Crackdown strikes fear in Thai dissidents
SINGAPORE — Early in December, Surachai Danwattananusorn went uncharacteristically silent.
The septuagenarian Thai dissident stopped recording the fortnightly podcast he had hosted for years from exile in Laos. Text messages from his wife in Thailand went unanswered.
Two weeks later, the bodies of two of his colleagues were found floating in the Mekong River between Thailand and Laos. They had been handcuffed and strangled with a rope, their stomachs disemboweled and stuffed with concrete.
Surachai remains missing and is feared dead — the most prominent of a wave of exiles who have been arrested, abducted, disappeared or killed in recent months in a shadowy crackdown against critics of the twin pillars of Thailand’s establishment — the monarchy and military.
Exiles say the Thai army is trying to silence opponents, at home and abroad, in the twilight of military rule that began with a 2014 coup.
The crackdown also signals the army’s effort to clear the way for the coronation this month of Thailand’s new king, Maha Vajiralongkorn. Hundreds have been arrested for making or sharing statements or online posts deemed offensive to the monarchy, which is protected from almost all criticism by some of the world’s most sweeping lese-majeste laws. The arrests and disappearances have sent shock waves through the scattered community of roughly 100 Thai dissidents in exile — most living in the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia.
Soon after appointing himself prime minister, the junta leader, former Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, said his top priority was protecting the monarchy and called on foreign governments to hand over exiled activists. Prayuth, who refashioned himself into a civilian politician and led the party that won the most votes in the March election, is favored to stay on as prime minister in the new government.
In March, a U.N. working group on enforced disappearances wrote to the Thai government asking for information about Surachai and his colleagues, saying “it is believed Thai officials may be responsible” for their fates. The Thai Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Then, in early May, human rights groups said that three other Thai dissidents who fled Laos after Surachai’s abduction had been arrested in Vietnam, which reportedly extradited them to Thailand.
Thai authorities have not acknowledged holding the men, whom rights groups identified as Chucheep Chivasut, Siam Theerawut and Kritsana Thapthai — accused of operating anti-monarchy radio programs and mobilizing demonstrations.