Deep South talks: a fresh attempt to revive the corpse

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

February 27, 2014 

Government negotiators are about to claim "progress"; in reality this is a sham process that refuses to include the real powers behind the insurgency

Last year on February 28, the Thai government announced it was entering peace talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) to seek a political solution to the conflict in the southernmost provinces.

Representing the BRN-C was Hasan Taib, the designated "liaison". Malaysia's former intelligence chief, Dato Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim, was appointed as facilitator by the Malaysian government.

The public face for the Thais was National Security Council (NSC) chief Lt Gen Paradon Pattanatabut, and by his side was the head of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, Pol Colonel Thawee Sodsong. Both men are extremely close to the Pheu Thai Party and its de facto leader, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Among Thai officials and some casual observers there is a longstanding belief that Malaysia has been backing separatist movements in the deep South.

They believed that with Kuala Lumpur on board the dialogue process, peace and political settlement was inevitable.

But the people who embrace this notion never bothered to ask whether the exiled separatist leaders and the Kuala Lumpur government had patched up differences that date back as far as 1997, when Malaysian officials handed over number of senior separatist leaders to their Thai counterparts. At the time, Malaysia wanted to show Thailand it was a friend, but the damage stemming from the handover has haunted Malaysia ever since.

The insurgents, or "juwae", operating in the South, wasted no time in displaying their disapproval of the Kuala Lumpur-backed initiative. Within 24 hours of the official launch of talks on February 28, 2013, juwae unleashed a bomb attack in the heart of Patani just metres away from the city's iconic clock tower. Since than, hardly a day has gone by without an insurgency-related attack in the contested region.

This is hardly surprising, given that the February 28 initiative did not have the blessing of the BRN-C's inner circle. Thawee and Paradon like to claim that Hasan is a part of that circle, but sources and operatives in the movement insist otherwise.

Instead, the movement "used" Hasan to make demands, knowing that the Thais would never agree. The idea was to test the water. And Team Thailand danced to their tune.

Tired of being kicked around like a football between the BRN, Malaysian authorities and the Thai negotiating team, Hasan threw in the towel and has been incommunicado since December last year.

Talking to Malay-Muslim separatist leaders is nothing new for Thai officials, of course. Back in the 1980s, the task went to mid-ranking army officers, who treated the dialogue as more of a news-gathering exercise for the top brass.

In 2006 the Thai NSC was brought into the picture, and then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont gave the green light for a Geneva-based NGO to facilitate talks.

The so-called Geneva Process brought together the Thai NSC and one of the three Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) factions, under the leadership of Kasturi Mahkota. NSC deputy secretary-general Somkiet Boonchoo was named Thailand's point-man in the negotiations.

Then, shortly after Yingluck came into power, the Geneva Process was scrapped and Malaysia was brought in to mediate the process.

Somkiet and his NSC chief at the time, Thawil Pliensri, were moved to inactive posts. Thawil kicked up a fuss about the transfer but Yingluck couldn't care less. She and her brother Thaksin were more concerned with loyalty, and they put their trust in Thawee and Paradon.

Not only did Thaksin conjure up the idea of bringing Malaysia to the peace process, he thought that if he played a more direct role he would add legitimacy to the process. Thaksin met with a group of 16 exiled separatist leaders in March, 2012, in Kuala Lumpur, asking them to close the book on this conflict.

Those who took Thaksin's bait were dismissed as 'opportunists", while the core insurgents, namely the BRN inner circle and the operatives, were labelled as "hardliners".

BRN leaders refuse to recognise Kuala Lumpur as an honest broker and have yet to forgive the Malaysians for the secret handovers.

Insurgent operatives also showed their disapproval of Thaksin's initiative by launching a triple car bomb attack on March 30, 2012, in the heart of Yala two weeks after he met with the 16 exiled leaders. A major hotel in downtown Hat Yai was also hit. In all, the attacks killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100.

But Thaksin, his political cronies and Malaysia decided to overlooked the warning and went ahead with the Kuala Lumpur-backed initiative in February last year.

