In media reports of 20 February 2008 the commanding officer of a unit of Border Patrol Police officers accused of abducting and torturing dozens–possibly hundreds–of persons in Thailand has denied that he was responsible for their actions. Pol. Col. Somkiat Nuathong, commander of Task Force 42 based in Nakhon Si Thammarat, reportedly said that he never ordered anyone to abduct or torture Juthaporn Rodnoon last year. Juthaporn alleges that she was electrocuted while pregnant and forced to admit to a narcotics offence for which she was later acquitted. She is among over 70 persons who have now lodged formal complaints of similar offences by the group.
Talking to journalists, Pol. Col. Somkiat admitted that he had set up the unit headed by Pol. Capt. Nat Chonnithiwanit and allowed it to operate autonomously in order to crackdown on the movement of drugs in his area. But he said that claims by the subordinate officers that they had just been following orders were not correct. He added that there had earlier been complaints made against the unit but internal inquiries had not uncovered wrongdoing.
This is a very important aspect of this case that was bound to come to the surface sooner or later. As the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has pointed out on numerous previous occasions, one of the main barriers to prosecution of human rights offenders in the police and other state agencies in Thailand is the absence of effective command responsibility. Superior officers routinely deny knowing about wrongdoing by lower-ranked officers. And to the extent that a notion of responsibility exists, it is not in accepting blame but rather in defending junior personnel from allegations and intimidating persons making complaints and acting as witnesses.
Whether , Pol. Col. Somkiat is responsible. He is responsible because he was the commanding officer of Pol. Capt. Nat and his team, and because he had a duty to know what the unit was doing. If he gave the unit the freedom to do what he wanted, then he bears responsibility for that decision too.
And he had responsibility to see that complaints against the unit were fully and properly investigated. The AHRC has had ample experiences with police internal inquiries: it has received many communications from senior officers on cases that it has documented and followed in detail in which investigations have been supposedly conducted and all personnel have been cleared. The fact that in this case also complaints were made but nobody was found to have done anything wrong, despite the scale of abuse and number of victims, is indicative of the deep contradictions and problems in having police investigate one another. It is for this reason that in 2005 the UN Human Rights Committee, assessing Thailands compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, recommended that the government introduce an independent civilian-run body to receive and investigate complaints of this sort against police and security officers. The proposal has never been acted upon.
Pol. Col. Somkiat either knew what his men were doing, because he ordered it or condoned it, or he didnt. Either way, he has no excuses. If the former, then he is guilty of being involved and must also be prosecuted. If the latter, he is at very least unfit to serve as a police commander and must be removed from service. Prior experience suggests that it is disingenuous for him to deny that he knew anything of what was happening under his watch.
Given the number of officers involved and the size of their operation, it is likely that Pol. Col. Somkiat is not the only senior officer with responsibility in this case, or over which there are grounds for suspicion that he was involved or would at least have known something. The ongoing investigation must thus not be limited only to him as the immediate superior but take in the full chain of command and the higher officers in other related units.
Meanwhile, it should be kept in mind that it is no excuse for Pol. Capt. Nats men either that they were only following orders. Under the UN Convention against Torture, which Thailand joined last year, the following of a superiors instructions is explicitly ruled out as a defence for an act of torture. It is thus all parties that bear responsibility for the gross abuses committed by this Border Patrol Unit, and the consequences for the alleged perpetrators, if found guilty, should equally be measured in terms of international standards. For this reason too, Thailand must promptly enact a law against torture in accordance with the terms of the convention.
