EDITORIAL: Southern youth activists taking to the streets

The Nation

Their involvement in anti-coup protest in Bangkok is actually good for country

An interesting development over the past few months that has been overlooked by the public is the participation of ethnic Malay Muslim students from Thailand's southernmost provinces in the protest against the current government.

A significant number of students and youth leaders have been coming to Bangkok and elsewhere to take part in the various demonstrations and speaking engagements to voice their disapproval against the military regime.

Some were briefly detained alongside other youth activists and students for their peaceful demonstration. 

This development should be welcomed simply because these Malay youths and students from the deep South are teaming up with the rest of the country's student movement and embracing the "Thai narrative", as opposed to the one that focuses exclusively on Pattani.

And while they are calling for the same thing that many of us want to see - democracy, accountability, rule of law, transparency - the fact that they are becoming part of the Thai narrative demonstrates that these Malay Muslim youths also feel that they have a stake and a sense of shared destiny with the rest of the people in this country.

The government, especially the security apparatus, views these Malay Muslim youth activists as spreading their wings beyond the three southernmost provinces that have been hit by an 11-year insurgency that has claimed more than 6,000 lives, with no end in sight - but they predict more trouble, because they see things through a security lens. Problems arise when the lens gets damaged and the authorities become cross-eyed and don't realise it. 

The Malay Muslim youths and student activists have over the years earned a great deal of respect and trust from the local population, especially at the grassroots level where abuses by the authorities often occur. 

These youths step in and speak out against alleged injustices and abuses. Their activism can be traced back eight years, when many of them occupied the Pattani Central Mosque to protest about the alleged rape against a Muslim woman in Yala province, not to mention the alleged torture and extra-judicial/targeted killings carried out by government officials. 

But in recent months, they have been joining the Thai student protests in Bangkok and other parts of the country. 

Unfortunately, security officials and intelligence officials see this development as a security challenge against the regime.

If anything, Thai society and government officials, especially those working on the conflict in the deep South, should actually welcome such a development.

This is not to suggest that these Malay Muslim students should be receiving red carpet treatment while in Bangkok.

Up until now, these students and youth activists have been a bunch of uncompromising separatists bent on carving out a separate homeland for the Malay. Many are still being harassed. And the authorities can get away with it because they have the Emergency Law to shield them from just about anything in terms of legal repercussions. Sadly, a culture of impunity exists in this historically contested region. 

And while the Malay Muslim students and youths are promoting the concept of the "right to self-determination", it is still a far cry from separatism or armed insurgency taken up by the thousands of Malay Muslim militants on the ground.

When the red shirts and the yellow shirts were going at it on the streets of Bangkok and elsewhere, these Malay Muslim youths stayed put. Today, they see a common ground with the Thai student activists from other parts of the country.

In his weekly remarks on Friday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha tried to sound reconciliatory; he said the 14 detained students were pure and innocent and urged them to channel their activities in a constructive manner. 

While such a statement suggested that he was extending an olive branch to the student movement, he, nevertheless, could not get away from his old self and suggested that some hidden hands have been guiding these students. 

Hasn't it occurred to Prayuth and other security officials that these youth activists have a mind of their own and that they may see things differently from the country's military, whose mandate is still questionable?

If the head honcho can't differentiate between good intention and good policy, there isn't much hope for the folks down the line, is there?

But it does not need to be that way. They just need to broaden their minds, open their hearts and not see every criticism as an attempt to overthrow them.

But the good news is that these guys are here today and gone tomorrow. These youth activists are demanding to know when tomorrow will be and that tomorrow doesn't mean forever.

Bangkok lacks THE WILL to make peace in deep South

A LONG-STANDING CULTURE OF IMPUNITY AMONG SECURITY FORCES IS PREVENTING THE LATEST PUSH FOR PEACE FROM GAINING TRACTION

DON PATHAN
SPECIAL TO THE NATION

More than a year after seizing power, our latest crop of junta officials have come face to face with separatist leaders in what are being billed as "pre-talks" - a stepping stone to formal peace negotiations in the far South.

Senior leaders from the self-styled MARA Patani umbrella organisation - which comprises several long-standing separatist groups, including the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani (GMIP) and Barisan Islam Pembebasan Patani (BIPP) plus a handful of people who claim to be members of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) - met with the Thai chief negotiator Lt-General Aksara Kherdphol and his team in Malaysia on June 8. The two sides had met previously for a "pre-talks" session in April.

