Whither the WA?

Statements of intent aren't enough to make the UWSA respectable

Don Pathan
Irrawaddy/Transnational Institute

October 2005

This year’s international anti-drugs day was supposed to be a special occasion for the United Wa State Army, reputedly the world’s largest armed drug trafficking group.

Wa opium farmers, outskirts of Panghsang, last cultivation season. 

The shadowy outfit, said to control a sizeable portion of the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle, was supposed to announce in front of some 200 diplomats, aid workers, journalists and anti-narcotics officials at its Panghsang headquarters on the Sino-Burmese border that the organization has officially kicked the habit.

Opium would from now on be prohibited in the UWSA-controlled region, officially known as Special Region 2. The UWSA planned to announce that this past season was the last opium harvest for the poor farmers who for generations had grown poppy because there was nothing much else they could cultivate in this mountainous region. Hundreds of invitations were sent out to various international agencies and VIPs, but there was one slight problem. The language wasn’t right.

The Burmese government didn’t have anything against the fact that the invitation cards were written in Chinese. What irked the generals in Rangoon was that the invitation for the event, which was supposed to coincide with the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26, explicitly stated that the host of this event was the "Government of the Wa State".

For the generals in Rangoon, there is only one government in Burma. And so they called off what was to be an historic event for the Wa and possibly a turning point in the history of Burma’s opium politics. The wording on the invitation cards was the UWSA’s way of telling the junta that Special Region 2—together with areas along the Thai border that they had taken from former drug warlord Khun Sa after they defeated his Mong Tai Army in 1996—was their turf.

Today more than ever, according to one UWSA official, the Burmese junta has to be reminded of this reality because the status quo that defined their relations is resting on very shaky ground. Since the ouster of former prime minister Khin Nyunt, who had orchestrated a series of ceasefire deals with armed ethnic groups like the UWSA, Burmese army commander Deputy Snr-Gen Maung Aye and junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe had made a concerted effort to redefine Rangoon’s relationship with the ethnic armies.

One of the stipulations placed upon the UWSA, said a Wa official and a commander of a Thai army unit monitoring the border area, is that Burmese government troops can enter any of the autonomous regions they please without prior approval or having to be disarmed and escorted. So far three relatively small ceasefire groups have taken part in a staged and well-publicized ceremony that saw their troops surrendering their weapons to Burmese government officials.

But the real targets, observers said, were major armed groups like the Wa, Kokang Chinese, Chin and Kachin, all of whom control their own territory and in one way or another benefit from the lucrative drug trade. Rangoon turned up the heat last December when it dispatched 10 separate units of up to 10 men each to the UWSA’s Special Region 2. Officially it was supposed to be a geographical survey, but Thai military officials monitoring the situation think they were there to map out a plan of attack. The UWSA reluctantly agreed to the request but on condition that the Burmese officials disarm and that Wa officials escort them.

What concerns Thailand and China is that Rangoon’s efforts to demilitarize the ceasefire groups could turn the clock back to the days when all armed groups were fighting against the Burmese or among themselves to stake their claim. An all-out battle between the Burmese and the Wa, they said, could send hundreds of thousands of displaced opium farmers as refugees into neighboring Thailand and China.

Rangoon’s decision to snub the June 26 drug-burning ceremony in Panghsang was further evidence that nothing comes easy in trouble-plagued Burma. Historically, relations between the junta and the country’s armed ethnic minorities have never been smooth. Burma-watchers say many people tend to mistake the "ceasefire" agreement for a permanent peace.

Since the opium-free announcement on World Drug Day failed to resound internationally, it can be speculated whether the Wa will go back on their assurance that 2005 will be the last year for opium cultivation, or whether they intended to initiate the ban at all.

A Chinese officer monitoring the border said that China, like Thailand, is concerned that starving opium-farmers may seek to resettle on their side of the border where sizeable Wa communities are scattered. Some Thai officials believe the UWSA will churn out more methamphetamine tablets, or ya ba, to make up for the losses from the opium ban if it is actually enforced.