Local politicians under the Pheu Thai Party's wing did the leg work to pave the way for a process that BRN leaders said had more to do with whitewashing Thaksin for his questionable handling of the conflict than getting to the bottom of the historical grievances between the Malays of Patani and the Thai state.

Kasturi's faction was kept out of the process while a rival Pulo faction, under the leadership of Noor Abdulrahman (also known as Abae Kamae), was given a seat at the table.

The snub for Kasturi's faction was understandable given that the Geneva Process wouldn't permit Kuala Lumpur to join their initiative. A deal was cut in October last year to give Kasturi's Pulo faction a seat at the table. Details about the trade-off were not disclosed but government sources said it centred on rules of engagement.

The Army, needless to say, never liked the idea of having civilians running a peace process. And so late last year, the Army sponsored three trips for Wan Kadir Che Man, former leader of the now defunct Bersatu, an umbrella group for the longstanding separatist movements, to speak in Thailand.

Wan Kadir, a well-known exiled separatist leader, has long been critical of using Malaysia as facilitator or mediator for talks. He didn't mince words in lashing out at the current peace process. He wasn't too keen on the Geneva Process either, and suggested that the Thai government and the separatist leaders should meet face to face. And if there was need for a mediator, Wan Kadir suggested that Western governments with a long record of humanitarian actions should be in the frame, not NGOs.

While the Yingluck government has paid lip-service to a political solution for the conflict, the Thai team working on the current initiative is an ad hoc group that hardly inspires confidence. There is no secretariat and team members have regular day jobs to attend to, only coming together a day before any meeting with Hasan.

From the beginning, their immediate goal has been to get Hasan to convince the core BRN leadership and the juwae to reduce the number of attacks in the South. They needed something tangible to show their political bosses and the public that they are moving in the right direction.

But when it became clear that the BRN-C and juwae were not going to play along, Hasan decided to thrown in the towel and go into hiding last December.

Ironically, the political crises and street protests in Bangkok have given everyone in the deep South talks breathing space. Team Thaksin and Zamzamin went back to the drawing board. This week Zamzamin is expected to announce the "progress" on the process, like securing the participation of the third Pulo faction, led by Samsudine Khan, as well as that of the Barisan Islam Pembangunan Pattani (BIPP). There is also talk of permitting other separatist groups and local NGOs into the process.

BRN sources are reportedly unimpressed with this numbers game. They say they look at Bangkok and see a big mess, and as a result there is no way they are going to believe anything that comes out of Thawee's or Paradon's mouth.

Moreover, regardless of how many NGOs or separatist groups take part in the next round of talks, without the blessing of the core BRN leaders and the juwae, any attempt to salvage this sinking boat of a peace process will be met with the insurgents' wrath.

Revenge killings torpedo chances for peace in South

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation February 19, 2014

Rescue team members work next to bodies of villagers shot dead by suspected militants in Pattani province on February 13. Five people, including a nine-year-old boy and a Buddhist monk, died in the attack.

Insurgents say pro-government death squads signal lack of unified position among Thai security agencies and policymakers

A two-man paramilitary Ranger team escorting an elderly Buddhist monk travelling in a beat-up saloon car was no match for six assailants on three motorbikes with automatic weapons.

Exiled rebel sources maintained that the insurgents were going after "legitimate" targets, thus the decision to spare the 70-year-old monk who was sitting in the front of the bullet-ridden vehicle. The incident took place Pattani's Sai Buri district in the morning of January 24.

Ten days later in Narathiwat's Bacho district, gunmen killed three brothers aged three, five and nine, in an attempt to liquidate an entire family who had just returned from evening prayers at the village mosque. The father took a bullet to his leg but kept running, and the mother, who was four-months pregnant, was also hit. The parents survived.

At first, Thai authorities moved quickly to dismiss any suggestion that the assailants were officials or a pro-government death squad. Two weeks after the deadly shooting of the three boys, officials are still repeating the same mantra - that insurgents killed the three boys as part of an escalating campaign of violence now targeting innocent civilians, like the policeman's wife, 28, who was shot dead then set on fire in front of a terrified crowd at an open market in Pattani's Tambon Ratapanyang on February 9.

A similar incident took place on a Pattani-Narathiwat highway on February 12 when gunmen riding pillion shot dead a female bank employee, 29, and set her body on fire.

