her court petition for an urgent trial to force Kaeng Krachan forest officials to release her husband was rejected based on the testimonies of two student trainees at the national park. They insisted they saw Billy being released.
Both later confessed they had lied. They told an outside top cop who was sent to re-investigate the case that, out of fear, they just did what they were told to by their supervisors. Yet the law still could not touch the main suspect.
The new head of the investigation team, Pol Col Triwit Namthongthai, also found a big gap in Mr Chaiwat's testimony about his release of Billy.
According to Pol Col Triwit, there was a food shop near the spot Mr Chaiwat claimed he released Billy. But no one there saw the release, he said. "It was raining hard that day and it was quite unbelievable that Mr Chaiwat released Billy in the middle of the road instead of taking shelter at the food shop first."
A CCTV at one spot showed a vehicle a short distance behind Mr Chaiwat's van, added Pol Col Triwit. It was unlikely that car would have missed the release which must have taken some time for Billy to move his motorcycle from Mr Chaiwat's van and leave in the pouring rain.
"Yet, the driver in that car did not see the release," said Mr Triwit. What really happened?
Even if we knew the answer, nothing much can be done. According to the current law, circumstantial evidence -- however strong it is -- cannot lead to the arrest of the suspects. For starters, the charge of enforced disappearance simply does not exist. The suspects cannot be charged for unlawful detention either when a person is still missing and therefore unable to file a complaint. Even if a body is found, there must be hard evidence to prove the suspects committed the killing.
Consequently, Billy is still legally treated as a missing person, not victim of enforced disappearance. Without his body, the case stops there. It is why the suspect and his team are still free and why Mueno and other ethnic Karen are losing faith in the legal system.
It is why human rights groups have been pushing for a new law to criminalise enforced disappearance and torture by state agents with the jail terms ranging from five to life imprisonment according to the severity of the crime.
The cabinet gave the green light to the draft law last year. But civil society's hopes were dashed when the National Legislative Assembly kicked it back "for a review" early this year.
"It's very unusual. The NLA always says yes to the laws approved by the military government," said Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, chair of Amnesty International Thailand and director of the Cross Cultural Foundation. Suspicions are high about heavy lobbying by various security agencies.
"We certainly need a new law to punish [those who commit] enforced disappearances," said Somnuek Tumsuparb, chairman of the human rights sub-committee, the Lawyers Council of Thailand. "But the court's narrow interpretation of the law is also problematic. We need a judicial system that is more culturally sensitive and in tune with human rights."
Indeed. The Kaeng Krachan Karen's court case is a case in point. The combative former park chief accused the subsistence farmer Karen of being non-Thai migrants, terrorists, drug peddlers and forest encroachers to legitimise the arson and to force them to resettle downstream. His accusations played on negative stereotypes and public discrimination against the highlanders.
Mee Tonnampetch, 70, is one of the eight complainants who took Mr Chaiwat to the Administrative Court for abuse of power with legal assistance from the Lawyers Council of Thailand. Evidence show they are all Thai nationals, all indigenous highlanders who have been living in Kaeng Krachan long before it was declared a national park. Their traditional and sustainable farm rotation system also proves forest and people can co-exist as their way of life exerts little pressure on nature.
They have only two demands. One is to return to their ancestral homes. The other is to be compensated for their belongings which include priceless ancestral heirlooms they have lost forever.
The verdict? In a nutshell, the court accepts that indigenous Karen forest dwellers have long lived there, yet they are still forest encroachers by forest law. Their natural and moral rights to live in their ancestral land, upheld by the previous constitutions, are dismissed. However, the court, ordered the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to give the complainants 10,000 baht each for torching their homes and belongings.
Yes, 10,000 baht for the annihilation of their whole life.
Once a proud husband, father, and grandfather, Mee is now a dejected old man with slump shoulders and a look of despair -- just like other ethnic Karen forced to live in Bangkloy Lang, a resettlement village/camp with no fertile land to till, with no dignity left.
"I've lost everything," he said softly, staring blankly into thin air. "I feel so ashamed of myself owing money to shop owners for rice and food. Back in our old homes, we didn't need money. We were free and we always had enough rice to eat."
It is the same look of hopelessness, the same message of anguish I saw and heard again and again during the recent visit to Bangkloy Lang. It's where the centenarian Ko-ee Mimee, Billy's grandfather and the Kaeng Krachan Karen spiritual leader, is now living after being plucked from deep in the jungle shortly before his huts and rice barns were burned down.
Older than any forest laws in the country, grandpa Ko-ee has become a symbolic figure for the indigenous Karen in their struggle for land rights -- and justice.
"When can we return to our home?" the frail elder kept asking, his voice as soft as a murmur. "When is Billy coming back?"
Mueno admitted she has lost hope. The DSI has promised to reconsider looking into Billy's disappearance, but will it get lost in a bureaucratic maze? She believes so.
"There's no guarantee that the DSI will use the evidence Pol Col Triwit has compiled against the suspect," she said. "It happened before and it might happen again."
Pol Col Triwit has already quit the investigation and decided to resign after learning that he would be transferred to the deep South. "It's for my own safety," he said.
A new law against enforced disappearance would be helpful, but it needs fair police investigations without vested interests and political intervention. "The police system needs fixing for justice to work," he said, sighing.
For Mueno, the recent extra-judicial killing of Lahu hill tribe activist Chaiyaphum Pasae, along with the many accusations security personnel levelled up against him, has convinced her all the more the legal system is distorted.
"I felt as if I was punched in the chest when I learned he was killed," she said, tears welling up. "Like Billy, he was fighting for hill tribe people's rights."
But at least his family has his body for the funeral, for the family to their last goodbye. Chaiyaphum's body -- with bullet holes and all -- also make a criminal investigation possible, despite fierce resistance from the police.
Will Mueno have the same chance?
She knows she is up against the whole system when it comes to forest dwellers: The false stereotypes sustained by mainstream education system and media against the highlanders, forever treated as second-class citizens or, worse, outsiders. The forest laws that criminalise indigenous people and the bureaucracy determined to evict forest dwellers. A botched legal system that makes justice out of reach for the poor.
A sad Karen ballad softly sung at night time accompanied by a primitive instrument captures the lengthy oppression the indigenous forest dwellers face:
"We are like orphans, condemned to sit in the dark at the end of the wooden planks of the house, constantly spat on by others."
Mueno listened on silently.
It boils down to power, she said warily.
"We are just poor highlanders without any power. It's why justice doesn't exist for us."
Sanitsuda Ekachai is former editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.