A dark side of Thailand

[Falang]

A troubling editorial today in the Bangkok Post:

 

Thursday 29 July 2004

 

By what criteria are we Buddhist?

 

 

Sanitsuda Ekachai

 

If your daughter were beaten black and blue and then left to die after being set alight and suffering horrendous injuries, an extra pain would certainly pierce your heart to know that her killer(s) might get away with murder.

 

One sad fact of our fair land is that the poorer you are, the less likely you are to receive justice from the costly and lengthy judicial process.

 

And if you are a poor, illegal migrant worker, the chances are you will never see justice done, especially when the criminals are people in authority with good connections.

 

That is why many fear that Masuu, 18, might die in vain.

 

An ethnic Mon from Burma, Masuu paid human traffickers to take her to Thailand, where she hoped to find work so she could support her poor parents back home.

 

She finally landed a job as a maid at a furniture shop owned by an army officer and his wife in Lop Buri, and she was promised 1,500 baht a month.

 

Three months later, Masuu was found by a roadside in Uthai Thani province. She was barely alive. Her head was swollen from severe beatings. Her whole body was charred. One hand had been amputated, her body was wrapped in bandages, her voice weak and forlorn _ but the teenager still managed to tell her story from her deathbed.

 

Her employers, she said, had accused her of stealing a mobile phone, a gold necklace and some money. She was beaten till she passed out. Then they tied her to a tree, poured petrol over her body and set her alight. Masuu still insisted she did not do it, so, she said, they put out the fire and left her in her room for three days without food or treatment.

 

They must have thought she was dead, she said. They drove from Lop Buri to Uthai Thani, where they dumped her. When she regained consciousness, Masuu said she crawled to a road, where a man found her immediately and took her to a hospital in Nakhon Sawan.

 

Her only wish, she said from her hospital bed, was to go home and make merit by putting a gold leaf on a chedi so she would not have to suffer like this again in her next life.

 

Masuu died nine days later.

 

That was exactly two years ago. It has taken that long for the brutal murder of Masuu to reach a courtroom. And this was only made possible through the efforts of a group of human rights lawyers.

 

Masuu is among the more fortunate, legally speaking. Countless Burmese workers have been murdered and tortured by their employers or people in uniform. We almost never hear of their killers receiving their due.

 

Remember the group murder in Mae Sot last year? Six migrant workers were beaten and incinerated alive on a pile of tyres. The whole town believe they know who did it. A kamnan and his henchmen were the chief suspects. But they still walk free.

 

Remember the case of the group of workers killed and dumped in the Moei river in Mae Sot? As with most Burmese migrant workers' deaths, nothing happened because no one gave a damn.

 

In the minds of most Thais, there are wicked stereotypes of Burmese migrant workers as stealing jobs, as being vehicles for contagious diseases, as criminals, as a threat to national security and as an historical enemy.

 

Although our fellow countrymen exploit, harass, extort and even kill Burmese workers on a daily basis, we block out this brutality from our minds. We don't care if these people suffer, if their children do not receive an education, if they exist at all.

 

We Thais take pride in Buddhism. But how do we judge ourselves as good Buddhists? By the amount of money we give to monks? By the amount of time we meditate? Or by the way we treat the weak and the poor?

 

The death of Masuu and far, far too many other migrant workers is a challenge to us to answer these questions. The answers lie in our heart.

 

Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. sanitsudae@bangkokpost.co.th