A hand-written note to the army chief read: "To the Commander of the Thai Army. This is not the last victim. [This killing is] for the three brothers."

The following day, February 13, in Pattani's Mae Lan district, suspected insurgents dressed in military fatigues opened fire on residents giving alms to monks, killing four, including a monk and a boy. Six people received gunshot wounds. The attackers also came with gasoline, but the attempt to set the victims on fire was thwarted by the monk's security detail.

Police believe at least one of the assailants was hit by return fire, and authorities are seeking tip-offs from locals about where the wounded man might be receiving treatment.

While the monk who survived the January 24 attack on two rangers was "collateral damage", the victims of the February 13 killings were intentional, said an exiled separatist cadre and member of a longstanding separatist group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), who was ordered to look into the series of events since the murder of the three boys.

The BRN-C cadre was tight-lipped about the accusation that the boy's father was a member of a Bacho cell, but pointed out that he had fought the allegation in court and been acquitted.

Over this past weekend, preliminary findings by the Southern Border Provinces Administration and Development Advisory Council said the killing of the three boys may be linked to a paramilitary ranger wanting to settle a score with the Bacho cell after losing a family member. The ranger had acted alone, believing the boys' father was an insurgent member, the council said.

The suggestion that the ranger had acted alone without instruction from higher-ups drew criticism from the Muslim Attorney Centre, who accused the council members of reaching a premature decision.

The use of death squads against civilian targets to settle scores is not uncommon in the deep South. For the authorities, the challenge has always been how to handle the aftermath of such incidents. No Muslims in this historically contested region believe the separatists could ever shoot at a mosque or a teashop full of people of their own kind.

But it is not in the nature of Thai officials to blame their own people. In the aftermath of the Ai Bayae massacre in June 2009, for example, in which gunmen mowed down a mosque full of Muslims, killing 10 and injured another 12, then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was clever enough not to draw premature conclusions, like blaming the separatist militants. As with other cases, a committee was set up to look into the massacre and over time people forgot about it.

Extrajudicial and target killings, needless to say, have always been a major obstacle to any peace initiative between the government and the separatist movements.

Since February 28 last year, when the Thai government entered into peace talks with the BRN, at least 10 ex-detainees, all of whom are accused of committing treason and are fighting the charges in court, have been shot and killed, presumably by pro-government death squads.

Observers of the southern conflict are reminded of the spike of violence from mid-November 2012 to the New Year, when soft targets that had apparently dropped off the radar screen returned to insurgents' hit lists. Three Buddhist teachers were killed and three public schools came under arson attack, joining other "legitimate" targets, like police and soldiers. During this period, on December 11, a teashop full of Muslims in Narathiwat's Rangae district also came under attack, leaving four dead, including an 11-month-old baby girl, and another four injured.

The six-week spike was set off by the target killing of a Yala imam, Abdullateh Todir, 49, on November 14, 2012. Abdullateh was also a member of the Yala Islamic Committee. Abdullateh was one of the clerics who the military and Thai officials at the Malaysia-backed peace talks were competing among themselves to garner support from to act as a go-between with active separatist militants and the exiled leaders. But some rogue unit didn't see it that way and decided to take him out, according to a military source. About one year before his death, a gunman fired at him but instead hit his daughter. Army Special Forces immediately provide Abdullateh with a security detail.

A cleric like Abdullateh was an ideal person to act as a go-between as he was respected by both warring sides. Both the BRN and senior Thai officials working on the peace process said he was a man of integrity and would have served the peace talks well.

But when a pro-government death squad took him out in November 14, 2012, other clerics immediately dropped the idea of playing interlocutor for any government agencies. Thailand's lack of unity was costly, as the six weeks of intense violence showed.

No one knows if and when the current spike in violence will end. Buddhist civic groups have called for calm and condemned the killings.

But local Muslims residents and observers generally dismiss the authorities' claims that the insurgents are using the death of the three boys as an excuse to hit civilian targets. Europe-based Kasturi Mahkota, the president of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), also issued a statement condemning the massacre of the three boys and blamed a Thai security outfit for the killings.

