Long road ahead for hill tribe justice
In November 2016, a forest ranger shot dead Chalee Laijo, 36, a Karen forest dweller, while he was collecting wild mushrooms for food in the Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the ancestral home of the Karen hill tribes.
Last week, after eight years of his family’s legal struggle and two court defeats in the lower and appeal courts, the Supreme Court overturned the previous verdicts and ordered forest authorities to acknowledge the wrongdoing and pay his family 1.3 million baht in compensation.
While the court’s verdict should be applauded, the long fight for justice underscores the hill tribespeople’s arduous road to justice and the necessity of a legal system that protects ethnic minorities’ rights.
The first obstacle which Chalee’s family faced was the prosecutors dismissing a witness who said the forest ranger shot him from behind. They chose to accept the official’s self-defence claim, alleging Chalee aimed a gun.
In the Thai legal system, state authorities’ testimonies often outweigh villagers’. As a result, prosecutors declined to press charges against the forest ranger, ending the family’s quest for justice.
Unfazed, his family pursued civil lawsuits against the Department of National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation as well as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment with legal aid from the Legal Rights and Environmental Protection Association. However, lower and appeals courts upheld the self-defence claim and dismissed the family’s complaint.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled that using a gun to shoot a person in the head from behind was a fatal misjudgment and an act of carelessness. Therefore, the officials’ supervising agencies must be held responsible and compensate the dead man’s family.
Chalee’s death and the legal battles bear close similarities to those of Chaiyaphum Pasae, a youth activist from the Lahu hill tribe. He was shot dead at a military checkpoint. Soldiers claimed Chaiyaphum had drugs in his car and the shooting was self-defence.
The military, however, refused to provide CCTV footage of the incident to discount witness testimony that Chaiyaphum was dragged out of the car, beaten and shot using an M16 assault rifle.
Similar to the tragedy of Chalee, prosecutors dismissed the criminal charges against the soldier involved in the shooting. Consequently, his family opted to file a civil lawsuit with legal support from the Cultural Cross-borders Foundation, a human rights organisation.
Their efforts to seek justice despite the lower and appeal courts’ dismissal finally paid off. In November, the Supreme Court ordered the military to pay over 2 million baht in compensation for the Lahu activist’s death.
According to the ruling, the military’s claim that Chaiyaphum was throwing a grenade at the soldiers raised questions; the grenade bore no fingerprints, and its trigger was untouched. Furthermore, testimonies regarding the grenade’s location were inconsistent, contradicting earlier statements that no weapons were found in his car. The military’s refusal to provide CCTV footage also raised suspicions.
In both cases, the Supreme Court ruled that neither victim used any weapons to harm officials, as claimed, and ordered the agencies to pay compensation. The perpetrators in both incidents escaped legal punishment because the case was heard in a civil, not criminal, court. In both cases, it took more than eight years for the victims’ families to expose the truth and get some justice for their loved ones, although the criminals remain unpunished.
Ethnic discrimination is a big part of their tragedies. So is the culture of impunity in officialdom. Due to discrimination, the forest laws criminalise hill tribe forest dwellers and allow forest officials to use violence. Abuse of power is rife because officials know they will be shielded by their superiors.
Deep-seated ethnic biases often lead prosecutors and courts to favour state authorities. The Supreme Court’s rulings in these two cases demonstrate that justice is more likely when the rulings are based on facts, not cultural prejudice.
Their court victories are rare exceptions. Laws strip the hill peoples of land rights, perpetuating their poverty and powerlessness. Without assistance from human rights groups, their chances of receiving justice are slim.
To empower them, oppressive laws criminalising hill people’s dwellings and freedom of movement must be abolished. So must the ethnic prejudices perpetuated by the education system. The officials who shielded criminals must also face consequences. Chalee and Chaiyaphum’s tragedies and legal battles unveil entrenched systematic injustices. Until discriminatory laws are scrapped and impunity ends, ethnic minorities will face an uphill struggle for their justice and rights.