Rangoon bears much of the responsibility for the situation, having adopted a laissez faire policy during the past 16 years rather than making meaningful efforts to change the status quo. Groups like the UWSA used this time to strengthen themselves strategically and formulate their own foreign policy, hoping to legitimize themselves in the international community.

UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang has called on the UN and other international agencies to help with crop substitution, while Rangoon has put the plight of the poor opium farmers in its own formulation of an opium policy.

For the UWSA leadership, a further major setback occurred earlier this year when a US federal court charged eight UWSA leaders, including Bao and seven of his lieutenants, with drug trafficking. Although it was billed as an inevitable occurrence, the indictment in absentia of the Wa leaders jolted not only the Burmese government but the Thai and Chinese as well. UWSA investments are largely placed in neighboring countries, especially China’s Yunnan Province and the northern region of Thailand.

Bao’s indictment came as he expressed confidence that he had been making headway in his quest to be recognized as running a legitimate organization. In one interview, he even said "you can have my head" if 2005 is not the last year for opium cultivation.

As part of his effort to win legitimacy, Bao opened up his region to foreign envoys and aid workers, persuaded the UN to set up a small crop-substitution project and threatened to punish farmers in his territory if they continued to grow opium after this year. He even managed to obtain from the Thai government a 20 million baht (US $500,000) contribution towards an alternative crop scheme, the Yong Kha Development Project, with the help of then Burmese prime minister Khin Nyunt. But when the US federal court charges were announced, Bao’s dream of having the UWSA accepted internationally as a legitimate outfit went out the window.

The US indictments were also embarrassing for Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who had given the UWSA the benefit of the doubt when dispatching then Third Army Region commander Lt-Gen Picharnmate Muangmanee to participate in the opening ceremony for a Thai-funded school in Wa territory in December 2003.

Thaksin reached out to the Wa despite having publicly declared war on Wei Hsueh-Kang, one of the UWSA commanders wanted in Thailand as a suspected drug lord. Thaksin has said he will take down Wei one day, dead or alive, while Thai troops are reportedly clashing regularly with Wa soldiers along the border.

For a brief moment at the opening ceremony of the Yong Kha Project, it looked as if things would change for the better in the region. But nobody seriously believed the good times would last. After all, that particular event in December 2003 had more to do with whitewashing the world’s largest drug-trafficking army—and strengthening Thai-Burmese relations—than it did with the interests of Wa peasants or any long-term peace settlement.

Throughout the entire kiss-and-make-up episode between the Thais and the Wa, Wei and his gang continued to run their drug-funded businesses through his associates in Burma, China and Thailand, while heroin and methamphetamine coming out of clandestine laboratories in Wa-controlled areas continued to flood world markets.

Today, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Burma’s sector of the Golden Triangle as Wa leaders and others wonder what is in store for the stake holders. The future does not look bright.

Don Pathan is editor of the regional desk at The Nation, Thailand’s independent English language daily newspaper.

https://www.tni.org/my/node/11707

Southern murders reflect lack of effective leadership

Don Pathan

Supalak Ganjanakhundee 

The Nation

The murder yesterday of two security officers following a tense stand-off between

government officials and Muslim villagers in Narathiwat’s Ban Tanyong Limo

underscores the absence of a concerted plan and strategy required for such urgent

situations.

The incident not only reflects a lack of decisive leadership and the degree of difficulty

that state officials find themselves up against in this restive region, where the local

communities have never really trusted government officials, but also serves as

testimony that the worst may be yet to come.

Villagers expressed their distrust of the Thai press and preference for Malaysian

coverage of the incident. It was not clear what the presence of the Malaysian press would have achieved. If anything, the incident reflects the mindset of the local

villagers, who are telling the world that they trust neither the Thai authorities nor the

so-called independent Thai media.

