Thailand has no clue how to end the insurgency in the South

Don Pathan
The Nation

Justice and equality for the Malay-Muslims in the three southernmost provinces is high on the agenda of the high-level representatives of the 56-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), as Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul confirmed that the delegates have asked about the use of the controversial Emergency Degree to quell the ongoing insurgency.

The delegation is headed by Ambassador Sayed Kassem El-Masry, an Egyptian envoy who visited the country last in 2005. In spite of the long absence between the previous and this visit, the OIC has consistently to look for ways to engage in resolution of the conflict in the restive region, meeting with the Patani Malay diaspora and people who keep a close watch on developments in Thailand's deep South.

But Bangkok, under successive governments, has never been comfortable with the idea of permitting the OIC, or any outsiders for that matter, to get involved in mediation or peace talks with the rebels, for fear that the issue would be internationalised. But denying them the political capital has not changed the course of the violence either.

Thailand’s was granted the status of Permanent Observer in the OIC in the late 1990s during the Chuan Leekpa administration. It was Thailand’s way of blocking the separatists from the setting any official recognition from the Islamic grouping.

To Bangkok's disappointment, in late 2010, the OIC met for two days with leaders of the long-standing separatist groups in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and in Kuala Lumpur. The meetings were carried out simultaneously from the end of September to the start of October. The OIC secretary-general, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, chaired the meeting in Jeddah, while Talal A Daous, the organisation's director for the Muslim Minorities and Communities Department, chaired the gathering in Kuala Lumpur.

According to diplomatic and exiled sources, the OIC urged the long-standing separatist groups to combine efforts and form a United Patani People's Council (UPPC). As for the question of the mandate, the Patani People's Congress (PCC) would be the forum that draws its legitimacy from the people in the Malay historical homeland that is now part of Thailand's three southernmost provinces. How the PCC would operate, violating Thailand's sovereignty, remained a big question.

But the then foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, decided to pour cold water on the idea of permitting the OIC to mediate in the conflict, and the organisation was forced to retreat to the drawing baard.

Today, just weeks after massive car bomb attacks in Hat Yai and Yala that resulted in the deaths of more than ten people and injuries to more than 100 others, the OIC is back in the spotlight. Thailand is hard pressed to come up with answers to the insurgency because the business-as-usual approach can no longer contain the violence. The devastating nature of the Yala and Hat Yai attacks suggest that a new threshold has been crossed and the worst is yet to come. And the fact that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra repeated the same old mantra during her recent visit to the region is not very encouraging.

The OIC's visit could very well be part of Thailand's effort to put on a brave, positive, active face, to create the impression that the state is doing something about the conflict.

The OIC mediating in the conflict might not be part of the official agenda but one can be certain that many stakeholders, especially the separatist leaders, wouldn't mind seeing the OIC involved in some kind of peace process.

One thing Thailand is concerned about is that the OIC could be too sympathetic to the separatist movement. But one prominent exiled leader, who has had dealings with the the OIC over the past three decades, said the organisation respects Thailand's territorial integrity and has never really entertained the idea of seeing the Muslim-majority deep South divided from the Kingdom.

"The OIC is essentially a state actor. It would be in Thailand's interest to have the OIC involved in mediation, but successive Thai governments are just too afraid to take the chance," said the exiled leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Although the Foreign Ministry has been the public face for Thailand in answering nagging questions about the ongoing conflict in the Malay-speaking region, it is the military and policy-makers at Government House that are the ones who set the policy and directions on how the country deals with the separatists.

During the administration of Abhisit Vejjajiva, the National Security Council (NSC) was given the task of formulating peace talks with the separatist movement. The Army wasn't too thrilled with the idea but nevertheless, sent a senior officer to observe the NSC-led process. One explanation for the willingness to appear to be cooperative may have to with the fact that the Army and the Democrat-led government were on good terms.

But when the Pheu Thai Party came to power, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra handed responsibility for the situation to the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC), which is headed by Thawee Sodsong, one of the party's favourite bureaucrats.