Groups like Human Rights Watch have pointed to the use of target killings by pro-government death squads as an obstacle to peace initiatives in the South.

For the time being, the Malaysia-backed peace talks that were launched on February 28 last year have hit a big snag as the designated BRN-C "liaison", Hasan Taib, has thrown in the towel and gone incommunicado.

BRN elders say they are in no mood to talk, especially given the current political deadlock in Bangkok, not to mention the absence of a unified position among Thai security agencies and policymakers.

The peace initiative has managed to secure the participation of the three Pulo factions, but few expect it to change the course of the conflict in this contested region.

Don Pathan is a freelance consultant and member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

ASIA PEACEBUILDING INITIATIVES

http://peacebuilding.asia/hostage-to-national-politics-thailands-southern-peace-initiatives/

Hostage to National Politics: Thailand’s Southern Peace Initiatives

The latest wave of street protests, which began in Bangkok in November 2013, were in some ways a blessing in disguise for peace talks between the Thai government and self-proclaimed members of Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C). This is because the talks, which were officially launched on 28 February 2013, had run into a brick wall. Hasan Taib, the designated “liaison” officer for BRN, issued a video statement through YouTube, saying he was no longer part of the process. Shortly after, he went incommunicado. Sources in the movement said he threw in the towel and is currently laying low. Kuala Lumpur, the designated “facilitator”, is looking for a new liaison to take his place. And this time around, they are looking at men with whom the insurgents on the ground can identify. A break from the talks could give stakeholders time to go back to the drawing board. But there is no guarantee that the participants would return to the table with anything fundamentally new or sound. If history is any lesson, peace initiatives for Thailand’s Deep South have always been at the mercy of Thai national politics.

The 28 February initiative, which is still a far cry from qualifying as a formal negotiation, has limped along from the minute it was launched. At first the government was dismissive of the unabated violence that continued even after the formal announcement. But in the end it became too difficult to deny the political underpinning of the attacks. More than 5,000 people have been killed since January 2004 from this wave of insurgency violence and there is no end in sight. Thai delegates to the talks wanted the BRN to instruct the militants to curb the number of attacks so that their political bosses could tell the public that the initiative was worthwhile. The BRN delegates, on the other hand, issued all sorts of demands knowing that the Thai government could not deliver. Along the way, it became clear that Hasan Taib and his delegates were unable to influence the situation on the ground, although the Thai team insisted they were talking to the right people. Adding to the grave disconnect between Hasan’s team and the insurgent network was disunity between Thai policymakers and the security community.

Photo: Veerayut Saengnoree. www.wewatch.info

Seeing that the Thais lacked a united front on this extremely sensitive and important issue, the BRN ruling council, also known as the Dewan Penilian Party (DPP), decided to use the initiative to test how the Thai side would react to certain sensitive requests. Some of these requests, which were issued through Hasan, called on the Thai government to pull out troops who were dispatched to the Deep South from other regions. They also called for the release of all prisoners and detainees convicted and arrested on charges relating to the ongoing insurgency, as well as the dropping of charges pending against all suspects. They also called for the talks or negotiation to have the backing of the state, which meant that Parliament would have to endorse the negotiation.

But the demand that Malaysia’s status in the process be upgraded from “facilitator” to “mediator”, as well as permitting international non-governmental organisations (INGO) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to participate in the talk, was meant to mislead the public. Sources in the BRN movement say these demands were strategic: the DPP wanted to know how Bangkok would react to these issues. Moreover, they had to be polite, or at least appeared to be, to Kuala Lumpur for fear that the Malaysian authorities would come down hard on the exiled leaders from various long-standing separatist movements living in the country, not to mention the tens of thousands of Thai Malay Muslim unskilled migrant workers from the southernmost provinces.

Honest brokers are thin on the ground

BRN leaders and other exiled leaders said Malaysia was not an honest broker, adding that the separatist movement had unresolved disputes with Kuala Lumpur dating back to the 1990s when Malaysian authorities sent Patani Malay suspects back to Thailand. As for the OIC, exiled Patani Malay leaders said they had lost faith in the Islamic body in 1998, after it granted Thailand a permanent observer status. Mediation is a thing of the future and the BRN and other groups suggested they would like to see the position taken by Western governments, countries with track record on conflict resolution and strong humanitarian law.

