In a 69-page report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed 22 cases of unresolved disappearances in which evidence strongly indicated that government security officials were responsible.

Most of the suspected killings took place during the reign of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, it said.

The report is based on interviews with dozens of witnesses, families of victims and Thai officials since February 2005.

"While most of the 'disappearances' took place during Thaksin's rule, many of the senior military and police officials who carried out this policy remain on active duty," said Brad Adams, Asia director of HRW.

"Thaksin acknowledged these abuses in 2005, yet nothing has been done to stop or punish those responsible."

Abductions by armed forces go back to the early days of Thaksin's rule. A tough policy to tackle violence began in January 2004 when a militants' camp in Narathiwat was stormed. Five days later, Sata Labo disappeared.

His sister told HRW that police searched her house on January 8, looking for weapons stolen from a Narathiwat army base. Nothing illegal was found during the search. The following day, just before his disappearance, Sata called his sister via his mobile phone to say he had been stopped by a group of police.

"Around noon, I received a phone call from my brother. He told me that he had been stopped by policemen. Those policemen searched his car and told him to go to Narathiwat police station. That was the last time I heard from him. Sata never came back home," his sister was quoted as saying in the report.

After the coup last September, the interim government noted that problems in the southern border provinces were rooted primarily in a lack of justice. New Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont vowed to introduce a more conciliatory approach than the heavy-handed policies of his predecessor Thaksin.

But the new regime has been unable to translate these promises into action, HRW said. State agencies - particularly the police, the Justice Ministry's De-

partment of Special Investigations, the National Human Rights Commission and the newly reinstated Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre - have also failed to carry out full and impartial investigations. The police and the Army have taken no steps to prosecute personnel responsible for "forced disappearances" and other rights violations.

Most of the 22 families that Human Rights Watch interviewed in the report said they had received Bt100,000 in financial assistance from the government. All of them, however, told the organisation that they did not believe the compensation was a substitute for serious investigations to determine the whereabouts of their fathers, husbands or sons, or for appropriate prosecution of those responsible for the abuses.

"Offering money and apologies to victims' families does not absolve the Thai authorities from their responsibility to prosecute those responsible for these crimes," said Adams.

"General Surayud vowed to make justice a priority, but his government still fails to hold officials accountable for these crimes."

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation