Army head denies torture, but avoids key accusation, South China Morning Post

Thailand’s army commander in chief said yesterday that Rohingya refugees “have not been tortured” by his troops, in his first public response to reports in the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583, announcements, news) that the army had been towing the refugees out to sea and abandoning them in unpowered boats.

In a press release issued yesterday to ReliefWeb.int, the website of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, General Anupong Paojinda said Thailand was in discussions with Myanmar regarding the issue of the Rohingya boatpeople, who come from the Myanmese-Bangladeshi border region.

The four-paragraph statement did not specifically respond to the Post’s revelations that refugees had been deliberately cast adrift by the army. Hundreds of refugees have died as a result of the secret policy.

The Post’s reports over the past week have focused on the abandonment of the refugees at sea. Our reports yesterday quoted Indian officials and official transcripts as saying that survivors who washed up in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had been abused while in Thai custody, an accusation repeated in today’s front-page story.

It was unclear from the brief statement whether the general was referring to the policy of casting refugees adrift when he referred to torture.

“Army Commander-in-Chief General Anupong Paojinda affirmed that Thai soldiers did not torture any of the Rohingya refugees as it was recently informed in foreign news coverage,” the statement said.

“He asserted that the assigned military officials have been firmly instructed to treat the refugees based on the given legal procedures,” it added.

“In addition, General Anupong has also planned to discuss this matter with the Myanmar authority, but would have to allow the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to launch the negotiation process first.

“Finally, General Anupong could not comment on the question of whether or not there should be a foreign organisation facilitating and mutually overseeing this conduct with Thailand since such a decision was beyond his jurisdiction and responsibility.”

The South China Morning Post has been seeking an official response from the Royal Thai Army since our initial report on the secret policy last Monday.

Late last week, it said it would respond only to questions lodged in writing and handed over by our reporters in person in Bangkok.

However, General Anupong’s statement comes amid a flurry of responses from other branches of Thai authority.

None of them responded directly to the Post’s key revelation – that the army was abandoning refugees at sea.

Our reports, which were based on information provided by members of the Thai navy, police and marine police, said the army had been carrying out the policy since late last year, before which any Rohingya were handed over to immigration authorities, in accordance with international convention.

Yesterday, the Bangkok Post published comments from Immigration Bureau Lieutenant-Colonel Tara Soranarak, who said: “We never push them back to the sea.”

On Saturday, the newspaper’s website carried comments from Navy chief Admiral Khamthorn Pumhiran, who “dismissed reports that the navy towed them out to sea in boats with no engines and no food”. The report paraphrased him as saying “there is no need to set up a special committee to probe this matter, because there is evidence that the navy has treated them with humanitarian principles”.

However, the South China Morning Post has never claimed that the navy or immigration authorities were executing the policy of casting refugees adrift.

Thailand’s government said on Saturday that it was investigating the reports, but no representative of the armed forces had officially acknowledged that the high-seas abandonments could have occurred.

International Editor Ian Young