In the struggle against the ongoing violence in the South, a conventional strategy –

large numbers of troops with heavy firepower controlling the situation on the ground

– was adopted from day one.

Psychological operations aimed at discrediting the insurgents and winning the hearts

and minds of the local populace have never amounted to much. If anything,

yesterday’s stand-off was proof of that.

Unlike the demonstrations and mass protests of previous years, Muslim women and

children have now been given a role for local residents to vent their anger against state

agencies. They acted forcefully to block the entrance to Ban Tanyong Limo.

While the two Marines who were tied up in a pavilion may not have been connected

with the Tuesday-night shooting incident at a village tea shop that killed two men and

wounded four others, they certainly appeared to have been in the wrong place at the

wrong time.

It appears the villagers grabbed the first security officers they could find. Whether

they really thought that would enhance their bargaining power with the state, from

whom they demanded an immediate investigation – as well as the presence of

Malaysian and other foreign journalists – will never really be known.

But the blockading of the village by hundreds of women and children, preventing the

entrance of government officials and Thai journalists, was a statement in itself: we

don’t trust the authorities and take your flunkies with you.

The incident was the second of its kind in less than a month. Three weeks ago, an

imam in Ban Lahan village was gunned down. The incident provoked a similar angry

stand-off, because villagers believed the cleric’s dying words that he had been shot by

government officers.

But there have been ample warnings. As far back as three years ago, a group of

Narathiwat villagers lynched two Border Patrol officers in broad daylight after a feisty

stand-off. Many officials on the ground admitted at the time they feared a worsening

situation, but political leaders in Bangkok did not pay the kind of attention needed to

change local mindsets.

And so misunderstandings and mistrust still prevail today in the unruly South, where

Muslim insurgents are trying to carve out a separate homeland for ethnic Malays,

while local residents are stuck in the middle of the escalating strife.

Worse, since authorities are unable to contain the violence, conspiracy theories

blaming state agencies for manufacturing the violence have become commonly

accepted as fact. Although such a school of thought is nothing new, the government

has never really seriously considered the need to understand local mentalities and

attitudes towards the state. 

74

That does not mean there have been no efforts to win hearts and minds. There have

been plenty – the Thaksin Football League, the origami bird drop, the one-week

“clinic” aimed at instilling a higher sense of patriotism.

But none appeared to hit the right spot. It was as if the authorities were acting just for

the sake of acting.

What has clearly been lacking these past two years is any attempt to second-guess

local reactions towards such government initiatives.

Not only did the government fail to anticipate public reactions, they ignored even the

need to think things through and come up with possible scenarios.

Today, a full 20 months after scores of armed men raided an Army battalion in

Narathiwat and made off with 300 automatic weapons, the insurgency in Thailand’s

southernmost provinces has crossed a threshold.

The battle in the South will require much more than a conventional military approach.

While the struggle may be physical on one level, it is more in the hearts and minds of

the local population.

It is no longer an issue of geographical control, but rather one of mindsets – between

the ethnic Malays of the deep South and the rest of the country. And if the insurgents

have their way, the battle will evolve into Muslim versus non-Muslim.

