Two more hammer blows to a HALF-COCKED peace process

BANGKOK’S RELUCTANCE TO GRANT LEGITIMACY TO ITS DIALOGUE PARTNERS IN THE FAR SOUTH HAS CLOSED OFF THE POSSIBILITY OF PROGRESS IN TALKS

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Confused signals from Bangkok have brought two setbacks for the deep South peace process that would never have happened if policymakers had taken a more progressive attitude towards the Malay-speaking region from the start.

The first setback was the dismissal of Lt-General Nakrob Boonbuakarn, the secretary-general of the so-called Dialogue Panel of Thai negotiators in ongoing talks with MARA Patani, an umbrella group of Patani Malay separatist organisations.

Nakrob was accused by his Bangkok overseers of stepping beyond his mandate, which was never clearly defined in the first place. Junta leaders are said to be concerned about their legacy in the far South, and don’t want to be seen as the ones who “gave away” the historically contested region.
The second setback was the government’s pressuring of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to refrain from mentioning MARA Patani in resolutions adopted at its recent summit in Turkey. Thailand succeeded in this quest, though some of the 57 OIC membernations insisted on referring to the ongoing peace dialogue.

In its summit communiqué the OIC urged Bangkok to “grant the group of representatives of the Muslim community in the South the required recognition and called upon the government to provide guarantee of safety in travelling to and from Thailand to members of the dialogue team and protection from detention and prosecution during their engagement in the peace process”.
Bangkok has always been concerned at MARA Patani receiving international recognition beyond that granted by appointing the Dialogue Panel to talk with the separatists.

Thailand’s policy is somewhat contradictory here, mixing a willingness to acknowledge and sit down for talks with MARA Patani with irritation every time the group seeks dialogue with others.
However, it is only natural that a nonstate actor such as MARA Patani would seek ways to enhance its legitimacy internationally and with the people of Patani, the historically contested region encompassing the southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and the four Malay-speaking districts of Songhla.

In December last year, OIC secretarygeneral Iyad Ameen Madani met with members of MARA Patani in Malaysia prior to coming to Thailand.

Bangkok expressed its disapproval of the meeting and blamed Kuala Lumpur for arranging it. But MARA Patani members were quick to point out it was their own initiative.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha stopped the OIC chief in his tracks during their meeting in Bangkok, informing him that his concern was welcome but not his intervention.
The conflict in the far South has drifted on and off OIC’s radar screen for decades. In 2010, then OIC secretarygeneral Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu secretly met with leaders of longstanding Patani separatist organisations in Saudi Arabia.

He urged them to forge a political front – the United Patani People Council (UPPC) – while the OIC vowed to help facilitate a dialogue process with the Thai government.

Once the front was formed, a regional assembly called the Patani People Congress (PCC) was to be next in the pipeline. The purpose of the PCC was to provide the needed legitimacy for the UPPC.
But the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva refused to go along with the plan, halting the OIC initiative.
Patani was mentioned again in the 2012 OIC foreign ministers meeting, where the 57-member organisation expressed concern at “meagre progress” made on the 2007 joint statement between the two sides. The OIC also expressed dismay at the “continued application of the emergency law in most southern areas and the limited progress in introducing [the local Malayu] language … as a language of instruction in the schools of the South”.

The OIC also criticised the “continued extensive military presence of armed forces throughout the southern border provinces and its negative impacts on the population’s normal life”, as well as “the mounting reliance on undisciplined paramilitary militias accused of committing illegal acts, [with their] consequences of increasing ethnic and religious polarisation”.

The 2007 joint statement, inked with the government of Surayud Chulanont, has become the OIC’s reference point for measuring Thailand’s commitment to peace in the far South. The statement was somewhat bold, making references to the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit, the Krue Se standoff and the Tak Bai massacre, plus more general issues of human rights violations and the culture of impunity among Thai security forces.

But Bangkok’s bold bid for peace didn’t last beyond the tenure of Surayud’s military administration. No government since then has had the courage to make peace with the Malays of Patani, not even that of Yingluck Shinawatra, whose clumsily put-together dialogue constituted something between a hoax and a huge leap of faith.

For fear of being perceived as antipeace, the current ruling junta decided to resurrect that so-called peace process. That decision helps explain their footdragging now and their unwillingness to make concessions necessary to progress.

Lt-General Nakrob, who was part of the Yingluck initiative and stayed aboard after the May 2014 coup, was forced to operate in a confusing environment.
Nakrob was caught between MARA Patani separatists desperate to shore up their own legitimacy and international standing, and a junta in Bangkok whose unwillingness to make concessions extends to refusing to call their dialogue partners by name.

Nakrob was set an impossibly broad task – as secretary- general for the Dialogue Panel, spokesman for the initiative, and head of the technical team mapping out the terms of reference for the talks.
He backed the involvement of the separatist umbrella group even before it became MARA Patani. Back then the separatists were engaged as “Plan B” for the original Yingluck peace process that had Hasan Taib at the negotiating table.

And when Hasan threw in the towel, Plan B became Party B.

Nakrob was working in an environment where progress was held hostage by stakeholders unwilling to make concessions.

Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the longstanding separatist group that controls the vast majority of separatist combatants, says it will not come to the table until properly prepared and ready.
BRN also says Bangkok is only interested cutting the number of violent incidents for domestic consumption, not in addressing the root cause of the conflict.
The government refuses to address the roots of historical grievances in the South since that would mean having to make concessions.

For independent observers of the conflict, signals coming from the junta seem confusing: Nakrob and the Dialogue Panel are mandated to meet MARA Patani but are not permitted to utter the name “MARA Patani” because the generals don’t want to lend the separatists legitimacy.

Meanwhile government sources report that the top brass in Bangkok has yet to be convinced that MARA Patani has command and control over the militants in the deep South.

BRN says it is not prepared to come to the table and adds that the OIC is just one more international organisation out there looking to gain entry to the peace process in their historical homeland.
The question is, whether Bangkok is willing to entertain the idea of allowing foreign entities to get involved with peace initiatives in the southernmost provinces.

DON PATHAN is an independent security consultant based in Thailand. He is also the founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).