Gulling Mr Pilger

Paisal Sricharatchanya

Bangkok

When the Thai Labour Department summoned a press conference in May to refute John Pilger's child-slavery article published in the Daily Mirror, it appeared at first glance that they were trying to put over a whitewash. The mother and child principal characters in the story, who were Produced before the pressmen — dutifully professed innocence and said they had acted out a scene of fictional reunion, highlighted in the London newspaper report, for financial motives.

It was easy to see why the Thai authorities had taken such great pains to deny the report, which was published one month before the Prime Minister, Prem Tinsulanond, was to lead a trade- promotion mission to Britain. But the in- itial scepticism over the Thai official rebut- tal of Pilger's article must now give way to the facts. Following our investigations, in- volving exhaustive interviews with people involved in the alleged child purchase and subsequent family reunion, it has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the author of the article was a victim of an elaborate charade.

According to notarised official documents obtained for the Spectator, Rakhrintr Nantapan (who was identified in the article by her nickname `Sunee'), now nine years old, has been residing in Bangkok's Huay Kwang district and atten- ding the Prompan Witthaya school for the Past three years. This is contrary to Pilger's version which states that, lacking any schooling, she was lured from her home in Phitsanuloke to be sold on Bangkok's child-labour market.

According to the article, Pilger paid 3,500 baht (£85) for the girl who was `bought' through an intermediary from one of the numerous job-placement shops around Bangkok's main railway station, which he graphically described. Pilger claimed then to have taken the frightened, half-starved girl, who he said had been kid- napped from home, back to Phitsanuloke to a tearful reunion with the grief-stricken mother.

Pilger himself, however, had not per- sonally 'bought' the girl. The job of finding a suitable subject was left to a Thai fixer. This go-between states that he was reluctant to follow instructions to acquire a real slave, partly because the price would have gone to the shop operator and agent, but also because he genuinely failed to locate any girl who fitted the specifications he was given. The money Pilger paid, for which a false receipt was produced, was duly split between the fixer, 'his female companion and the girl's mother.

The bizarre story came to light after I managed to identify and interview the fixer, the key figure who has remained largely in the background during the weeks of con- troversy over the story. He is Santi Dit thakornburi, a Bangkok chauffeur. Apart from the financial motives, Santi claims he was under the impression that Pilger and a colleague were representing an international agency genuinely interested in improving the lot of Thai children. The colleague was Tim Bond, an officer of Terre des Horn- mes, a Swiss-based children's welfare organisation. Bond had arrived in Bangkok beforehand apparently to conduct preliminary research for the article.

From Santi's account, Bond approached him in early March to locate two young girls below the age of 12 at Hua Lampong railway station, where trains from north- east Thailand arrive before dawn, often bringing groups of children from poor vill- ages seeking employment in the capital. The plan was to hire them as domestics (if the children were alone) or buy them (if accom- panied by agents) with the object of tracing them and returning them to their native villages. (Santi knew Bond from two years ago when he had helped buy two young boys and accompany them back to Ubon Ratkhathani province in the north-east. Details of the purchase were included in a 1980 report on child slavery in Thailand which Bond wrote for the United Nations. This report on the child trade in Thailand highlighted the purchase of the two boys and their subsequent return to Ubon Rat- khathani. Santi assisted in the investigation and was credited as a witness throughout the report.) However, Santi says that on this occasion his early morning visits to the station for almost a week were to no avail, as most children were accompanied by either relatives or agents operating for job- placement shops. 'There was one case in- volving two girls who wanted 6,000 baht per year. But Bond rejected it on grounds that they were accompanied by parents.' The pressure intensified as Pilger was reportedly due to arrive shortly. Santi finally decided to mount the charade, he says.

Through a female friend, Tao Thien- Thong, Santi was introduced to the girl's mother, Toi Nantapan, a relatively poor Bangkok resident married to an Army Sergeant now stationed in the Southern Pro- vince of Yala. According to her notarised signed statement, Toi thought she was to permit her daughter to act in a film being made by foreigners, playing a poor up- country girl forced to work in Bangkok. The film was to be called 'Hell Factory', and she was to receive 10,000 baht (about £250) as remuneration. (Santi claims he was unaware of this promise). In the end, Toi claims, no substantial payment was made and the 3,500 baht (about £85) paid by Pilger was split among the three of them.

The stage was then set. The mother made off by train to Phitsanuloke. The following day she was to meet her daughter, Santi, Pilger and company, who would be driving up together. Meanwhile, Santi presented the 'purchase' to Pilger and Bond. Santi said that he produced the false receipt — a document readily available from any Bangkok printshop — which was quoted as evidence of the purchase in Pilger's article.

In Phitsanuloke, dressed in tattered clothes according to instructions given by Santi and Tao, the mother and daughter hugged and wept as the foreigners photographed them near a tumbledown shack which was claimed to be their home. According to Santi and Toi, both Pilger and Bond appeared genuinely moved by the charade. They were given about 500 baht (about £12) with promises that more funds would arrive from London for Sunee's future schooling. However, they claimed they have received no more payment since the incident.

It is clear that the Thai characters involv- ed in the entire episode had stage-managed the show chiefly for financial gain. As Santi conceded: 'While it was difficult to produce a genuine case, it might not have been worth my effort sinc ethe money [to pay for a child] would go to the shop and the agent anyway.' Both Santi and Toi now claim they would have wanted no part in the charade if they had known the result would be harmful to Thailand.

The broader theme of child exploitation in the Pilger article cannot be disputed poor young people from up-country pro- vinces do indeed flock to Bangkok, and some unfortunate cases land up in sweat shops. Recent indications point to a decline in the rural-urban migration since 1980 when the Government started implementing an annual 3.5 billion baht (£85 million) rural jobs creation programme, which employs local labour in a wide variety of development schemes.

Although accurate statistics are difficult to obtain, incomes of farming families have risen, decreasing the necessity to send children to work in Bangkok. Labour of- ficials stationed in almost all of the country's 71 provinces have also quietly mounted a campaign in the recent past to discourage children from heading for the capital, but such persuasion cannot succeed unless local employment is available.

Paisal Sricharatchanya is a Bangkok cor- respondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review.