VILLAGE ‘REVENGE’: Massive hunt for marines’ killers

Published on September 22, 2005
The Nation

PM promises those responsible for killing two officers in South will be found 

A fuming Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to hunt down the killers of two
marines who were stabbed to death after being taken hostage by villagers in the deep
South yesterday.
“We will not let the two die for nothing - the law must be law,” Thaksin said shortly
after learning that the men had been killed.
“I have ordered all officials to implement the law to its fullest extent to track them
[the killers] down.”
Thaksin launched an all-out military operation to bring the suspected insurgents and
villagers responsible for the slayings to justice.
The killings came amid a desperate attempt by authorities to negotiate their release
from Ban Tanyonglimo in the border province of Narathiwat.
The two marines killed were Sub-Lieutenant Vinai Nabut and Petty Officer Khamthon
Thongeiat.
“They were brutally beaten to death with machetes and sticks while their hands and
legs were tied up and they were gagged and blindfolded,” Fourth Army Region
commander Lt-General Kwanchart Klaharn told a press conference.
Commandos were positioned to storm the village and rescue the marines, but hooded
villagers took advantage of the absence of eyewitnesses when people gathered in the
mosque for mid-day prayers to kill the men, he said.
On Tuesday night, hundreds of villagers seized the two marines and locked them in a
small storage room next to the village mosque immediately following a shooting
attack at a local teashop that left two people dead and four others wounded.
Some of the villagers had accused the two marines of being behind the shooting. But
Kwanchart said the two servicemen were just passing by on their way to another
incident when they decided to stop after hearing the shooting at the teashop. They
vehicle may have broken down, he added.
Najmuddin Umar, a former Thai Rak Thai MP who accompanied Fourth Army deputy
chief Maj-General Pichet Wisaichorn into Ban Tanyonglimo, said authorities were
unable to establish a dialogue with villagers because they would not identify who
would do the negotiating.
Pichet said he saw the two troopers from a distance and asked that they be given food
and water.
He told reporters that villagers had demanded the government form a committee to
investigate the teashop incident and allow foreign media to come to their village to
document the situation there.
But by the time Malaysian reporters arrived on the scene in the middle of the
afternoon, the two men had been executed.
72
Thaksin said the violence was instigated by insurgents who wanted to amplify the
tension between Tanyonglimo villagers and the government.
Throughout the entire stand-off drama, hundreds of women - their faces wrapped in
traditional headscarves - stood on a tiny bridge just metres away from heavily armed
soldiers, as their children played nearby.
They blocked the entrance to the village for 18 hours. Yesterday morning they put up
a large tent that was plastered with messages.
“Evil has spread since Thaksin’s party came to power. Ethnic Malay people have been
cruelly killed by soldiers. They are the real terrorists,” one message read.
Another simply said: “It’s you, not us.’’ 

EDITORIAL: Put muzzle on TRT stooges

Cultural and religious insensitivity could escalate southern unrest

The Nation
Published on September 18, 2005

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra assigned 25 Thai Rak Thai MPs on a fact-finding mission to the
strife-torn Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat to find out what is wrong and what needs to be done to restore peace in the region.

Six months and several study tours later, they came up with some innovative and
wonderfully callous ideas, including a recommendation for the government to close
down all Islamic boarding schools.

The findings made public on Wednesday were stupefying. Little wonder the Thai Rak Thai party failed miserably in the region in the latest general election. With this kind of shallow thinking, lack of intellectual capacity and callousness, the ruling party did not really need political opponents to lose in the poll.

Local religious leaders in the predominantly Muslim region cried foul after the group of MPs made blanket accusations against the religious schools, known locally as pondok. The charges were that they overemphasised Islamic studies at the expense of other useful worldly subjects, which they claimed makes it impossible for graduating students to further secular education at higher levels.

The MPs also said the schools also do not offer proper Thai language lessons and thus
prevent local children – who mostly are ethnically Malay – from assimilating into
mainstream Thai society. Or, in other words, the schools make them less Thai.

That’s why the MPs recommended turning all pondok into privately-run religious
schools which also emphasise secular curricula, to groom Malay Muslims in a way as
to make them get along better with mainstream society and compatible with the
modern economic and social development mindset. This high-handed approach
reflects Thai Rak Thai members’ ignorance and insensitivity to cultural differences
and traditional ways of life in the deep South, where the vast majority of Muslims
with Malay ethnic origins prefers to stick with their religion and distinct culture. Islam
and Malay culture combine to create a very different people with a different outlook
on life.