But instead of addressing the root cause of the conflict, Thawee has treated the job as if he is preparing for a sort of summit with de facto leader, Thaksin Shinawatra; that being the goal in itself. Thaksin met with a group of about 16 exiled leaders in mid-March but nothing meaningful came out of it. Moreover, it was heavily politicised by the opposition and the military when the event became public information. Thawee and Pheu Thai are back to the drawing board.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the meeting with Thaksin was not so much who was there but who wasn't. The Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), the group with the best working relations with the militants on the ground, boycotted the meeting, saying it could never forgive Thaksin for "what he has done to the Malays of Patani". They were referring to his heavy-handed tactics during his rule, which he blamed on bureaucrats for providing him with inaccurate information.

But the BRN-Coordinate says it is not completely ruling out the idea of talking to the Thais, as long as it is not Thaksin's camp. Moreover, senior members in the movement say they have yet to establish an adequate command-and-control relationship with the militants on the ground.

It remains to be seen if Bangkok will ask the OIC to get the BRN-Coordinate to let bygones be bygones and take up any olive branch from the Pheu Thai camp. But if the recent devastating car bombs in Yala and Hat Yai tell us anything, it is that the insurgents are not in the mood to talk.

Hearts and minds not won in Thailand's deep South

By Don Pathan
The Nation

Ban Sa-eh, Thailand

The foul smell from five pools of blood was still apparent on a hillside at the remote village of Ban Sa-eh in Krong Pinang subdistrict of Yala, just 20 hours after a gunfight between scores of security officers and about a dozen Malay-Muslim insurgents ended.
Five militants, known locally as juwae, were shot dead, while six fled over the hill after holding their ground for about half an hour.

Media and police reports, as expected, painted the security forces as heroic and hard-working, but local residents appear to be more concerned with possible extrajudicial killings, not to mention the culture of impunity of security officers.
Traces of the bullets suggest that weapons were being fired from three different directions. This confirms the story of a local military officer of two teams of security officials creeping up on a group of about 11 insurgents lying low in a cabin on a hill outside this remote village in the early afternoon. A pot full of instant noodles inside the cabin suggested that they were about to have lunch.

One village elder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that at least 11 young men had been coming in and out of the cabin for the past month.

“I didn’t ask what they were doing and didn’t really want to know. But I told them that a group of people who were hunting wild boars came across their hideout and suggested that they should relocate,” said the villager. “But they didn’t take my warning seriously.”
The government’s strategy is to win the hearts and minds of local Malay-Muslims in order to deny the insurgents possible tactical support. But turning a blind eye could also mean trouble as state officials expect one to display loyalty by tipping them off with information about the insurgents’ activities.

Sitting on the front porch of Bae Riff, a local influential figure who the Army is trying to win over, a Special Force’s colonel admitted that without the support of local residents, “We won’t be able to win this war.” His stated strategy is to reach out to local community leaders and win their trust and friendship.

But people in the three southernmost provinces say arm-twisting is often employed as a tactic, coupled with rewards that come with being well connected to the authorities.
As part of his way of blending in and putting locals at ease, the colonel is dressed in civilian clothing. He lifted up his shirt to show that he was not armed. But just 30 metres from where we sat, a guard armed was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun tucked in a holster tied to his right thigh. His eyes scanned the road through this remote village where few soldiers or police dare to drive.
The colonel said the key to winning this war is to link up with a person like Bae Riff, once a member of the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C). Bae Riff is considered to be a good resource in the context of southern Thailand; he has “jungle credentials”.

“It’s not really harassment,” said the former BRN-C cadre. “The idea is to use people like me to relay messages to the new generation of militants in the ongoing insurgency.” His job is not to spy on the militants but to serve as a link between the two sides.

The former BRN-C cadre admitted that the local militants are not totally happy with him but allow him to continue as long as he doesn’t provide security officials with intelligence information about their movements and activities.

What motivates Bae Riff to do what he does is the desire to see local Malay-Muslims treated fairly. But if insurgents are executed – as he initially believed after the events of April 19 at Ban Se’a – then the responsible authorities must be brought to justice. There is a long-standing culture of impunity in the security forces but there are enough good and honest officials out there who can make a difference, he said.

It is clear that Bae Riff sympathises with the predicament of ordinary villagers. The previous round in this insurgency, two decades ago, was fought in the jungle between Thai security forces and Patani Malay nationalists from various separatist groups. Today, the theatre of violence has switched into towns and villages. Caught in the middle are innocent civilians.

“It has been very hard for them to position themselves,” Bae Riff said.

But the official government line is that locals who turn a blind eye to the insurgents’ activities are afraid of repercussion from the juwae.

