EDITORIAL: When security forces can't be trusted

The Nation

A spike in violence in the deep South can be traced directly to the Army's rough reactions to events

The Army’s so-called “Tung Yang Daeng model” – an effort to integrate the operation of the military, villagers and local security into one cohesive unit – is facing a severe test in that Pattani district after back-to-back incidents that illustrated the vulnerability of security units in remote areas.

The first incident came in mid-July, with some 40 insurgents surrounding a police substation and sparking an intense exchange of gunfire. 

Road spikes, felled trees and a roadside bomb stalled the reinforcements and an Army helicopter had to be dispatched to the scene. The attack left two soldiers seriously wounded and several more with severe burns after the station was set aflame and razed.

In a routine response, a group of young men from nearby Islamic boarding schools were rounded up and interrogated. Locals said the way they were mistreated set the stage for the second attack, in which insurgents burned down six public schools on October 12, apparently to demonstrate their disapproval of the authorities’ tactics.

The Army billed the arson attacks as a response to its recent arrest of key figures in the insurgency, though no names were mentioned.

In a bid for damage control, “the Tung Yang Daeng model” was conjured up. How this differs from previous attempts to outsource security work to local residents – or try to get villagers involved in security details – is anybody’s guess. It has strong echoes of the so-called “Pentagon II initiative” concocted after a truckload of insurgents killed four soldiers patrolling on motorbikes in Pattani’s Ma-Yor district in July 2012.

That incident was caught on CCTV and broadcast all over the social media. The government of Yingluck Shinawatra had to give the impression that it was in control of the situation, and so units, agencies and people were shifted around to create Pentagon II. And yes, the policymakers said more or less the same thing about how they were going to step up coordination among the security agencies.

This time around, the Army is counting on village protection units as part of the line-up. But the military has tried handing off security duties to the villagers before and knows the results can be disastrous.

Witness, for example, the protest in Tak Bai in October 2004 that led to what many now call a massacre. The protesters were calling for the release of a group of village-defence volunteers who had been accused of handing their weapons to insurgents. The volunteers had said they surrendered the weapons to avoid being slaughtered by a superior force. The military opened fire on the demonstrators and then stacked the survivors in trucks, resulting in 85 deaths, mainly from suffocation.

For some reason the Army continues to believe that residents in the Muslim-majority deep South are obligated to put their lives on the line for the nation, despite the fact that authorities often fail to respect their cultural difference and address their historical grievances.
Perhaps the military needs to look closer to home when it comes to accountability and responsibility for security.

The killing of a Malay Muslim child, 14-year-old Muhammad-Azuwan Sohoh, by a paramilitary Ranger in Narathiwat’s Sri Sakorn district on August 21 is a case in point.
Muhammad-Azuwan’s case deserves attention because investigators discovered that the Ranger involved, Aekapot Samansuan, had shot the boy and then placed a pistol in the victim’s hand to disguise him as an insurgent.

Then, just a week ago, Marines opened fire on a pickup truck at a checkpoint in Hutaeyulo in Narathiwat’s Bacho district, killing 10-year-old Hizula Taemoh and wounding her mother and younger sister. The family was heading to market to sell coconuts.
Once again, the military unit involved tried to portray the victims as insurgents. But this time around, eyewitnesses spoke out and revealed the truth.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to “wake up to the fact that attempts to cover up misconduct of its security units and protect them from criminal responsibility fan the flames of violent reprisals”.

“Insurgents have repeatedly used the impunity of government forces to
justify brutal attacks on civilians,” it said.

Thai security forces in the South must clean up their own house before they can expect others to join in efforts to keep the peace.