The Nation
The former leader of the Bersatu, a now-defunct umbrella group for a number of long-standing Patani Malay separatist movements, was in Bangkok recently to give a talk on the ongoing conflict in the deep South.
Wan Kadir, who was educated in the US and Australia where he competed his PhD on comparisons between the separatist insurgency in Mindanao and Thailand’s deep South, spoke candidly about what needs to be done to achieve peace.
He didn’t mince words when he said the ongoing peace talks did not include people who could influence the course of action on the ground. In other words, the so-called representatives from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, are not in command or in control of insurgents on the ground.
More than nine months since the peace process was launched, it is difficult to disagree with what he is saying. This has raised the question as to why the Thai government rushed into the talks, before getting solid evidence of the bona fides of the people coming to the negotiating table.
The insurgents have demonstrated – as they did on January 2004 – that they can hit just about any place and at any time. Unfortunately, instead of coming clean about the difficulties the government is facing, the authorities continue to claim that they are moving in the right direction.
Too many lives have been lost to this conflict for our officers to be playing public-relations games and stunts.
In spite of his criticism, Wan Kadir’s remarks should be welcomed because they shed light on this long-standing conflict that has cost the country too many lives and resources.
Wan Kadir should have been permitted to return to Thailand long ago. Back in 2004, after the Krue Se stand-off on April 28, 2004, Wan Kadir made a public statement about wanting to return to Thailand to work with authorities to counter the new wave of insurgency surfacing in the country.
Wan Kadir is from a previous generation of insurgents that emerged in the mid-1960s and went under in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The then government of Thaksin Shinwatra thought it was too much trouble to have him back in the country of his birth and Wan Kadir was given the cold shoulder.
This time around, it seems that he is wanted here to show the exiled community and leaders that Thailand is open-minded enough to have such people back. The fact that he believes the Thai negotiating team has been barking up the wrong tree, should not be held against him. If anything, we should thank him for what can only be described as a constructive observation and go forward from there.
Wan Kadir was head of Bersatu, which has since been dissolved, but it does not mean that he is completely out of touch about what is going on within the circles of the exiled leaders.
Thailand should also thank Malaysia for permitting him to travel to Thailand to speak to the local media. In fact, he should come to Thailand more often. There is much to learn from a man with vast academic experience. He should be free to meet with anybody he wants, whether they are fellow academics or foreign diplomats based in Thailand.
The fact that his thinking challenges our notion of the nation-state construct, should not be held against him. If we are serious about moving forward with the peace process, we should be open-minded enough to listen to views of those that differ with our own administration.
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