It is clear that if the insurgents suspected that someone has crossed the line by becoming an informant for the state, that person is considered a fair target. But it was also clear that the villager elder who urged the insurgents to relocate from Ban Se’a did so out of concern for their safety.
Since this insurgency re-erupted in early 2004, few Thai officials have been willing to admit that local Malay-Muslims sympathise with the insurgents or share the same sentiments and historical mistrust of the state.

Using villagers to broker talks or negotiations between insurgents and local security units may not be part of government policy. But in this region where more than 5,000 people have been killed since 2004, local security units can’t afford to go strictly by the policy book.
Like the colonel, Army commanders at the company level say they have come to terms with the fact that locally hired village security staff, as well as ordinary villagers, will not make more effort than is expected of them. It is understood that all residents have to turn a blind eye to the presence of insurgents. Then there are those who actively support the separatist ideology embraced by the militants.

Coupled with historical mistrust, the use of vigilantes to kill suspects or to settle scores have hampered Thailand’s effort to close the trust gap between the state and the Malays of the deep South.
Locals here say they have yet to see justice for their neighbours in nearby Ban Kasod when in May 2011 a former paramilitary Ranger and three of his buddies went on a shooting spree from the back of his pickup truck, killing four Muslims and injuring 16 others in three-kilometre stretch. The act was to avenge his brother who was previously killed by suspected insurgents during a hunting trip.
Two years before that, on June 8, 2009, six gunmen walked up to a village mosque in Ai Bayae in Narathiwat’s Joh Ai Rong district and opened fire, killing ten and wounding 12 while they were at evening prayer.

From these two incidents, two paramilitary Rangers were arrested but later released on the ground that there wasn’t enough evidence against them. Legally speaking, that may be so. But for the Malay Muslims, the system is seen as being stacked against them. And as long as this perception prevails, one can be certain that villagers will continue to look the other way when a group of armed militants set up camp in their community.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/aec/30180615

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.

No easy way to start a peace process in the deep South

With the backing of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the premier's older brother Thaksin, the secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC), Thawee Sodsong, thinks he is on a roll.

Don Pathan
The Nation

Over the past few months, Thawee has been working hard to kick-start a peace process in the three southernmost provinces, where the ongoing insurgency has claimed more than 5,000 lives since January 2004.

Thawee has been sending representatives to neighbouring countries to ask for their assistance in facilitating secret talks with leaders of long-standing separatist movements in southern Thailand.
One of the things Thawee will be offering is that the future SBPAC chief be locally elected. The ruling Pheu Thai Party is also exploring, again, the idea of granting the Muslim-majority South special administrative status.

On the surface, Thawee’s idea of permitting the future SBPAC chief to be locally elected may sound like a good idea, as the Malay Muslims – who constitute over 80 per cent of the residents in the deep South – would be given an opportunity to elect one of their own people to a top post. But some exiled separatist leaders, as well as members of the Barisan Revolusi National-Coordinate (BRN-C), think Thawee and the Thaksin camp are trying to wash their hands of the deep South. Autonomy and decentralisation could mean political and administrative power in the deep South falling into the hands of the few Malay elites, who could very well be Bangkok’s lackeys, they say.

And while a locally elected SBPAC chief would take the heat for things that go wrong, the locally hired paramilitary Rangers would inevitably become the target for insurgents’ bullets and bombs, as the regular Army command pulled soldiers back to their respective regions.

Many observers warn that without a meaningful decentralisation process in place, or structural reform in such a way that would give the SBPAC real power over administrative and security matters, a locally appointed secretary-general would amount to a paper tiger.

Nevertheless, Thawee is going ahead with his plan and is preparing to take this message of peace and reconciliation to the leaders of the long-standing separatist movements living in exile.
However, a number of Thai officials who have observed the conflict for years, as well as the exiled separatist leaders, think Thawee’s textbook-like approach will not work because there are too many factors that he has yet to overcome.

“Thawee thinks he can bring exiled separatist leaders to the table and cut a deal to end this conflict once and for all. It won’t work because the grievances are deep-rooted in the hearts and minds of just about every single Malay Muslim of Patani,” said a BRN Coordinate cadre.

Even if Thawee succeeded in getting the current crop of separatists to come on board, a new generation of militants will eventually surface to continue the armed struggle, as this past eight years have shown.