The Thai delegation is headed by two of the ruling Phue Thai Party’s most trusted bureaucrats: Lt.-General Paradon Pattanatabut, the head of the National Security Council (NSC); and Police Colonel Thawee Sodsong, the chief of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC). While Thawee and Paradon have a police and military background and are deemed to have very close links to Thaksin Shinawatra, the fugitive ex-prime minister and Pheu Thai de facto leader, it does not mean they can influence the security agencies at the national level or have the ability or the will to clamp down on targeted killings of suspected insurgent leaders. Needless to say, such practices have chipped away the credibility of the peace process. Thailand does not have a policy on targeted killing; it is believed that such activities are carried out by rogue officers with a grudge against suspected insurgents, especially ex-detainees who have been acquitted by the Thai courts. Such practices also erode trust in the Thai legal system. After all, these suspects have decided to fight the charges instead of going underground to take up arms. In fact, the use of extra judicial killings against ex-detainees became a convenient excuse used by Hasan Taib to shoot down a proposed ceasefire deal in 2013 during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

Although there was no reason to doubt that Hasan and his delegates were part of the BRN movement two or three decades ago, a well-placed Malaysian source dealing with the peace initiative confirmed that leaders with a meaningful connection, or command-and-control, with the insurgents on the ground would not be taking part in the talks because the current Yingluck government would not grant them immunity. But BRN sources, on the other hand, said the issue is more than simply immunity for their negotiators. They said Malaysia is not an honest broker, and that the separatist movements still recall how Malaysian security officials have in the past secretly handed over members and leaders of separatist movements to Thailand. Some have been convicted and are serving life sentence in Thai prisons. Echoing the sentiment of BRN and other exiled leaders, Associate Professor Wan Kadir Che Man, the former leader of the now defunct Bersatu, an umbrella group for all the long-standing separatist movement, said a coherent process would produce viable representatives.

Sources in the Malaysian and Thai governments admitted that the two governments had taken a big leap of faith in thinking the process begun in February 2013 could gain traction. Some admitted they knew beforehand that Hasan and his delegates did not have any meaningful influence on the BRN’s DPP, much less the insurgents on the ground. There are several reasons why the DPP refused to endorse the 28 February initiative. First, the group didn’t think Thailand would commit itself to a formal process because there was no unity among the policymakers, much less the various government agencies tasked with bringing an end to the conflict. Moreover, the BRN would like to see its political wing be formally recognised by the Thai side, as well as the international community, before they permit them to take part in any peace talk. That status, of course, would bring immunity from the Thai government.

While it was clear that neither side was prepared for the 28 February initiative, this begged the question: Why did Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur decide to go ahead anyway?

One explanation for why Yingluck Shinawatra’s government rushed through with the initiative has to do with Thaksin’s desire to clear his name. His handling of the unrest in the southernmost provinces was one of the reasons cited by the military after they dislodged him in 2006. But with a peace initiative in place, regardless of its coherency, Yingluck would be able to tell the local and international community that her government had extended an olive branch to the separatists but the movement chose not to cooperate.  Malaysia took the same leap of faith as Bangkok, thinking the process would attract the participation of other long-standing groups. Historically, Kuala Lumpur viewed southern Thailand as their back yard, and believed any initiatives to resolve the conflict there must have their inputs. And while historical mistrust between the two countries persists, there is understanding among policymakers in Bangkok that any conflict resolution for the Deep South must have Malaysia’s involvement. The sticky question was how much involvement Bangkok was willing to allow.

Wan Kadir blamed successive Thai governments for going to the same mediators, facilitators and go-betweens, and for refusing to take a new approach to negotiation. Speaking at the Prince of Songkhla University-Pattani Campus on 24 December 2012, Wan Kadir, who was recently allowed to return to the country after 53 years of exile, didn’t mince words when he called Thai officials “stupid” and “insincere” in their past handling of peace initiatives. He said many of the Thai officials who had participated in three decades of talks appeared more concerned with enhancing their own careers rather than achieving peace, and added that the mediators, facilitators and go-betweens were opportunists who exploited the talks for personal and political gain. He said the February 2013 peace initiative in Kuala Lumpur was also an example of Thailand’s lack of sincerity.