A young cadre from the BRN, Sukri Hari, was present at the first meeting, but sources said his participation in no way constitutes BRN endorsement for the peace initiative with the Thais.

Sources in the movement said Sukri believes he can help locate common ground between MARA Patani and the BRN, which has so far ruled out any direct talks with the current government. The BRN controls the vast majority of separatist combatants, thus making their participation vital if any peace initiative is to win success.

As for Team Thailand, courting Sukri could pay off in the long run if he can succeed where MARA Patani failed - by convincing the genuine BRN leadership to join the peace process.

In other words, Sukri's participation could be much more important than the participation of self-proclaimed BRN leaders such as Awang Jabat and Tok Imam Haleng, both of whom are prominent members in the MARA Patani forum but were conspicuously absent from the June 8 meeting.

Sukri cannot be allowed to shine too brightly, however. The former teacher is a fugitive facing arrest warrants on charges of treason. He fled Thailand in 2007 along with seven of his colleagues from Thamvithya Mulnithi School in Yala after they were granted bail under the then-government of Surayud Chulanont.

Unless the charges against him are dropped, putting Sukri on a pedestal could prove to be a legal and diplomatic disaster. And there is no guarantee that this young member can change the mindset of the BRN old guard.

Though the June 8 pre-talks were not formal negotiations, and not all of the MARA Patani groups were present, the Thai side did ask the separatist leaders at the meeting if they could get the combatants to curb their activities during the month of Ramadan.

The separatist leaders did not commit themselves, saying it was too early to be making deals, according to a Thai intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

However, a BRN operative said there would be no escalation of attacks or straying beyond the usual targets of security officials as long as the Thai side did not violate the rules of engagement - by, for example, targeting religious leaders.

The participants at the June 8 meeting couldn't accede to such a request even if they wanted to, because they don't control the combatants, the BRN source added.

Similar discrepancies also exist on the Thai side, between policymakers and the security agencies on the ground.

BRN operatives often point to the target killing of Imam Abdullateh Todir - a member of the Yala Islamic Committee and an imam in Yala's Yaha district - as a prime example of the disunity among the Thai security agencies.

Abdullateh was shot dead by a pro-government death squad in November 2012. An attempt on his life earlier that year failed but cost his daughter her life.

After the failed assassination, Thai Special Forces provided him with a security detail. The Army saw him as a potential go-between for the authorities and the insurgent fighters.

But another agency didn't see it that way, believing instead that he was too close to the insurgents. And when the Special Forces became complacent, a couple of gunmen pounced.

Abdullateh lived in Tambon Patae, an extremely "red" area in Yaha district. His killing triggered an unprecedented spike in violence that lasted six weeks.

A few months later the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) failed to get the provincial Islamic committees to endorse peace negotiations launched on February 28, 2013. Clerics refused to endorse the initiative, having witnessed one of their own gunned down by what they said was a pro-government death squad.

The BRN says Thai security agencies' old attitudes and standard operating procedures haven't changed. The culture of impunity among the officials makes it difficult for them to take anything from Bangkok seriously, they say.

Nevertheless, the BRN has not ruled out talking to the Thai side, but will do so only on its own terms and when it is ready.

For the time being, it doesn't see any real commitment or seriousness from the current Bangkok government and believes that "peace process" is an empty phrase designed for domestic and international consumption.

The culture of impunity aside, the current structure of the Thai negotiating and policy team for the South is also problematic.

On the surface, many ministries and agencies are represented at the policy level and on the dialogue panel.

Top officials from the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, Internal Security Operation Command, National Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, and the Army sit on the policy forum, and their subordinates are represented on the dialogue panel, which is headed by chief negotiator Lt-General Aksara.

But judging from the meeting in mid-May between Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and top bureaucrats from these ministries and agencies, it appears that these representatives are more interested in protecting their constituencies than in exploring creative ideas to support peace and negotiations.

Prayut is averse to the idea of MARA Patani because, in the view of the Foreign Ministry, it could lead to an internationalising of the deep South conflict.

Thai officials are often reminded how the now-defunct separatist umbrella group Bersatu helped garner political and financial support from Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Besides the worry over "internationalising" the conflict, there are concerns that the draft constitution doesn't permit the Kingdom to be divided.

