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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: October 2006

Thai coup may hit wildlife traffic

click here to find out more about GoudaBANGKOK--The September 20, 2006 Thai military coup postponed for six days the already long delayed return of 41 smuggled orangutans from Thailand to Indonesia. Still, Wildlife Friends Found-ation Thailand founder Edwin Wiek told members of the Asian Animal Protection Network, "We believe that under the new rule the conservation of wildlife will improve."

 

The repatriation flight, orginally set for September 23, was rescheduled for September 29.

 

Another seven orangutans are suffering from hepatitis, the Jakarta Post reported on September 16. Indonesia has refused to accept them, at least until after they recover.

 

"The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and Wildlife Friends, who were to facilitate the repatriation for the Indonesian government, were told that the Indonesian Navy plane that was to pick up the apes could not land in Thailand until further notice," Wiek said earlier.

 

The plane, a C-130 Hercules, was designed to fly tanks into trouble spots. The mission might therefore have been dangerously confused with military activity.

 

The orangutans were central to two of the many prominent corruption cases that Thai Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin cited as his reasons for leading the bloodless coup that deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

 

Safari World

The orangutans became a cause celebré in November 2003, when Thai forestry officials impounded 115 orangutans altogether at the Safari World zoo in Bangkok. Investigating alleged cruelty in connection with kick boxing matches held between orangutans to amuse visitors, the forestry department found that many of the orangutans were kept in cramped and unhealthy conditions, and were not properly registered.

 

"Safari World claimed that the many young orangutans were produced by a successful breeding program, but DNA testing paid for by the Orangutan Foundation found in 2004 that at least 72 of the orangutans were illegally smuggled into Thailand," summarized Karmele Llano of the Dutch organization Stichting ProAnimalia International, in a September 2005 letter to ANIMAL PEOPLE.

 

Llano, Wiek, and others formed a coalition called Send Them Back Home to try to return the orangutans to Indonesia. Many of the impounded orangutans meanwhile vanished, mostly before they were physically removed from Safari World in August 2004.

 

"At least 15 of them reportedly died, in strange circumstances, without adequate medical documentation," wrote Llano.

 

Twenty-two orangutans were somehow smuggled to Cambodia, where they were found performing kick-boxing exhibitions at a casino. Five were loaned to the Chiang Mai Night Safari Zoo.

 

Night Safari

"Night Safari has veterinarians and everything to take care of them, so we lent them temporarily," National Parks director Damrong Phidej told Associated Press.

 

Opened in late 2005, the $30 million Chiang Mai Night Safari Zoo was politely described by Associated Press as "a project initiated by Thaksin in his home town."

 

"The project was not brought before Parliament for deliberation and suspiciously favored a group of people with vested interests in hotels and tourism," summarized Chaiphan Praphasawat of the We Love Chiang Mai coalition, to The Nation, of Bangkok.

 

The We Love Chiang Mai coalition included local zoo opponents, environmentalists, and animal advocates who became concerned about the deaths of animals who were obtained and held in temporary quarters while the Night Safari was built. They soon found much more to worry about, including allegedly obsolete and substandard habitat designs and questionable transactions arranged to obtain animals.

 

Wildlife Fund Thailand president Pisit Na Phatthalung noted in November 2005 that then-Natural Resources and Environment Ministry vice-minister Plodprasop Suraswadi was paid more than $5,250 a month to double as chief executive officer of the Chiang Mai Night Safari Zoo.

 

"We also found that most of the top executives were close to Plodprasop and they received ludicrous salaries," Pisit Na Phatthalung told The Nation.

 

Both Thaksin and Plodprasop were sued on June 7, 2006 by the We Love Chiang Mai Coalition, for allegedly improperly creating the Night Safari Zoo in a national park.

 

At request of the We Love Chiang Mai Coalition, the Thai National Human Rights Commission in July 2006 began investigating land deals made to add an elephant park to the Night Safari Zoo.

 

Plodprasop, who previously served as fisheries minister, lost that post and eventually lost the Natural Resources and Environ-ment Ministry amid allegations of facilitating wildlife trafficking. His most notorious deal was authorizing the 2002 export of 100 tigers to a privately owned zoo or tiger farm, depending on definitions, in Hainan, China.

 

While Thaksin has often posed as an animal lover, including in public denunciations of wildlife trafficking, he defended Thai cockfighters against pressure to end cockfighting that has intensified since 2004 due to outbreaks of the avian influenza H5N1, which have killed more than 130 people worldwide. Many Thai cases have been linked to the transport, exhibition, and sale of gamecocks.

 

Kenya deal

Plodprasop embarrassed the Thaksin government in November 2005 by disclosing his intent to open a restaurant at the Night Safari Zoo that would serve dog meat and the meat of lions, tigers, elephants, and giraffes. Plodprasop spoke only days after Thaksin and Kenyan President Mwai Kbaki signed the most notorious of the Chiang Mai Night Safari Zoo animal acquisition agreements.

 

As the transaction was originally structured, Kenya was to send the Chiang Mai Night Safari Zoo as many as 300 animals of approximately 30 species, including lions, elephants, hippos, and rhinos.