But instead of pausing to reconsider, the Thai government decided to stubbornly keep the February initiative alive for fear of losing face. But with violence continuing, Bangkok was hard-pressed to show any deliverables. The plan was to bring on board other long-standing separatist groups, namely groups that were kept out of the process from the start. An invitation was extended to Kasturi Mahkota, the Sweden-based leader of a faction of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) that had been working with Thailand’s NSC through a Geneva-based mediator from 2005-2011. The so-called Geneva Process was scrapped by the Yingluck government who gave the mandate to Kuala Lumpur to facilitate. Another PULO faction, under the leadership of Samsudine Khan, also agreed to take part in the talks. Khan, who is also based in Sweden, had initially given the February initiative the cold shoulder but later changed his mind. The two would join the third self-proclaimed PULO president, Noor Abdulrahman, at the negotiating table. Bangkok was also planning to extend an invitation to the Barisan Islam Pembangunan Pattani (BIPP) but the founder, Wan Kadir, was dismissive of the report. Sources in the movement said BIPP’s leadership was split.

Photo: Surapan Boonthanom. www.wewatch.info

Another Thai strategy has been to try to lure well-known figures like Sapae-ing Basor, a respected spiritual leader and former principle of Thamvithya Multini School in Yala, to the table for ‘photo opportunities’ to give credibility to the February initiative. Sapae-ing has been accused by the Thai authorities of being a top BRN leader. A warrant for his arrest was issued in 2005, signed by the SBPAC’s Thawee Sodsong who was at the time a police colonel. Sapae-ing has so far refused to take part in the process because he is extremely angered by the Thai authorities for demonising him, according to his close associates. At one time, the police even offered 20 million baht for information leading to his capture. Thai officials who read the charges against him said the allegations were too weak and that he would beat the case should his case go to court. The BRN has been tight-lipped about Sapae-ing’s status and his whereabouts, but stated that he has long been an important spiritual leader for the Patani Malay Muslims.

The Thai team, namely the SBPAC and the NSC, had also turned to Muslim religious leaders in the Deep South to act as go-betweens after they realized that local Malay Muslim politicians had a credibility problem with both the movements and local people. Clerics were toying with the idea of acting as go-betweens, but then a death squad killed one of their own, imam Abdullateh Todir, on 14 November 2012. The religious leaders backed away as insurgents on the ground, from mid-November to the new year, went back to targeting government schools, killing three Buddhist teachers. Attacks during this period spiked unprecedentedly.

But before anybody could come to the table, there was a massive anti-government street protest in Bangkok against the passing of an amnesty bill aimed at absolving Thaksin of his conviction for corruption and abuse of power. The Yingluck government decided to dissolve Parliament and called for a fresh election. But the anti-government demonstrators, led by former Democrat Party deputy leader Suthep Thaugsuban, vowed to obstruct the upcoming election. They demanded that the country first undergo serious reform to rid the country of Thaksin’s influence. Amid uncertainty whether the February 2014 general election will ever take place, any peace resolution for the Muslim-majority South has been put on hold.

Failure warnings were ignored

The February peace initiative had ample warning of an imminent failure but they were ignored by the stakeholders mainly because Thai officials task and the go-betweens tasked with laying the ground work for the peace talk was more concern with rescuing Thaksin rather then saving southern Thailand. The first warning came on 30 March 2012, two weeks after a meeting between Thaksin and a group of 16 separatist leaders in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting was set up by the Malaysian government, the would-be “facilitator” for the peace initiative that would be announce a year later. Wan Kadir, during his first public appearance in nearly a decade, told Thai reporters in Bangkok in November 2013 that the triple car-bombs in Yala, and one in the basement parking lot of a Hat Yai hotel on 30 March 2012, were meant as a message to the Thaksin-backed initiative. More than 13 people were killed and 110 people injured from the attacks. The Thai army’s top brass also made the same point, saying the civilian initiative was doomed to fail and that such a task should be carried out by military personnel. Thai soldiers have yet to come to terms with the notion of civilian supremacy.