PM Prayut may not like the idea of MARA Patani, but the real issue is whether this separatist forum can evolve into something meaningful that attracts support and legitimacy from the Malays of Patani and the international community.

Moreover, no government wants to debate with a foreign entity on the legitimacy of the Thai state in the Malays' historical homeland, much less the culture of impunity and the human rights violations committed against local Muslims over the past few decades.

When the previous wave of separatist militants went under in the 1990s, Bangkok governments stepped up their diplomacy to cut off their support from Arab and Muslim countries.

The Chuan Leekpai government even secured permanent observer status for Thailand at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in order to block these separatist movements from obtaining a seat in the forum and consequently diplomatic support.

Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia - friendly Muslim countries in Southeast Asia - endorsed Thailand's quest, which Bangkok took as a stamp of approval for how Thailand treats its Muslim minority.

Today, a stamp of approval seems the last thing on Thai authorities' mind, with anti-Muslim sentiment in and around the country continuing unabated, especially in Nan province where residents are campaigning against a plan to build a local mosque. They claim that an Islamic place of worship could turn their community into another conflict zone like the Patani region.

But separatist movements, particularly the BRN, say it's a different kind of fight nowadays. Combatants on the ground no longer depend on foreign donors since local villagers now provide intelligence, logistical support and supplies to sustain militant cells.

Thai officials often pay lip service to the idea of winning hearts and minds in deep-South communities but seem to have little insight on how to achieve this task.

If anybody has sway over the combatants' rules of engagement, said one BRN operative, it is the local villagers.

He said the militants' decision to end the practice of mutilating Thai soldiers' corpses, as well as ceasing attacks on public schools, was influenced by the villagers.

For the time being, the immediate challenge for the self-proclaimed MARA Patani is convincing the BRN that there is merit in coming to the table to talk, Thai officials said.

But like everything else in this conflict, that's easier said than done, especially when Bangkok is not willing to make any concessions.

DON PATHAN is a security analyst and development consultant based in Yala, Thailand. He is also the founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

Deep South: Under the wreckage of lies, a complicated truth

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Yala, Thailand

The killing of two Buddhist monks on Visakha Bucha day four years ago shed light on the nature of the conflict in this historically contested region

Just before dawn four years ago on Visakha Bucha Day, one of the most important days on the Buddhist calendar, two young men were hiding inside the tree-line keeping a look out for an oncoming Army patrol.

Approaching the point where the bomb was buried was a patrol of four soldiers riding pillion on two motorbikes. Behind them was a pickup truck with two soldiers on the back. Behind the truck were four soldiers on two motorbikes.

The young man had a split second to decide, and he went for the pickup. When it was all over, two monks inside the cab of the pickup lay dead. They were from nearby Suan Kaew Temple in Yala's Yaha district. The two soldiers on the back of the pickup were severely wounded. The vehicle they were travelling in was destroyed.

Thai national media went haywire for days, concluding that the Malay Muslim separatists in the southernmost provinces were out to drive a bigger wedge between Buddhists and Muslims. That the incident took place on an important day for Buddhists just reinforced that claim.

Separatist sources from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), on the other hand, maintained that the two brothers behind the attack did not know there were monks inside the truck. They saw a legitimate target and went with it.

Soldiers from the targeted unit, who were using the temple as a base camp, reiterated the same point - there was no line of vision, so the person who detonated the bomb could not have seen the monks.

Given the fact that monks hadn't been attacked for years, government officials didn't know what to make of the Yaha incident. But over time it became clear that this was a one-off incident.

Nevertheless, the damage had been done and now it was time for payback. Within a week or so, word got out that authorities were looking for two young brothers from a nearby village in the district.

No one was sure how the authorities were able to identify the two suspects so quickly. It could have been through informants - the dozens of so-called "Bt4,500 local security guards" who take their orders from the local Army unit. Or it could have been the moles that the authorities had put in place.

But less than two weeks after the incident, one of the suspects was shot dead in front of his wife's house. The other decided to leave Yaha for Narathiwat, where he would lay low for the next four years.

A BRN source would neither confirm nor deny that the two brothers were behind the Yaha attack. But he did say they were members of local cell and that the surviving brother, Saudi Setopa, had been relocated to Narathiwat shortly after the incident.

