Did Thaksin meet insurgents?

Don Pathan
The Nation

Alleged sightings of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra meeting quietly with Muslim insurgent chieftains just before the bloody bombings in Songkhla and Yala have kicked up a major political storm.

The ruling Pheu Thai Party and the man himself have vehemently denied any such rendezvous. Several sources, including some from the insurgency side, have contradicted that, however.

The Nation has learned some details of the "meeting", in which Thaksin supposedly stopped short of apologising but expressed regret for some of the violent incidents carried out by authorities during his administration.

The sources said he told the group of 15 exiled leaders from long-standing Malay Muslim separatist groups that his harsh tactics in the deep South were partly the result of his being "misinformed" by authorities.

Thaksin urged all sides to let bygones be bygones and work together to bring peace back to the restless region.

He gave each exiled leader a hug before leaving, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Thaksin was not accompanied by any Thai government official to the meeting in the middle of last month, about two weeks before the bomb attacks in Yala and Hat Yai, that was facilitated by a Malaysian government agency.

"I thought he [Thaksin] was sincere with his gesture," said one exiled separatist who was at the meeting. "But this conflict is beyond the control of one man."

Refusing to take part in the secret meeting were the elders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), whose cadre told The Nation that they "could never forgive Thaksin for what he has done to the Malays of Patani" when he was premier.

They pointed to the Tak Bai massacre and other incidents in which he refused to punish abusive authorities.

This source said it didn't matter whether Thaksin's overtures were sincere or not because the so-called exiled leaders whom Thaksin met had no real influence on the militants in the field.

The BRN-Coordinate's refusal to deal with the Thaksin camp does not mean that the group has ruled out the idea of talking or negotiating with the Thai state.

There are other entities in the Kingdom that they are willing to talk to but only if the "situation" is right, the source said.

The BRN-C member said his outfit has the best working relationship with the Juwae, or armed militants currently operating on the ground, but the relationship is too fluid to establish a shared command.

Juwae are organised into semi-independent cells that span the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and the four Malay-speaking districts in Songkhla.

Juwae and the BRN-Coordinate are working towards establishing a shared command.

Unless the BRN-C and the Juwae can consolidate into one entity, with the BRN leaders forming the political wing and juwae the military wing of the movement, it would be difficult to move forward with any negotiations or peace talks with the Thai side, the source said.

According to exiled leaders, there isn't much unity among the so-called Patani Malay separatist groups, many of whom surfaced in the late 1960s to take up arms against the Thai state.

The Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), for example, has three persons claiming to be the president of the group.

Similarly, the identities of the members of the BRN-Coordinate remain heavily guarded. Like Pulo, the BRN-Coordinate has many self-professed leaders.

In the view of one BRN-Coordinate cadre from the faction that boycotted the Thaksin meeting, the recent attack in Yala that killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 100 was the juwae's way of turning down Thaksin's offer of an olive branch.

Hat Yai was hit on the same day as Yala but Hat Yai was not on the separatist movement's agenda, the source said.

The car bombing of the Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel in Hat Yai was probably part of a turf war between influential figures with an axe to grind with authorities, the source said.

Juwae selling their skills to crime syndicates is not uncommon, he said.

The Lee Gardens Plaza hotel and shopping complex was also targeted in September 2006 when one of the six motorcycle bombs that rocked the city exploded right in front of it.