While the BRN’s DPP and core leaders did not endorse the February initiative, it does not mean the BRN does not want to talk peace with the Thai state. Ever since its birth in the late 1960s, BRN has always stood for independence for the historical Malay homeland of Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and the Malay-speaking districts in Songkhla province. So the fact that they would be willing to talk peace with the Thais is a big change for the movement. The BRN said they wanted the initiative to be kept out of the public spotlight and to generate enough confidence before going public and/or engage in a formal negotiation process with the government. They accused Thailand of being reckless by pushing through the February initiative, knowing that the issue of immunity was not resolved and also knowing that they (BRN) still have yet to bridge the trust gap between them and the Malaysian government about the deportation issue. By presenting the 28 February launch as more than what it was, it set the stage for microphone diplomacy that became a political circus, where announcements, demands and statements were issued through the media and YouTube.

Photo: Nakharin Chinnawornkomal. wewatch.info

As stated earlier, what the BRN desire at this juncture is to establish a legitimate and recognisable political wing that can surface publicly and engage with the international community. BRN said they would be willing to work with international organisations that can help them with capacity-building and give members a better understanding of a wide range of issues, such as international norms, the Geneva Convention and humanitarian law. The problem with Bangkok is that the government thought it could achieve results in one push by bringing in Thaksin and Malaysia into the picture. Soldiers and other bureaucrats said it was difficult for them to manoeuvre because of Thaksin’s direct participation. An opportunity to criticise civilians on this point emerged when it was realized that Wan Kadir was luke-warm about the on-going process. And so the Thai Army organised two trips—in November and December 2013—for him to Bangkok and Pattani, respectively, knowing that he would be critical of the initiative.

In fact, as of December 2013, militants have expanded their operation to include Sadao, the fifth Malay-speaking district of Songkhla province. Two motorbike bombs hit police targets and a car bomb was placed in a hotel parking lot in a small street filled with prostitutes and karaoke bars. The same day also saw a botched car bomb attempt on a police station in Phuket. A pickup truck for the Phuket hit was stolen from Pattani’s Sai Buri District in May 2013 and was used to carry two canisters filled with explosive materials powerful with a blast radius of about 500 metres. Indeed, with the attacks in Sadao and Phuket, a new threshold has been crossed. But it does not mean the desire to talk is not there. Violence on the ground, including the expansion of the battlefield, is part of that negotiation.

BRN said the next phase of the peace initiative could very well be without Kuala Lumpur, citing hard feelings that date back to the handing over of suspected separatist leaders in 1998. These differences would have to be overcome before Kuala Lumpur could have a seat at the table, they said. But officials in Bangkok are not sure how to break this impasse with the Malaysian government. Bangkok had asked for Kuala Lumpur’s participation, and embarrassment could now be inevitable. Wan Kadir said using mediating organisations has not worked and suggested that Western governments like the United States, Sweden or Germany should be invited to take part in the process since this would give the initiative more legitimacy.

No one in the BRN can clearly explain why its top leaders are now willing to talk to the Thais. One explanation, according to a mid-ranking BRN cadre, has to do with the generation gap between the exiled leaders and the current crop of militants, the so-called post-Tak Bai generation, who could become increasingly uncompromising and/or unwilling to accept the guidance of elders living in exile. Tak Bai is a Narathiwat district where a demonstration in late 2004 ended in the death of 78 young men, who all died from suffocation after they were stacked into the back of military trucks. Seven others were shot dead at the demonstration site. For the time being, the BRN elders believe they have enough clout to influence the combatants and change the course of the conflict, but such a task will be increasingly difficult as time passes and the generation gap gets wider and wider.

Don Pathan

Don Pathan is a freelance consultant based in Yala, one of the three southernmost provinces of Thailand hit by this wave of insurgency violence. He is also a founding member of the Patani Forum, a local non-governmental organisation dedicate to promoting critical dialogue on the conflict in the region.

Expanding the theatre of violence in the deep South

Recent attacks reveal that talks between Bangkok and the BRN hold little sway over separatists in the deep South

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Dan Nok, Songkhla  

January 16, 2014

Photo by DON PATHAN. Carbomb attack in Don Nok, Songkhla Province of Thailand on Dec 22, 2013.