But Saudi's name would come up again in another major case. This time it was the massive July 2014 car bomb in Betong, a border town few thought would ever come under this theatre of violence given its remoteness and the logistics nightmare of carrying out such an operation here and getting away with it.

Though the BRN seldom publicises strategy specifics - at least nothing that could incriminate its members - the source maintained that Saudi was not involved in the Betong car bomb.

But from the perspective of the Thai security agencies, justice caught up with Saudi on January 30 this year, when 50 police officers surrounded him at a house in Kabang district, just east of Yaha.

Investigation by a BRN operative suggested that Saudi was spotted in Yaha district, most likely by an informant. He made a dash for nearby Kabang district but was foiled by the security grid that was already in place.

He took refuge in a nearby house and positioned himself for a two-hour gunfight. One officer was hit in the leg. Saudi refused to surrender and was eventually killed in the lopsided shoot-out.

It wasn't clear why Saudi had returned to his village earlier this year or surfaced in Yaha district on January 30.

Sitting on the patio in front of his one-storey home, Saudi's father didn't seem to be in the mood for a lengthy discussion about his son's life. He had buried Saudi's body the night before.

Hanging in the living room was a picture of Saudi with fellow soldiers after graduating from Army basic training in 1999. It wasn't clear if the father was trying to suggest that his son, at least at one point in his life, was patriotic, or whether it was merely the only picture he had left of Saudi.

Nevertheless, Saudi's case and chase did shed light on the nature of the conflict in this historically contested region, where more than 6,000 people, mostly Malay Muslims, have died in insurgency-related violence since January 2004.

From the network of separatist militants that stretches across the Malay-speaking provinces, to the police informants - not to mention the locally hired security details that the Thai soldiers don't trust to look after the Buddhist temples - there is an endless struggle for survival in every corner of this restive region.

Government soldiers in Yaha don't believe that their "Bt4,500 security details" will put their lives on the line for the unit that commands them. Instead, there is widespread acknowledgement that these village-based security guards often share the separatists' sentiment and historical mistrust of the Thai state.

The incident also revealed how eager the Thai media and wider society are to jump to assumptions about the conflict without looking at the finer details and circumstances surrounding the attacks.

The world will never know why Saudi decided to fight to his death. But for the Thai security forces, it was mission accomplished, even though his death did little to advance either peace or "victory" for the state.

Don Pathan is an independent consultant based in Yala, Thailand. He is also the founding member of Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com)

Deep South peace efforts hit another dead end

Bangkok goes back to the drawing board after platform of separatist groups collapses and bomb attacks continue

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation


YALA 

For three consecutive days, the city of Yala was in a tailspin.

On Thursday evening last week, 24 small bombs exploded all over the city in the space of two hours.

A security grid was locked in place, but it didn't prevent four more explosions the next morning then the same the morning after.

The three-day bombing spree was a humiliating episode for a Thai security apparatus still reeling from the April 10 car-bomb attack on the tourist island of Koh Samui, where evidence pointed to origins in the southernmost provinces.

Within hours of the Samui attack, spokesmen for the military-installed government, the Defence Ministry and Royal Thai Army publicly claimed the car bomb had nothing to do with the southern insurgency.

Army Region 4 chief Lt-General Prakarn Cholayut defended the security measures put in place on Thursday evening in Yala, saying the subsequent breaches had been the result of explosives placed before the start of the bomb blitz. Moreover, they were set off remotely, possibly by mobile phones.

Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said the bombs were small and the culprits appeared to be more concerned with creating disturbances than claiming lives.

A 'message' from insurgents

Sources close to the separatist movement say the Samui car bomb and the three-day bomb blitz in Yala were carried out by Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) militants as a strong message of their disapproval of Thai troops' conduct, the ill-defined rules of engagement and the culture of impunity among the security forces.

It was also a reminder to Thailand and Malaysia that the BRN, the separatist movement that controls the vast majority of insurgency combatants, does not support the Majlis Amanah Rakyat Patani (MARA Patani), a platform for the various Patani Malay movements to formulate their strategy.

Another component to the MARA Patani is a regional assembly made up of local civil society organisations, whose function is to legitimise the peace initiative.

On April 21, the designated facilitator from Malaysia, Dato Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim, held a meeting with representatives from six longstanding separatist groups. Representing the BRN was Awang Jabat and his associate, Tok Imam Haleng.