Another problem for Thawee, said another exiled leader, is that there is no unity among leaders of these separatist groups he plans to meet. Personal rivalries aside, the views of these leaders vary from wanting complete independence to willingness to settle for some form of autonomy.
Perhaps the most important factor that would hamper Thawee’s peace process is the fact that none of these groups seem to have adequate control over the new generation of insurgents, locally known as juwae, operating on the ground.

Members of the BRN Coordinate, who are said to have the best working relationship with the juwae, admit that the chain of command is too fluid, and more time will be needed to consolidate command-and-control with the juwae. And without the ability to effectively influence the juwae or curb the ongoing violence, Thawee negotiating with the old guard could prove meaningless.

One of the biggest concerns for the BRN, said one of its cadre, is that some of the juwae, or young men who call themselves juwae, have been selling their services to crime syndicates and smugglers. This has made consolidation much more difficult.

For the time being, there is a truce between the Army and the Thaksin camp. No one is certain how long this truce will last, but Thawee’s quest for a quick peace deal has rubbed many of the country’s top brass up the wrong way. The Army chief is against autonomy, and the top brass does not like the idea of talking to the enemy unless they are the ones doing the talking.

And in spite of the fact that the Army sent one of its generals to observe the nearly defunct National Security Council’s secret peace talks two years ago, the idea of backing another government agency’s peace initiative is not something the top brass is willing to entertain in any meaningful way.
But with support from Thaksin and Yingluck, Thawee thinks there is nothing that is going to stop him. Separatist leaders, on the other hand, see things differently. There are just too many unresolved issues that Thawee will have to overcome, they say.

Besides the fact that Thawee is surrounded by people they don’t really trust, exiled Patani Malay leaders say he is still haunted by his past deeds. Indeed, many locals still recall how, back in 2004, Thawee hunted down suspected insurgents and Islamic teachers, including a Malay-Muslim spiritual leader, Sapae-ing Basor. Thaksin had accused Sapaeing of wanting to be president of a liberated Patani.

Today, many Thai government officials are quietly saying what the local Malays have believed all along – that the charges against Sapae-ing were fabricated. Incidentally, many of the peace-brokers are looking for the man, hoping that he could help bridge the trust gap between the state and the Malays of Patani.

The talk of autonomy or permitting a locally elected SBPAC chief may appeal to some local Malay elites but certainly not the vast majority of the voters, who, at the last general election, did not grant even one parliamentary seat to the Pheu Thai Party, which was promising special status for the region. Locals say policy-makers should concern themselves with issues like justice, equality and social mobility for the Malays, not structural reforms aimed at changing an agency’s head but not much else.

Assuming that Thawee and Thaksin’s camp can cut a deal with the separatist movements, there is no guarantee that the Patani Malay’s historical narrative will just disappear. The emergence of a new generation of insurgents after a relatively quiet decade in the deep South is a testimony to this very point.

Police insiders say Thawee has asked Malaysia to facilitate talks with the separatist leaders. It is not the first time that top Thai officials have tried to arrange talks with the separatist leaders in a collective manner. In 2005, former Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir Mohammed facilitated a series of talks between top Thai security officials, and the outcome did not have any real impact on the conflict or Thai policy in the deep South. Separatist leaders who took part in the Langkawi peace talks say they didn’t like the fact that they were being dictated to, and warn that future dealings with Thawee could very well be repetition of the so-called Langawi initiative – a peace process that didn’t get anywhere.

“You can’t just impose peace. Thailand has to work for it in a meaningful way,” said one exiled leader.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/aec/30177950

Thailand Grapples With Deadly Tensions Between Muslims, Buddhists (PBS NewsHour)

PBS NewsHour 

At least 5,000 people have been killed since 2004 in Thailand's three southern provinces amid ongoing mistrust between minority Muslims and majority Buddhists. Kira Kaye reports on efforts to resolve tensions as part of the new Fault Lines of Faith series, produced in partnership with the Bureau for International Reporting.

Click for more: http://to.pbs.org/xcqHfZ 

Rangers behind killings of funeral goers: Nong Chik villagers

Don Pathan

The Nation January 31, 2012 8:51 am

Authorities are debating about admitting that the shooting death of five villagers were "a case of mistaken identity" and pay compensation for the victims.

However complicating the mater is the fact that many senior security leaders have already jumped to the conclusion that the dead were insurgents.