The pondok is not a normal school, as wrongly assumed by Thai Rak Thai lawmakers
and most government officials, but it is a place to train local residents to be “good and
upright” people in accordance with their brand of Islam. There are only some 300
officially registered pondok – which literally means dormitory – teaching young
people about the Islamic way of life. These are not schools designed to produce a
highly productive, competitive workforce for the economy as the Thai Rak Thai MPs
wanted to see. In reality, there are a number of private religious schools in the region
that provide lessons on both Islam and secular subjects. The schools subsidised by the
government exist as an option for local parents who want their children to have both
religious and secular training. The religious schools that offer secular curriculum have
done quite well as many of their students have successfully moved on to further their
education at university level.

Despite that, there is no reason to abolish the traditional pondok, as they are not competing with private schools that offer both religious studies and a secular curriculum, which are more popular among parents and students anyway. And then there are also children who, having finished primary and secondary education at secular schools, choose to further their study in Islam at a pondok as they want to deepen their understanding of their religion and culture.

They should be allowed to have the option to do so. Some ageing people attend pondok to learn the proper way to practise Islam before the end of their lives when they no longer have other worldly worries. For this reason, the pondok is a very important centre of learning and indispensable social institution of the local communities in the deep South – not dissimilar to the role played by the temple in a Buddhist community.

Except no one in his right mind is making outlandish suggestions to transform
Buddhist temples into anything else but what they have always been. The suggestion
to eliminate pondok is a divisive and very dangerous idea as it could be seen as a
move to destroy local social institutions which represent religion and cultural diversity
in the region. This unhelpful suggestion will not only fail to help reduce ongoing
violence, but will add fuel to the fire and cause further estrangement of the local
population from mainstream Thai society – and increased resistance to the central
government.

‘REFUGEE’ INCIDENT: Pulo denies role in Muslim exodus

Outlawed separatist group says flight of 131 Narathiwat asylum seekers into Malaysia was spurred by harassment 

Don Pathan
The Nation

The Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) has dismissed allegations by the Thai government that it hatched a plot for 131 Thai Muslims to flee to Malaysia and to smear Thailand’s reputation by drawing international attention to the incident.

In a statement delivered to The Nation last weekend from the exiled outlawed Muslim militant organisation’s headquarters in Europe, Pulo said the 131 Thai nationals were ordinary villagers who fled their homes in southern Thailand because “they cannot live under Thai harassment.”

Pulo officials also dismissed accusations that the Pattani Malay Human Rights Organisation was their political “front” organisation. The Pulo statement said the Malay human rights organisation had been formed shortly after the Tak Bai demonstration last October when 78 Muslim demonstrators died in the custody of Thai security forces.

The organisation is an independent organisation with no link to Pulo, and that it helps “displaced people who need shelter and basic needs for survival”, according to Pulo. The 131 Thai Muslims seeking asylum in Malaysia are residents of Narathiwat’s border districts and appear to have crossed into Malaysia simultaneously before taking refuge in two mosques in the state of Kelantan.

They have since been relocated to a shelter and are being interviewed by officials working for a UN refugee agency. The incident took on a bitter diplomatic note when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra accused some of the purported refugees of being insurgents. The Malaysian government responded by inviting the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to interview the Thai Muslims to determine their status.

Outspoken former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad ratcheted up the controversy when he suggested the 131 Thai Muslims be given asylum once their status as refugees was established. Muslim residents in Narathiwat said they believed the asylum-seekers had fled because of a misunderstanding with security officials who ordered locals to report to provincial offices to undergo a week-long “re-education programme” aimed instilling a heightened sense of patriotism.

 Residents said a recently passed controversial emergency decree, described by critics as “a license to kill”, may also have been a factor in further alarming local Muslims fearing abuse at the hands of security forces. Pulo surfaced in the 1970s at the height of the armed struggle by ethnic Malays seeking independence from Thailand.