Other participants included representatives of the three separatist factions - the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani (GMIP) and Barisan Islam Pembebasan Patani (BIPP). They reiterated their determination to use MARA Patani as a vehicle to unite Patani groups and guide the peace process forward.

But the problem with MARA Patani is that the vast majority of BRN leaders, especially those from its military wing, do not support the initiative.

They said the initiative was cooked up by rogue members who have teamed up with facilitator and, to some extent, Thai officials working on the peace process. Moreover, they do not see Awang Jabat as their representative. Local civic organisations in Thailand's deep South also declined the offer to participate in the 22-strong MARA Patani assembly.

But at a recent meeting of the steering committee for Thailand's southern conflict policy team, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha decided to pour cold water on the MARA Patani idea.

Like the core BRN leaders, Prayut doesn't see MARA Patani as reflecting the desires of the people of this conflict-affected region. He also pointed out that the idea had come from a small group of people.

'Prayut eager to talk'

Nevertheless, Prayut does want to talk to the insurgents, said government sources.

Moreover, the prime minister was concerned that MARA Patani could set the stage for the conflict to be internationalised. With Malaysia chairing Asean this year, some Thai foreign ministry officials fear the issue could easily be pushed onto the regional agenda.

However, there are no indications from Kuala Lumpur that the idea of internationalising the conflict is in their heads. Like Thailand, Malaysia has taken a territorial stand on the conflict and refused to allow foreign government and professional mediators to referee the peace process. With the conflict occurring right on its border, Malaysia sees itself as one of the stakeholders in the process.

But the writing has been on the wall for some time. Awang, who is closely aligned with Dato Zamzamin on this MARA Patani initiative, had recruited a Muslim cleric from Sai Buri - Ustaz Waesumae Sudden, 67 - to help mobilise the support of insurgents and local Malay Muslims at the grassroots level.

Sudden was shot dead on September 28 last year, and MARA Patani has been on a shaky ground ever since. It appears that Prayut has just put the last nail in the coffin.

It is not clear what the future holds for the deep South peace initiative. But political insiders in Bangkok say the junta is interested in talking to the separatists. Coming up with a format that satisfies the Thai generals, it seems, will continue to be a challenge.

Don Pathan is an independent consultant based in southern Thailand. He is also a founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

EDITORIAL: Take away the licence to kill

TRIGGER-HAPPY SECURITY OFFICIALS IN THE SOUTH NEED TO REASSESS PROCEDURES THAT FUEL THE ANGER ON WHICH INSURGENCY FEEDS

Thai security forces are in hot water again over their actions in the deep South. This time the controversy is over the shooting to death of four young men in Pattani’s Yarang district.

According to the official version, a group of paramilitary rangers were tracking suspected insurgents who had gathered in Pattani’s Tung Yang Daeng District to plan attacks against government security agencies. The scene of the gathering was a construction site at a village in the district.

The rangers’ actions in storming the gathering and shooting dead four young men has drawn fierce criticism from the rector of Fatoni University, where two of the victims had been studying.
Dr Ismail Lutfi Japakiya has every right to voice his concern, especially now that his students are at the centre of the debate.

Dr Lutfi is proud of his university’s reputation as “cleaner than clean” and not involved in the region’s ongoing separatist conflict.

Academics and researchers who work in this contested region see the insurgency as part of a nationalist movement.

Meanwhile, Lutfi’s brand of Islam places religion above all else, which is why those very same academics and researchers do not talk about his institution in the light of separatism.
Thai authorities, of course, disagree with his claim that none of the students at Fatoni University has embraced separatism as an ideology or has joined the separatist militants.

They claim that just because the university as an institution does not embrace or promote Patani Malay separatism, that doesn’t mean its students – including the two shot dead in Tung Yang Daeng – hadn’t embraced the ideology.

Lutfi and his university staff have in the past been helpful to the state, often making themselves available to receive foreign dignitaries and reporters invited to the South by the government. To show its appreciation, the Yingluck Shinawatra administration added
 another academic building to the Fatoni campus.
That appreciation must now be extended by ensuring justice for the two dead students and their families.
The problem of trigger-happy Thai security officials is nothing new in the deep South, but this latest incident adds weight to arguments that their approach and tactics are in urgent need of an overhaul.
In January 2012, soldiers attached to a ranger unit in Pattani’s Nong Chik district, who were reportedly “itching for a fight” after their base had been attacked by militants, gunned down a group of Muslim funeral-goers who happened to be passing, killing four and injuring five.
 Expectations that the military would reassess their rules of engagement in response to that debacle came to nothing.

