Disappeared in Thailand

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Polajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen was last seen on April 17, 2014. At the time the human rights activist was working with lawyers in Bangkok to stop the eviction of Karen indigenous people from Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National park. For five years his wife fought to solve the mystery of his disappearance, suspecting a cover up by local park authorities. But this summer Billy’s body was found burned and stuffed into a 200-litre oil drum which had been dumped in a reservoir on the outskirts of the national park. BBC Thai’s correspondent, Chaiyot Yongcharoenchai, investigates Billy’s murder and discovers how his death could end up helping the families of other disappeared people in Thailand.

Producer, Charlotte Pamment.

(Image: Billy Rakchongcharoen. Credit: Muenor Rakchongcharoen)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He told me, the people involved in this aren't happy with me.
0:10.0	The people involved in this aren't happy with me.
0:14.0	They say that if they find me, they will kill me.
0:18.0	If I do disappear, don't come looking for me.
0:22.0	Don't wonder where I've gone. They will probably have killed me.
0:29.2	This is Munor. She last saw her husband Billy on the 15th of April 2014.
0:37.0	We didn't get to say goodbye.
0:41.0	He didn't say anything special that afternoon. He just
0:47.4	left like any other day.
0:50.3	Billy was going to meet his grandfather in his remote village in southern Thailand.
0:56.0	He was collecting evidence to take to lawyers in the capital, Bangkok.
1:01.0	Evidence that local authorities were illegally eviting indigenous
1:06.1	communities from their homes.
1:12.4	So I said to him, if you know you are in danger like this, why can't you stop helping your grandfather and the village?
1:20.0	And he said to me, when you are doing the right thing, you have to keep fighting, even if it means you may lose your life.
1:30.0	And after he said that, I couldn't ask him to stop.
1:35.0	When people disappear in Thailand, activists or those defying authority, we say they have been carried away.
1:46.7	But in the history of my country, no one has ever been brought to justice for making someone disappear, for carrying them away.
1:57.0	I'm Chayot Jogdrand Chai, a reporter from the BBC Thai Service, and for this week's assignment on the BBC World Service,
2:10.0	I'm investigating the disappearance of Munor's husband, Billy. What happened to him? And could a surprising twist in his story, help bring justice to Thailand's disappeared? The story of Billy Rakkong's disappearance starts in 2011. A military helicopter crashes in bad weather on the 16th of July in a remote part of
2:39.0	Gangata National Park in the south of Thailand. There are no survivors.
2:44.0	The commander in charge sends a second helicopter to recover the bodies.
	...

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