Hostilities died down in the previous decade before they resurfaced again in January 2004 with a raid on an army arsenal. Since then nearly 900 people have been killed in the South. “As you may have notice, we are back,” the exiled organisation’s statement read. Pulo also accused the Thai government of misleading the Organisation of Islamic Conference in order to enhance relations with Muslim countries.

The statement by Pulo asserted that it was police and army “brutality” that had led to the renewed insurgency. The statement stated that Thai security forces had carried out extra-judicial killings of at least 17 Muslims prior to the assassination of Imam Stopa Yusoh in Lahar village in Narathiwat. It said these incidents had fostered resentment against the state, particularly after the killings were not properly investigated.

“We are engaged in defending and protecting local people who, as you know, are confronting Thai security men,” the statement said. In another statement issued by the organisation, exiled deputy president Abae Kamae dismissed recent news reports that Pulo was holding talks with government officials. He also dismissed a statement by an unnamed “spokesman” that the organisation was planning attacks in Phuket, Bangkok, and Pattaya. “It is not our policy” to stage such attacks, he said.

---------------

BURNING ISSUE: Malaysia row may backfire
Thaksin’s bitter ‘refugee’ pillis entirely self-administered

Don Pathan
The Nation

September 16, 2005

Thailand and Malaysia have once again found themselves at loggerheads in the
aftermath of a diplomatic tussle that involves the 131 Thai Muslims who fled their
villages for the Malaysian state of Kelantan, reportedly because they were scared by
an impending crackdown on their community by government security forces.
But this round of a political tussle could prove very costly for Bangkok now that the
stakes have been raised. An unwanted international spotlight is shining brightly on the
restive region, although the government insists that the incident is an internal affair.
Senior security officials on the ground said the issue could have been settled at a very
local level between the immigration officers of the two countries.
40
They said the Foreign Ministry had hit the right note when suggesting on the first day
that it was a case of simple misunderstanding and that the villagers would be treated
with dignity upon their return. But Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra could not stay
quiet long enough for diplomacy to take its due course.
Thaksin put the ball in Kuala Lumpur’s court when he stated that some of the 131
were Muslim insurgents, whom authorities accuse of trying to carve out a separate
homeland for the ethnic Malays in Thailand’s deep South.
Malaysia responded by permitting the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) to get into the act – an unprecedented move on this sticky issue, which has
long been at the centre of dealings between the two countries.
Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammed turned up the heat even
further when he suggested that the 131 Narathiwat villagers should be given asylum if
they are deemed to be genuine refugees.
Defence Minister Thamarak Isarangura then shot back, suggesting that Kuala Lumpur
has turned a blind eye to supposed meetings among Thai Muslim insurgents on the
Malaysian island of Langkawi. But his move to implicate Malaysia could very well
pave the way for a completely new tone and context for future bilateral dialogues over
the border region, although not all stakeholders are convinced that this is best for the
two countries.
For one thing, the two governments have never really agreed between themselves
whether the violence in the South is criminal or political in nature.
The two sides cannot even agree on whether the extradition treaty dating from the
colonial period should be honoured.
Thailand has insisted all along that the violence in the deep South is a domestic matter
but overlooked the possibility that somehow along the way, Malaysia would be
brought into the picture.
So when the 131 local residents fled across the border, it was a question of too little
and too late to come up with an agreement about what is the appropriate terminology.
Diplomats and observers say that the Malaysian authorities have never really trusted
their Thai counterparts to treat the suspects whom they had previously handed over in
a proper manner – or at least in line with the country’s legal procedures.
If the UN deems the 131 to be genuine refugees, then any arrest warrants from the
Thai police would be almost meaningless as insurgent crimes in the unruly region
could be conveniently deemed political. And as refugees, they would have the right to
ask for resettlement in a third country.
At the recent Asean-UN summit in New York, Thaksin lashed out at an unnamed UN
agency for allowing itself to be “trapped into local political exploitation that could
lead to international misunderstanding”.
41
“Had the agency paid due respect to Thailand’s concern and had it tried to understand
the real cause of the incident, it would not have been so exploited,” Thaksin added.
But why hasn’t Thaksin asked Kuala Lumpur directly about this? Why couldn’t the
PM and his men stay quiet long enough to let officials handle the problem at the local
level?Some two years ago Thaksin said the UN was not his father – an angry remark
about the world body’s criticism of his government’s human rights record.
That may be true – the UN is not his father. But for the time being, Thaksin is
beginning to feel the might of an organisation often referred to as a “paper tiger”.
If the UNHCR grants the 131 “refugee” status, Thailand would know what a bitter pill
tastes like – the kind of pill that Burma and the Indochinese countries had been taking
for the most of the last half of the previous century when internal conflicts pushed
their own people across someone else’s border.
Don Pathan

