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Akha Chronicles
Police Police were a constant hazard for the Akha and exploited their lack of identity and
representation. If you were a tourist in Thailand you could ignore
the police for the most part, they were nice, they were pleasant, they left you
alone. But if you were Akha it
was a whole different story. Police at checkpoints could ask for whiskey and
cigarette money, search your vehicle or motorbike and there was always the
risk of drugs being planted, just a few pills. Once captured or imprisoned there was little hope
of getting out and sentences were long. Many Akha were not wary
that as a Akha they
WOULD get worse handling than a Thai might get which should be just one
more reason to be super careful. The main checkpoints were places to be cautious but
police boxes also had many bad exchanges with the Akha in their regions. One really couldn't keep up with it all, and of
course there were the endless drug raids in the villages, to grab this or
that Akha, and one had a hard time knowing
exactly all that was going on or the reasons for it. The
tourist policeman Asks me not to speak of brothels to
tourists It was prajat, he asked,
the guide complained. So I happened to comment what was just down the
street. Guide didn't like
that. Prajat the
tourist police man said they don’t know how to take knowledge, the
akha Beggars
rounded up by police One woman hiding behind truck, the police on other
side The Thai women kept motioning to her to keep down,
that was the typhoid woman, till the police were gone. Their truck was
just on the other side of the car, from where she was hiding, and they
were on a big beggar sweep.
Finally they went away. The Old
Woman and Police The old toothless beggar woman get up from where
the police have all of her beggar friends sitting in front of the police
station in Maesai and immediately hikes her
dress up, pauses lon enough for the police to
see her that she obviously needs to and is about to use the bathroom and
then waddles half squatting, her dress still partially hiked up, around
the corner of the building and right on out of sight. I half laugh to myselof, Walking over to that corner of the building
and there isn’t any old Akha woman as far as the
eye can see to the very outer edges of the parking lot behind the police
station. Old
age. Police
smased little girl I went into the afternoon market today and on the
way back they brought me alittle child ai knew proably 3 or 4 at
the most. She had been hit
and shoved forward and down so hard by aThai
Policeman or “dah noh”
as the Akha say, that her nose was raked and
also obviiously broken with swelling below the
eyes quite prminenly. Quite obviously some of the police not the nicest
but they try. Smashing
little kids oare
we? The girl I took to the hospital in Chiangrai had abdominal TB. I give her follow up shots every
day. Her name is Anna. The soviet Union has
dismantled. Police,
wife, checkpoint There is a plice checpoint 1/2 way between maesai and the golden triangle. Each time I pass there on
motorcycle I get stopped and searched right dow
to locating my money. My
friend is burmes. On one occasion I took her to see
the triangle. I had forgotten
about th 5 kim limit for Burmese people. On arriving at this check po8int
she was taken into custody, even though I explained it was my mistake and
said I would return with her to Mae Sai. Not good enough. She was going to prison at Chiang
Rai.
I realized what demon's from hell I was dealing with. Gosh. Fjinally
the offered to let her go for 3,000 baht between jokes about her trip to
chiang rai. Unfortunately I hadn't pocketed
money for ransom fees. So
they kindly
offered to look after her while I returned to Mae sai and my bank.
My friend was terrified. Welcome to the real
world. Unfortunately there is neither compensation to
tourists for this kind of behaviort on the part
of thailands police nor does there appear to be
any ethic impose on the police in the first
place. Beyond those incidents
I could point out scores of cases where cops in Thailand are engaged in
harrassment, intimidation
, extortion, prostitution and the beating of
children. Only when punishmnent of
cops is comparable to the pwer and potential for
abuse given the position will the evil end. ??? Dismisal is not sufficient. How about public flogging? By victims? The
Cop There was this one cop, and he was always having a
hard time of it. He used to chase the beggar kids, hit them and stuff,
then got video taped by someone and that got reported and stopped. Then he was involved in the strip joint near the
river, but that closed too. He asked me a few times for money, I never gave him
any. One time he caught a tourist from Michigan doing
heroin in his room at the Maesai Plaza Guest
House and he called me up to help cut the deal. I asked him how much he wanted, 10,000 baht he
said. The man sent it to my
bank account but the cop got called away and the man had to leave town to
catch his flight back to the US so he got away and never lost a
dime. The cop never mentioned it again
either. Once we had to go together to an Akha village to sort out a problem over a theft by a
foreigner of an Akha head dress. On the way the cop had to stop at a brothel where
he made a little wheeling and dealing about one girl that a man from
Singapore had taken a fancy too. Ah yes, all is for sale, and some people make it
easy. I hadn't seen him much of late, even cops change,
maybe him too. Police
At Nimit's Sure they used heroin, they were there all the
tim. Sometimes they didn't even bring their guns in
their holsters, sometimes they played with them, you just didn't know what they were going to
do. The
police try hard This is what you have to say about corrupt police
to be indirect Thai
police, highway robbers of akha also a problem, planting drugs, beatings,
etc The
Death Of Ah Pah Rgoeuh
Zuuh Gooh The
drunk motorcycle driver hits our car Ah Zeeh is busted, the Thais are not, Flat
Village Ah Pah Rgoeuh Zurh Gooh of Mae Salep Is Murdered The
police beg off on the beating of Ah Peeh of
Soi Yah Kah, Haen Taek Mr. Ah
Bpah He lived in Mae Salep, in
the Christian part of the village, out of the village, no protection, and
the police took him and beat him because his daughter was married to a
foreigner, this really slow guy from Germany who was Polish. Not very clever, and Mr. Ah Bpah died and the police dumped him on the road and I
found the body when I came down the mountain from Sam Yak a few minutes
later. I got a look at the Autopsy, and the doctor was the same as my
wife's doctor and he couldn't lie to me about it, said that he died from a
skull fracture and brain hemorage, back low end
of the skull, right over the brain stem. After they loaded him in the truck
to take him away he told his wife that he thought he was dying, and he
died in about five minutes from that time. Aug 13,
Monday 2001 Prison Prison
Death More prison deaths of drug users, suspected
runners, etc. The
prison The chiangrai prison was
enormous, nearly a kilometer to the side. Many inmats were taken to
the court every morning around 10 am. Many of these inmates were Akha.
They were often arrested under dubious conditions and treated
harshly or beaten. Sometimes
they were severely beaten.
Savagely.
They did not get very good representation if any at
all. There did not appear to
be much oversight of the process. Therd Thai
Killing Therd Thai village the police kill Lahu headman, chopping him with knives. Check this
out. End Have a comment or question? Like to know
more? Send me an email at akha@akha.org
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