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Thai
Army Lieutenant General Manas Kongpan (C) surrounded by police officers when he
turned himself in at the police headquarters in Bangkok
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An army 'Big Shot' whose
influence seeped across the south, Lieutenant-General Manas Kongpan sat at the
apex of Thailand's grisly trade in humans, raking in an untold fortune to keep
prying eyes off the trafficking route.
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Human
trafficking in Southeast Asia
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AFP
report continues:
As
the number of desperate Rohingya and Bangladeshis shuttled through the
trafficking operation shot up, so did Manas' rank in the Thai military.
But
the silver-haired general was condemned to 27 years in prison on Wednesday for
profiting from the trade, an extraordinarily rare conviction of a senior member
of an army that dominates the kingdom.
The
61-year-old's downfall was hastened in 2015 after investigators uncovered
secret jungle prisons in the south where traffickers starved and tortured
migrants while holding them for ransom.
The
discovery exposed Thailand's horrifying role in a criminal operation that
shifted victims from Myanmar to Malaysia, and forced the ruling junta to launch
a belated crackdown.
Police
followed a money trail that lead straight to Manas, an army hardliner with a
passion for bullfighting.
"He
was involved in such an obvious way...at a time when the junta was really
trying to show themselves to be clean," said Paul Chambers, an expert on
Thailand's military.
"He
is going down because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time."
- Money trail -
Manas
was first highlighted as a suspect in early 2015 after 98 famished Rohingya
were found in trucks in Nakhon Si Thammarat, stopped by a random police
checkpoint.
Provincial
police -- aided by anti-trafficking NGO Freeland -- used the drivers' cell
phones to trace their regular route.
The
trail carved through Thailand's southern neck from coastal Ranong, where
boatloads of migrants arrived from Myanmar, to malaria-infested camps near the
Malaysian border, where they were held in appalling conditions.
Phone
and e-banking records from the drivers led to key trafficker Sunan Saengthong,
a Ranong politician and businessman who had deposited nearly US$600,000 in
accounts belonging to Manas.
In
May 2015 police found more bank slips revealing that Sunan's nephew had also
transferred huge sums to Manas, including some US$400,000 in just over a month.
Sunan
was jailed for 35 years in a separate trial but his nephew Nattaphat Saengthong
and others remain at large.
Around
the time of the money transfers, Manas served as a top commander of Thailand's
southern security arm.
His
job was to enforce its controversial "push-back" policy -- which
meant turning around boats of stateless Rohingya who were trying to flee
persecution in Myanmar.
But
he used this position to do just the opposite, according to last week's
verdict, which exposed a matrix of collusion between state officials and
businessmen who profited from trafficking.
Witnesses
said Manas instructed officers to force back a boat of 265 Rohingya in 2012 --
only to covertly re-route the ship to shore and truck the human cargo south to
the jungle prisons.
Manas
"had direct responsibility in the push-back mission and must have been
part of this human trafficking network, otherwise the Rohingya would not have
been able to return to Thailand so quickly," the verdict read.
- Southern 'Big Shot' -
The
trafficking operation flourished until the 2015 crackdown, with tens of
thousands of victims funnelled through a trade worth an estimated US$250
million.
Many
were lured from the Myanmar-Bangladesh border by brokers who promised jobs,
while others were violently kidnapped and forced onto the boats.
The
big money was made in Thailand, where jungle camp wardens phoned relatives of
the weakest migrants and threatened to kill them if they didn't send more cash.
The
young and strong were sold off as labour to Malaysian palm oil plantations or
fishing boats, according to Freeland.
All
the while, Manas' seemingly inexorable rise up the army ranks continued, with
his command stretching over increasingly large chunks of the south.
Months
before his arrest in 2015, he was promoted to Lt-General and given the sweeping
role of "military advisor".
It
wasn't the first time the hawkish officer had hurdled controversy.
He
was linked to a 2004 raid on a mosque that left more than 30 Muslim rebels dead
in Thailand's far south, one of the early sparks of an insurgency still burning
today.
"He
had a reputation for often going beyond the law," said Chambers, adding
that he was known as a "big shot" in the region.
Manas
was the only military man convicted in last week's trafficking trial, which saw
more than 60 people sent to jail.
Rights
groups welcomed the verdict but warned that many perpetrators remain at large.
"We
know not everyone has been accounted for in this trial," said Amy Smith
from Fortify Rights, which closely tracked the investigation.
"More needs to be done to account for the horrific crimes that took place... and to ensure this never happens again."
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