Gen Surayud Chulanont is now Thai supreme commander. He will be meeting General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from June 20-27, 2003. Info from the article farther down.

 

Weirdness too. Article forwarded farther down is already offline at Bangkok Post, but one can find the article title via Google News search:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=bangkok+post+dea

 

 

The Nation (Thailand) has some recent drug-war death squad articles too. They are archived here:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AkhaWeeklyJournal/message/272

 

Older articles can be found here:
http://www.mapinc.org/source/Nation,+The+(Thailand) and
http://www.mapinc.org/source/Bangkok+Post+(Thailand)

 

 

Matthew McDaniel <akha@...> wrote:

To: akhaweeklyjournal@yahoogroups.com
From: Matthew McDaniel
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:55:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [AkhaWeeklyJournal] Evil Pays: DEA Still aiding the Thai Drug War

Dear Friends:

 

American aid for the drug war goes on.  It is unconscienable that this aid is going on while there is no accountability in Thailand for all the killings of hill tribe peoples and Thais.

 

Matthew McDaniel

 

Bangkok Post June 13, 2003

 

WAR ON DRUGS

Unit set up to pass on intelligence from US

DEA to train army in suppression methods

The army has set up a new unit in Chiang Mai to coordinate the flow of information from the US Drug Enforcement Administration to the Third Army and Task Force 399 for drug suppression operations, an army source said.

The drug information centre, based at the Third Development Battalion, has about 30 staff, and modern equipment provided by the DEA.

There are no DEA staff assigned to the centre.

The US agency would also provide intelligence and drug suppression training for Third Army personnel, the source said.

Task Force 399, set up with assistance from the DEA by Gen Surayud Chulanont when he was army chief, is based in the 7th Infantry Regiment in Chiang Mai. Its current commander was Col Chainarong Thanarun.

Gen Surayud, now supreme commander, is to visit the US from June 20-27 and would discuss drug suppression and next year's Cobra Gold exercises with Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff.

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