The decade-old emergency decree, coupled with a culture of impunity for security officials, has helped foster a “shoot-to-kill” attitude among security officials. They know that the law – which many locals have dubbed a licence to kill – will protect them. Public indifference in the rest of Thailand towards the plight of Malay Muslims in the southernmost provinces also ensures that whatever controversial measures the government takes in the region will be met with little or no criticism elsewhere.

Dr Lutfi has maintained a good working relationship with the Thai state and, thus, the authorities owe it to him to conduct their investigation into the Tung Yang Daeng shootings honestly and accurately.
If the two students were part of the insurgency, the burden is on the state to convince the public of that fact. Meanwhile, Thai security officials’ standard operating procedures in the South must be closely scrutinised and reassessed.

We should not lose sight of the fact that more than 6,000 people – most of them Malay Muslim residents – have been killed in insurgency-related violence in the three southernmost provinces.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/today_editorial/30257529

Lost in FOG of conflict, peace talks must go back to basics

Don Pathan
Special to the Nation

To make progress in deep south, negotiations must first focus on verifying separatist groups' credentials

The so-called peace process launched just two years ago by the government of Yingluck Shinawatra is having problems getting back on its feet after languishing for more than a year without progress.

The initiative, launched on February 28, 2013, struggled almost from the very beginning. It hit a snag in late 2013 when the designated liaison with the separatists, Hasan Taib, called it quits. And then came the infamous Bangkok Shutdown that sent the Yingluck government into survival mode, until the May 2014 coup put the final nail in her political coffin.

Our latest junta leadership pledged to continue the peace talks, but on condition that the separatists established a common platform and brought about a "period of peace". For some, this means a ceasefire. For decision-makers in Bangkok, it means assurance that whoever comes to the negotiating table has a significant degree of command-and-control over the separatist combatants.

Observers, stakeholders and separatist leaders themselves agree that the one longstanding group that controls the vast majority of combatants is the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN).

So far, unlike other groups, the BRN has been camera shy. It frowns on members who have surfaced to take part in any discussion or forum, closed-door or not. Senior BRN members, both in exile and at home, have been kicked out of the movement for violating this ground rule.

Even individual BRN members who have jumped on the bandwagon of the Majlis Amanah Rakyat Patani (MARA Patani), an initiative to create a regional assembly in Thailand's Malay-speaking South to rubber stamp the ongoing peace initiative, have been asked to leave the movement.

Combatants on the ground and leaders living in exile, as well as Thai intelligence officers, see MARA Patani as a desperate attempt to give the process some credibility after more than a year of stalling. But the plan is not generating any traction, which means key actors in the peace process must now go back to the drawing board and rethink the entire thing.

Latest 'short cut' has failed

The BRN has given MARA Patani the cold shoulder on grounds that it is "artificial and instant", when there is in fact no short cut to peace. The group said they want to talk peace with Thailand but will come to the negotiating table only after a number issues are resolved. These include proper training for their negotiators, official recognition and immunity for members of their political wing.

The BRN said they would like to work with the international community on capacity building but Bangkok is still contemplating the idea of giving the green light to international NGOs or foreign governments to work with the group.

One of the problems, said a Thai political insider, is that the Thai side has never been sure which group is capable of what, or who are the real BRN.

For the past decade or so, just about every potential facilitator and mediator, local and foreign, has claimed to speak for the BRN or to have the group's endorsement. But none has succeeded in generating any traction that leads to meaningful progress towards peace.

No go-between with separatists

Even the credentials of Hasan Taib, the designated BRN liaison for the peace initiative under the Yingluck administration, were misrepresented to the public. Hasan, who did not have the endorsement of the BRN leadership when he surfaced on February 28, 2013, didn't have the audacity to call himself BRN leader. And so the label "liaison" was applied.

The debate over whether Hasan had any influence with the combatants on the ground or support from the BRN leadership nagged the Thai government throughout the process, until November 2013 when he quit in a YouTube video statement. He later went incommunicado for a few weeks.