According to informed sources from the Interior ministry, the army and the police, the shooting death of the five funeral goers, along with the three injured, were carried out by a group of paramilitary rangers from Pattani’s Nong Chik district after a heated argument between the two side.

A weapon was planted in their truck to make it seems that they were insurgents, the sources said.

"It was purely emotional that led to this. They were in a shouting match," the sources said. Their accounts matches the villagers’ version, but contradicted a number of senior military and Deputy Prime Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapa who pretty much concluded that the shooting were justified.

According to the sources, the funeral goers’ truck were stopped by a group of paramilitary ranger at one location and were instructed to take a detour because half an hour prior to that a group of insurgents had fired four M79 grenades into their base camp. Only one of the four grenade exploded, said the source.

The funeral goers followed the instruction of the first Paramilitary Ranger unit and took the detour as they were told. But when they ran into another unit of rangers, also on foot patrol to secure the area following the M79 attacks, the villagers were searched and told to get out of their trucks.

A heated debate broke out and couple of the Rangers commence fire at the truck, killing four at the scene and injured four others. The fifth victim died Monday.

District chief of Nong Chik and other non-military officers were not permitted to enter as the victims bleeds in their trucks. The district officers had to sneak into the village from the back, the local villagers and officials said.

"Some lives could have been saved," said Angkhana Neelaphaijit, head of the Justice for Peace Foundation. "There has to be a thorough investigation into this. A simple DNA check would revealed who planted the weapons in the truck. The military have lied to the people in the past about the killings in the deep South," she added.

The sources said there were survivors and possible eyewitness to the scene of the attack and a thorough investigation would prove that the villagers were innocent.

One way out of this, said the source from the army and Interior Ministry, is to admit to the killings but stated that it was a big misunderstanding and provide financial compensation to the families of the dead.

"Even if we clear this with the family of the victims, the damage is irreversible for many people in the community," said the army officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There have been reports about possible peace process, a dialogue with the separatist movement, from various quarters, including the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC).

"If they are not willing to get to the bottom of this, you can forget about peace dialogue or what have you. This is another moment of truth for Thailand," Angkhana said.

Confusion reigns on 'peace processes' in the deep South

Don Pathan
The Nation 

Insurgents behind the violence in the South have used their attacks to gain attention from international organisations in a bid to draw them into the problem, Army Commander in Chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha recently proclaimed to the media.

Prayuth's statement came a day after insurgents launched an attack on a security outpost in Pattani's Sai Buri district, drawing a reinforcement unit into a trap where a roadside bomb and gunfire wounded six soldiers.

The conflict in the Malay-speaking South is Thailand's internal affair and the authorities are making their best effort to deal with the problem, Prayuth said.

Unfortunately, their best is not good enough, and insurgents continue to hit wherever they like.

Billions have been spent to win them over and yet, local Malay Muslims, who account for more than 80 per cent of the local population, continue to turn a blind eye to the activities of the insurgents, as a way of providing tactical support. In some remote communities, armed insurgents walk around freely, strolling in and out of village teashops as if they are the actual law and order. Residents may not agree with the brutality but they certainly share the same sentiment as the militants on the ground.

Prayuth said the presence of international organisations would complicate the problem. But no one really understands what Prayuth's assumption is based upon. After all, if the insurgents wanted to attract international attention, they would not confine the violence to the Muslim-majority South.

It's only a few hours drive from the deep South to a number of high-profile tourist attractions in the upper South. Moreover, an overnight train ride can get them into Bangkok. The materials the insurgents have been using to make explosives can be easily purchased from local hardware stores.

The problem with Prayuth and other conservative Thai bureaucrats is that they do not want to debate the legitimacy of the Thai state in the Malay historical homeland. If they did, they would see that the Malays embrace a different cultural and historical narrative from the rest of the country.

One way out of this confrontation, argues Professor Thanet Aphornsuvan in an East-West Centre publication, "Rebellion in Southern Thailand: Contending Histories", is to acknowledge the differences.

"Without a basic understanding and appreciation of each other's cultures and ethno-religious identities, it will be difficult to have positive political will on both sides to seriously tackle the problems," Thanet said. "Hitherto, Bangkok sees the problem in the South as a separatist threat, while the Malay-Muslims see it as one of cultural and ethnic survival," he added. For a lasting peace to endure, said Thanet, "the Malay-Muslims must be allowed a significant role in bringing peace and prosperity back to the region".

