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| Southeast Asia |
| No peace in sight for southern Thailand |
| 2006-10-27 |
| By Shawn W Crispin If Thailand's new military-appointed interim government is suing for peace with the Malay Muslim insurgent groups ravaging the country's three southernmost provinces, nobody apparently told the rebels. One month since military coup-makers ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and vowed to reconcile Bangkok with the historically restive region, the security situation has only gone from bad to worse. While new Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont met last week in Kuala Lumpur with his Malaysian counterpart Abdullah Badawi to discuss possible peace strategies, insurgents added at least another 23 murders to the conflict's spiraling death toll, which, according to one independent estimate, has surpassed 2,300, substantially higher than the 1,700 figure that the Thai government acknowledges. The local and international media have misread the significance of the Thai government's recent peace overtures. Significantly, Surayud purposely refrained from mentioning former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad's recent mediation effort, which was launched clandestinely in August and entailed meetings between insurgent leaders and Thai intelligence agents on Malaysia's Langkawi Island. Mahathir's efforts were not endorsed by Kuala Lumpur and were apparently arranged more with a view to upstage his successor Abdullah than to establish a legitimate peace process, according to people familiar with the situation. Mahathir's initiative also managed to complicate parallel mediation efforts that were already under way, and his brusque handling alienated some insurgent groups when he suggested that they lay down their arms as a goodwill gesture before proposed formal talks began. The hard reality, according to those involved with ongoing mediation efforts, is that peace is still a long way off for southern Thailand. Insurgent groups are deeply entrenched and have achieved total control in areas along the Thai-Malaysian border in Narathiwat province, where Thai soldiers reportedly dare not patrol. Although Kuala Lumpur steadfastly denies it, Malay insurgent groups often plan attacks and take sanctuary from Thai reprisals in remote areas of Kelantan province in northern Malaysia, according to people who have met with the rebels. Nearly three years into the renewed conflict, Thai officials still do not have a clear idea concerning who exactly they should be negotiating with to stop the violence. Thailand's shadowy insurgency notably lacks any charismatic leaders and is being perpetuated by a number of different autonomous rebel groups, some of which share divergent outlooks and competitive objectives for the resistance. When former Thai insurgent Wan Kadir Che Man told journalists on the sidelines of an academic conference in Malaysia in 2004 that he controlled insurgents and was willing to negotiate an end to the conflict in exchange for more regional autonomy, his shirt-tie-and-jacket look didn't jibe with the Islamic flavor of the rebel groups. Thai officials later discovered that the aged insurgent, who at the time was serving as an academic at Malaya University, had closer links to Malaysia's special-branch police than to Thai insurgent groups, and they immediately broke off communications with the ethnic-Malay Thai national. Thailand's inability to gain any traction in behind-the-scenes talks is reflective of the resistance movement's complicated fragmentation. According to people familiar with the situation, certain insurgent-group representatives will not attend meetings if other groups are also invited. That is, rather than a united front, as the umbrella rebel group's Bersatu name translates in the local Yawi language, Thailand's Muslim insurgents often don't see eye-to-eye, which has complicated past efforts to work toward a blanket solution for the conflict. Fresh start, same result Surayud has signaled that he wishes to make a clean break from Thaksin's heavy-handed policies, which arguably tipped the restive region back into conflict. This week he announced plans for restoring the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center and possibly later the Combined 43rd Civilian-Police-Military Command, agencies that had successfully mediated between Bangkok and local Muslim leaders before Thaksin unilaterally dismantled them in April 2002. But a return to the status quo ante likely won't be enough to settle what has arguably morphed into a full-blown insurrection. Thailand's southern Muslim communities earlier took seriously the decentralization articles enshrined in the 1997 constitution, which among other democratizing measures opened the way for Muslim dress codes in state schools, greater liberty to use the local Yawi language, and access to radio airwaves for local groups to broadcast Islamic sermons and programs. Those local-level reforms were slowly but surely bringing the country's long-marginalized Muslims into the national fold and had undermined the influence and clout of violence-bent insurgent groups, which had largely been consigned to the political and, in certain cases, literal wilderness. Thaksin's policies violently reversed many of those democratic gains by reinforcing the Thai state's authority, centralization and regulation over the region. The reform rollback included the harassment and profiling of Islamic teachers and schools, and as insurgents regrouped and steadily escalated the violence, detention without trial, commando-style apprehension and disappearance, and in some cases torture of suspected Muslim militants. Unfortunately for Surayud, most southern Thai Muslims' and even certain insurgent group leaders' complaints and grievances are pinned directly to the on-the-ground security forces he now commands and hopes to rehabilitate to forge peace rather than sow violence across the region. His military-appointed government is confronted with a population that remains highly reluctant to cooperate with state agents, lest they be accused of cooperating with its proven abusive tendencies. One possible path to peace and reconciliation would be greater mobilization of royal symbolism, from which his military-appointed government derives much of its legitimacy. His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, although the most potent symbol of the Buddhist-majority Thai state, is known to be highly revered among the region's Muslims. Insurgent leaders have largely refrained from overtly criticizing the monarch, who local Muslims often note oversaw the first translation of the Koran into the Thai language. The palace has also shelled out variously for the construction of mosques across the country, and the respected monarch sometimes officiates at Koran recitals during important Muslim rites and rituals. That said, it's not clear stronger royal signals would necessarily break the impasse. One indication: the status of the royally appointed Chularajamontri, Thai Muslims' top spiritual leader, has come under fire from many Muslims who view him as too close to the central government and too distant from his adherents. Adding fuel to those fiery perceptions, the current Chularajamontri offered only muted criticism after the military's April 2004 destruction of the highly venerated Krue Se Mosque in Pattani province during a massive siege against a group of lightly armed rebels that had holed up in the ancient structure. Surayud recently said without elaborating that he would be willing to consider as part of a peace deal an autonomy package similar to the one Indonesia brokered last year to end its 30-year conflict against rebels in Aceh province. But according to people familiar with the situation, those in Surayud's inner circle are still highly reluctant to enact any sort of regional autonomy that from their perspective could eventually jeopardize the territorial integrity of the kingdom. Indeed, by shredding the 1997 constitution and appointing mainly conservatives to the body drafting the new constitution, the prevailing political winds are blowing against fully reinstating even the local-autonomy measures that were enshrined in the previous progressive charter, which significantly had paved the way for local democracy and peace to take root in the region. And so, despite the new government's change in tone, there is still no clear end in sight for Thailand's spiraling southern conflict. Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia editor. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #1 Gawd, I didn't think the Thais were this stupid. Have they not heard that continued digging does not get you out of the hole ? Their continued appeasement has put them in dire straits. After southern areas are overrun, do they think the Muzzies will be satisfied ? They are in worse shape than the French. (Tho not much ) |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2006-10-27 12:13 |