Muslims acquitted of JI bomb plot charges

Don Pathan
The Nation

June 2, 2005

The Criminal Court yesterday acquitted four Thai Muslims accused of belonging to the Southeast Asian terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and plotting to bomb foreign embassies in Bangkok and tourist destinations in Phuket and Pattaya.

The court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to convict the four suspects, who were taken into custody two years ago and denied bail.

Immediately after the verdict was announced, the four men, chained by the legs and handcuffed to one another, dropped to their knees and, assuming the Muslim praying position, touched their foreheads on the floor as relatives in the courtroom wept and embraced.

One young man shouted Allah Alla-hu Akbar ( God is greatest ) as the four smiling defendants walked back to their detention.

Their defence lawyers moved immediately to apply for bail but it was denied, and the court forwarded the decision to the Appeals Court. Senator Kraisak Chonhavan had offered to use his position to post bail for the four defendants.

State prosecutors have 30 days to appeal against yesterday’s ruling.

Speaking to reporters from a holding cell at the Criminal Court yesterday, a high-spirited Dr Waemahadi Wae-dao said he was glad about the court’s ruling but did not see it as a major gain because he had been innocent all along .

I am just back to where I left off two years ago, said Waema-hadi, a well-known physician who also runs a community radio station in Narathiwat that was partly funded by the US Embassy in Bangkok, the very place authorities accused him of trying to blow up.

Staff members at the station still complain of police harassment, two years after Waemahadi was arrested.

The other three suspects were the owner of an Islamic boarding school, Maisuri Haji Abdulloh, his son Muyahid and Samarn Wae-kaji. They arrived in the courtroom yesterday in high spirits, wearing brown prison uniforms. The clanking of their chains could be heard down the hall as the four made their way into the packed courtroom.

They were greeted enthusiastically by relatives and friends as they made their way to the dock. Eight privately owned vehicles and four rented vans had brought scores of friends and relatives from the three predominantly-Muslim southernmost provinces. Others came by plane and an overnight train.

The four men stood up along with their lawyers and state prosecutors as the two judges took turns reading the court’s finding.

Quoting Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who told the public of the arrest of the four in his weekly radio programme shortly after they were apprehended, the judge said information leading to the arrest of the suspects had come from Arifin bin Ali, a Singaporean member of JI, who was arrested in Thailand in May 2003 and immediately handed over to the authorities in Singapore.

However, according to the court, there was nothing to support the claim that the four suspects were conspiring to carry out attacks as charged by the police. The four were arrested in June 2003, one month after Singaporean authorities took Arifin into custody under the city-state’s Internal Security Act. Prior to this case, the Thai government consistently dismissed any suggestion that the international terrorist organisation had set up cells here.

The arrests created outrage in Thailand’s minority Muslim community, especially in the Malay-speaking South.

An even greater uproar came in March 2004 when the lead lawyer for the four, Somchai Neelaphaijit, disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Bangkok. Somchai has never been seen again. Five police officers have been charged with his unlawful detention

Bersatu chief welcomes govt’s softer approach

Don Pathan
Lund, Sweden

A prominent exiled Thai Muslim leader said he welcomed the government’s policy shift towards a softer approach in dealing with violence in the Malay-speaking deep South and urged local residents to work towards peace.