 

The deal was scaled back under opposition led by Youth for Conservation and Africa Network for Animal Welfare founder Josphat Ngonyo to include only about 100 animals, chiefly zebras, giraffes, and gazelles--but opposition from Ngonyo and current YfC president Steve Itela continues.

 

Nairobi High Court Justice Joseph Nyamu on July 4, 2006 delayed until September 25 hearing arguments on the legality of exporting Kenyan animals to the Night Safari Zoo. Nyamu in December 2005 issued a temporary injunction blocking the exports, and has repeatedly extended it.

 

The coup "has effectively killed the proposal," reported Bogonko Bosire of Agence France-Press.
"The deal is as good as dead," affirmed a source whom Bosire identified only as "a senior official in Kenya's tourismministry. Ironically, it's a bit of a relief," the source said, "since the government has come under intense pressure to stop it."

 

Thaksin denied having personal economic interests in Kenya, but Kenyan Tourism and Wildlife Minister Morris Dzoro contradicted Thaksin's claims at a June 2006 press conference in Nairobi.

 

"Thaksin has asked us about putting up a hotel here in Kenya and we are considering his application just like any other investor," Dzoro said.

 

The Thai coup proceeded with the apparent endorsement of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Ceremonially reigning for 59 years, the 78-year-old king and his wife, Queen Sirikit, are outspoken animal advocates. In 2002 King Bhumibol published an 84-page biography of Khun Tongdaeng, a street dog he adopted in 1998, and in his birthday speech called for better treatment of street dogs and elephants.
At the king's request, the Thai national police added eight former street dogs to their elite airport security dog team.

 

A year later, at the queen's request, Prime Minister Thaksin denounced animal trafficking as immoral, "especially if the animals are to be killed for meat," and initiated crackdowns on both wildlife trafficking and the sale of dogs for human consumption. Dog-eating by ethnic Chinese immigrants who fled to Thailand from Vietnam during conflict between Vietnam and China in the 1970s has often become a flashpoint in cultural conflicts in the Thai northeast, Thaksin's political stronghold.

 

Wildlife trafficking arrests and seizures have continued. So has the commerce. The biggest recent bust came on July 18, 2006.

 

"After receiving a tip from the new Association of Southeast Asian Nations Wildlife Enforcement Network," the Bankok Post reported, officials from three Thai government agencies "detained four dealers for questioning and confiscated over 250 purported shahtoosh shawls [made from the fur of poached Himalayan antelope called chiru], "which can cost as much as $12,000 apiece."

 

Wiek case

"When you read this," Edwin Wiek posted to the Asian Animal Protection Network, "you almost believe the Thai authorities are actually really doing something to stop the illegal wildlife trade. Please don't be fooled. The traders will not go to jail, they will not get a fine and they might even get their goods back," Wiek predicted. "There is no law that forbids keeping foreign wild animals or parts of wild animals. Traffickers can only get in trouble when they are caught red-handed smuggling the goods into the country. In this case they were not."

 

But Wiek got into trouble in early 2005 for keeping 11 macaques who were turned over to the Thai Animal Guardians Association by their former owners, and relocated to better housing at Wildlife Friends after the Thai forestry department declined to take them. Wiek was in August 2006 fined $525 and given a suspended eight-month jail sentence for possessing the macaques without holding a permit to do so.

 

"Wiek, a Dutch national, who has spent the past five years setting up one of the country's top animal centers, is the first activist to receive such a sentence," reported Pennapa Hongthong and Jim Pollard of The Nation. "Wiek claimed the charges were pushed by a senior official who was upset by his efforts to force the government to return the smuggled orangutans found at Safari World to Indonesia."

 

"No one will want to provide shelter to unwanted wildlife through fear that one day they might be arrested and charged with the same offence as Wiek," said Animal Guardians Association chair Roger Lohanon.

 

Responded Thai wildlife department deputy director Schawan Tunhikorn, "I didn't abuse my power. I just did my job in protecting wildlife."

 

"To the animal welfare community, Edwin Wiek is someone who works to help Thai wild animals in distress," e-mailed Indian animal advocate and journalist Azam Siddiqui, mentioning Wiek's "contributions to the animals of India as well."

 

Elaborated Siddiqui, "Last year, on coming to know of a zoo exchange between the Thai zoological authorities and the Assam State Zoo here in India, Wiek warned me that the orangutans involved could be those who were smuggled into Thailand. Wiek brought a nine-member Thai TV crew to Assam in November 2005. He met with the Forest Minister of Assam and the zoo divisional forest officer in charge, and exchanged a few thoughts with the zoo vets about treating an injured tiger. Everyone was impressed with the trouble that he took to come all the way from Thailand to Assam."

 

"Edwin Wiek has the support of all animal welfare people, not only in Asia but around the world," added Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna. "In much of Asia and in many other parts of the world, money speaks. Wiek is a soft target because he lacks the monetary power of Safari World."
The new government of Thailand, with King Bhumibol as titular head, is expected to erase many suspected unjust convictions of opponents of the Thaksin regime, leaving hope that Wiek's conviction might be set aside.

 

--Merritt Clifton