But Bangkok has a tendency to think it knows best. Worse, Prayuth is basically saying things have to be done the Army's way or no way. That's why he immediately came out against the idea of autonomy for the region when it was floated by Yingluck Shinawatra during the last edlection campaign.

Incidentally no Pheu Thai candidate, all campaigning on the autonomy ticket, got a single seat in the region.

As expected, Yingluck and Pheu Thai went back on their word. Being indifferent to the Malays' feelings cost them nothing in political terms because they know the general public is indifferent to the Malays' predicament.

Perhaps autonomy is not the answer. Perhaps it is more about justice and equality, as the Patani Forum's executive director Ekkarin Tuansiri, a speaker at a recent event at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand, pointed out.

The European Union's ambassador to Thailand, David Lipman, in his key keynote speech at the FCCT event, suggested granting the Malays greater cultural space, such as strengthening bilingual education so that the mother tongue is used alongside the official Thai.

Lipman has a point. In 2007, the then military-appointed government of Surayud Chulanont launched a pilot project in which several elementary schools in the region were permitted to teach the local Malay language and Islamic studies. During that year, insurgents torched more than 100 public schools. The following year, less than ten schools came under arson attack.

The key to the success, said the then vice governor of Yala, Grisada Boonrach, was making sure that religious teachers and clerics at the local level have a say in the curriculum. "It's about ownership," said Grisada, currently the governor of Songkhla.

And yet, no one in the security forces or policy-makers cares to seriously look into that particular development. If they had done, they would have lost face because many conservatives had all along played down the idea of Malay being used as a "working language" alongside Thai.

With regard to foreign influence, it is sad that Prayuth did not have the gumption to admit that, during the Surayud administration, the government sought help from the international community, neighbouring countries and foreign mediators to help resolve the conflict. Whether these initiatives produced any meaningful outcome is another matter. But having access to information about these initiatives is not below Prayuth's pay grade. It seems he can't come to terms with a reality he does not like.

Today a number of government agencies - the Army, Police, Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC), National Security Council (NSC) - foreign governments, retired and active politicians, local and foreign think tanks, as well as local and international NGOs with mediation experience, are exploring the idea of a peace process. Many are running around looking for separatist leaders to talk to. The fact that there are so many of so-called peace-brokers suggests that there is no single ownership of the process. Some of these peace-brokers have tried to get a buy-in from the local community and religious leaders.

But without a meaningful and identifiable process mandated by the state, the government and "mediators" can forget about getting support from the ground to endorse their noble and ambitious activities.

Along with his public apology for atrocities committed against the people of Patani, Surayud called on various Thai government agencies to work with the international community to seek non-military means to end this conflict once and for all. Most of these tracks fizzled out in the following administrations of (the late) Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat. But during the Abhisit administration, a number of "peace processes" surfaced, hoping to get a mandate for mediation.

According to one Cabinet member of the Abhisit government, the NSC issued a statement of intent to explain its ongoing dialogue with one of the long-standing separatist groups through one foreign mediator. The Cabinet did not endorse it, and Abhisit would only acknowledge it informally because, according to the source, the then prime minister needed deniability.

That doesn't mean that Abhisit wasn't aware that various Thai security and intelligence agencies, as well as the international community, were talking to various separatist groups. The PM just couldn't be seen to sanction these initiatives because it was too sensitive politically, the source said.

But the NSC-backed process could very well come to an end now that one of Pheu Thai's favourite bureaucrats is heading SBPAC. Sources in the government say that Thawee Sodsong wants to negotiate with the separatist leaders and end this conflict. His problem is that there are so many people out there who claim to be leader of this or that group.

Even if Thawee is barking up the right tree, exiled leaders from long-standing separatist groups say it still won't be easy. Besides the territorial nature of these mediators and so-called peace processes, the separatist leaders are disunited and many are competing among themselves. Worse, they don't seem to have adequate command and control over the militants on the ground.

And for any peace process to have any meaning, the leaders would have to demonstrate to the insurgents that they can come up with deliverables.

The insurgents on the ground are not in a hurry to enter into any peace process or dialogue or whatever the involved parties want to call it. As far as the militants are concerned, they can attack just about any place, any time. The recent ambush in Sai Buri was testimony to that.