Now, the participants in the current process are unable to find a replacement to come to the table. Ideally, Bangkok wants a person who is a known figure among the Malays of Patani. Without BRN endorsement, the negotiations will be nothing more than a talking shop. Others believe that a bad process is better than no process at all.

With virtually no leg to stand on, it appears that MARA Patani is about to crumble even before the first meeting begins.

Without calling it "Plan B", Thai officials are saying there has to be a contingency plan or something to keep the talks going if MARA Patan is ditched.

Some officials suggest peace efforts should go back to basics, with confidence-building measures between the two warring sides to repair decades of confusion.

In sub-national conflicts elsewhere, insurgents either give prior warning of an attack through a go-between, such as the media, or leave some sort of signature at the scene as a way of claiming responsibility. This is not the case in southern Thailand, at least not yet anyway, said officials.

Official sources in Bangkok said Thailand might be willing to go down the confidence-building route, as it would help the government obtain a better understanding of the capability of the various Patani movements and factions.

Since recognition is what the movements are after, some sort of a "clearing house" where both sides could get together - directly or through an interlocutor - and compare notes to verify responsibility for attacks could well be the place to begin the much-needed confidence building activities.

DON PATHAN is a freelance security analyst and a consultant based in Yala. He is also a founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

EDITORIAL: Good Muslims, bad Muslims and the lies the govt tells you

The Nation

State misinformation about the southern insurgency has fostered an undercurrent of religious bigotry across the country

The dispute over the planned construction of a mosque in the northern province of Nan has reached an unprecedented level. But the anger being voiced by a growing number of Buddhists there is fuelled by falsehood.

Many have cited the insurgency in the Malay-speaking, Muslim-majority South as the reason they don't want a mosque in town. More than 6,000 people in the southernmost provinces have died since violence erupted in January 2004.

There is general agreement among academics, researchers and historians that the conflict in the far South stems from Thailand's policy of forced assimilation at the expense of the separate cultural and religious identity of the Patani Malays.

When the region came under Bangkok's direct rule at the beginning of the 20th century, its Muslims did not challenge Siam's sovereignty. The rebellion only came into play in the 1960s, when heavy-handed rule triggered an armed insurgency.

When the fighting died down in the late 1980s and early '90s, there was an assumption that it had gone for good. But the absence of violence did not equate to peace. 

With the Patani historical narrative still alive, it was only a matter of time before a new generation of Malay Muslims resurfaced to take up arms against the state. When it did, Bangkok was quick to dismiss the insurgency as the work of misguided, drug-crazed youths who had embraced a distorted brand of Islam. Placing the blame on religious fanatics offered a convenient way of hiding the truth: Their policy of assimilation had failed. 

Though shallow and misleading, this official state line has been accepted by Thais almost without challenge. Many citizens, perhaps, thought it would be unpatriotic to question it.

Inevitably, the decision to play the religious card in the South has come back to haunt the state.

The anti-Muslim sentiment of protesters in Nan is just the latest example. Elsewhere, monks are demanding that Buddhism be recognised as the state religion. Both these groups have cited the conflict in the South to support their arguments.

Never mind that Thai Muslims outside the deep South are just as patriotic as their Buddhist neighbours and accept the legitimacy of the state. Never mind that the conflict in the Muslim-majority South is ethno-nationalist in nature and has nothing to do with Muslims in the rest of the country. 

Instead, people find it easier to accept the official explanation at face value, because it avoids questioning a past failed policy. When the majority in the country shares this same attitude towards the conflict in the South, people don't mind being seen as bigots.

Who cares if scores of Malay Muslims suffocate to death in the back of military transport trucks, or if an imam in Narathiwat, Yapa Kaseng, is beaten to death in front of his son? And so what if no Thai security official has ever been punished for crimes like these?

Such popular sentiments are evidence the state has been successful in burying the Malay Muslims' historical grievances beneath a "good khaek versus bad khaek" narrative.

Bangkok let the genie of religious bigotry out of the bottle. Now authorities in Nan are having trouble convincing Buddhist protesters that their Muslim neighbours are the "good khaek" and should be left alone.

They should know that the anti-Muslim mindset is a product of their government's doing. But they should also know that it's never too late to tell the truth and set the record straight.