Last June, the liaison officer for the Barisan Revolusi Nasional delegation representing the separatists at ongoing deep South peace talks pointed out that the historical homeland of the Patani Malays includes Sadao district in Songkhla province. Hasan Taib called on the Thai military to pull out of this small border town, but his request was met with howls of dismay among the local business community.

Businesspeople were worried that placing the district under the spotlight would hit trade in the area, which includes the largest border crossing between Thailand and Malaysia. It also covers Dan Nok, the mini-sin city that has long served as a cash cow for prominent and politically connected local figures.

A typical Thai border town with relaxed rules and regulations, Dan Nok is a dumping ground for the things nobody wants to talk about publicly - smuggled goods, gambling and prostitution.

But the hoopla from local businessmen couldn't deter the insurgents, who were bent on extending the theatre of violence to the district. And so on the morning of December 22, insurgents used motorbike bombs against two police targets - Bedang Besar and Sadao - while the front parking lot of the Oliver Hotel in Dan Nok was hit with a car bomb.

Dan Nok was at the centre of a month-long festival of lights, a joint effort by tour operators from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. The event was due to stretch from Chinese New Year to Valentine's Day, but the insurgents chose to crash the party. Not only did the attacks upset the business sector, Thai security apparatus was also jolted. It was the first time Sadao had been hit since this wave of insurgency erupted just a decade ago, and the signs were of more attacks to come.

But even more startling was what appeared to be an attempted car-bomb attack on a Phuket police station the same day. Stuffed with enough explosive to devastate a 500-metre radius, the truck had been parked behind the station for at least two days. Police were alerted to the Phuket threat when the Bedang Besar bomb went off at a police station parking lot on December 22, about 10 kilometres away from Dan Nok.

The Phuket vehicle was immediately towed to the outskirts of the city, where it began to yield bits and pieces of odd information. The bomb's timer revealed it was set to go off on August 1, 2013 - nearly five months earlier.

At first, it didn't make sense to the investigating officers, then somebody reminded them of an incident in Phuket on August 1. A small home-made bomb had gone off in a garbage can at the Phuket city hall, slightly damaging five cars but injuring no one. At the time, everybody assumed local politics was at play. But the attacks on December 22 quickly changed that outlook and suggested the culprits were trying to send a message with the timer date.

While the attacks in Sadao have all the signatures of the insurgency, many are wondering why Phuket is being targeted. And if there is a link between the August 1 explosion at Phuket's city hall and the truck-bomb timer found on December 22, then one can safely assume that this plan had been in the pipeline for some time.

Some security officers have linked the Phuket and Dan Nok incidents to local business disputes. It's very possible that local kingpins used the insurgents, as they had done before, to get their message across, they said.

Others have linked the Sadao and Phuket attacks back to the May 26, 2013 attack on Ramkhamhaeng Soi 43/1 by an insurgent cell. Although political leaders maintain the Ramkhamhaeng bombing was not linked to unrest in the deep South, security officials confirmed that the attack was a bid by one of the longstanding separatist groups to enhance its leverage in negotiations.

Unlike other sub-national conflicts where insurgent groups claim responsibilty for attacks so as to enhance their leverage with the state, the conflict in Muslim-majority southern Thailand has yet to develop a proper channel of communication where claims over violent incidents can be properly verified. But a group did claim responsibility for the Ramkhamhaeng operation, stating its aim was to be at the negotiating table.

Sources among the separatist movement in exile said the situation was not conducive for representatives of any movement to go public and claim responsibility for the attacks. Ideally, such a task should be the work of a recognised political wing that could serve as a channel of communication between the movement and the Thai government and other stakeholders.

Meanwhile, BRN sources have dismissed ongoing peace talks that kicked off on February 28 last year as a futile exercise. They said the initiative did not have the blessing of the BRN leadership and that it was hastily put together by the governments in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur in the mistaken belief it would lead to something bigger and better. Not only has the February 28 initiative failed to generate traction with insurgents, it has also upset a lot of BRN leaders and cell members.