Wan Kadir Che Man, right, and Don Pathan in Lund, Sweden

In a recent interview with The Nation, Wan Kadir Che Man, an ethnic Malay and leader of Bersatu – an umbrella organisation of separatist groups – said he welcomed the creation of the National Re-conciliation Commission and the use of legal processes rather than military means to restore law and order in the region.

Concerning the ongoing violence, Wan Kadir said the government had been wrong when it considered the relatively quiet 1990s as a time of peace, when in fact the spirit of separatism has always been present in the area.

As long as there is a sense of injustice among the Malay-speaking minority the separatist struggle will always resurface, he said.

It appears that a new generation of insurgents has emerged and structured itself into a loose network of cells that operate independently, he added.

Unlike the previous generation of separatists who saw themselves as nationalists, the current generation of insurgents has employed more religious symbolism in their activities.

The religion of Islam, he said, had also become a source of comfort for many people in the Malay-speaking region during these troubled times.

Unlike past battles carried out between government security forces and separatist groups, this most recent wave of violence has driven a wedge between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in the region, said Wan Kadir.

The Pattani native, who went into exile nearly two decades ago, also reiterated his willingness to return to Thailand and work with the government and civil groups towards a peaceful outcome for the restive region, where more than 600 people have been killed since January last year.

However, the Western-educated academic said he would not permit himself to be a political tool for the state’s propaganda and added that he would not accept any conditions placed on his return.

Wan Kadir also said he would continue to speak out for the rights of ethnic Malays, whom he said were treated as “second-class” citizens.

He also expressed the same sentiment in an open letter on the ongoing violence. “The problem stems mainly from the fact that Malay-Muslims are discriminated against and are treated as internal-colonial subjects,” wrote Wan Kadir.

Wan Kadir said he did not regret having joined the separatist movement, saying his aim was only to advocate the rights of ethnic Malays in southern Thailand.

Wan Kadir, who now resides in Sweden, announced in May 2004 – while working as a university professor in Kuala Lumpur – that he no longer supported separatism for Thailand’s Malay-speaking region or the use of violence in pursuing such a goal.

His decision to give up separatism was a personal one and Bersatu continues to hold on to its current political outlook, he said.

Thai intelligence agencies regard Wan Kadir as a symbolic figure to whom the separatist movement looks for political direction and ideology, but they believe that he does not have direct control over armed insurgents on the ground. Wan Kadir agrees with this assessment.

He obtained a PhD at Australia National University and a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in the United States.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/specials/south2years/jul0405.php
http://www.pataninews.net/ReadEnglish.asp?ID=90

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Bersatu leader calls it a day

The Nation
Published on July 04, 2005 

A prominent Thai-Muslim leader in exile, Wan Kadir Che Man, 60, has announced his intention of stepping down from Bersatu, an umbrella organisation that groups a number of Pattani exile groups. He spoke to The Nation’s Don Pathan in a telephone interview from Sweden.


Q. Why have you decided to stand down as leader of Bersatu? Why now, amid an ongoing spate of violence in the Muslim-Malay region?

A. I’m an old man now, and I think its time to let a younger generation of people take over. Hopefully they can do a better job. With regard to the ongoing violence in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand, I want to make it clear that Bersatu does not have anything to do with it. Bersatu is an umbrella organisation that advocates civil and political rights for Malays in southern Thailand.

Do you have any regrets?

No. I believe in what I am doing. I believe in speaking out for my people even if it means my having to live outside my country. I thank my wife and children for their support and understanding, and I apologise to them for what I have put them through.

What is the biggest misconception people have of Bersatu?

As I’ve said many times before, we struggled for the recognition of the Malay people, our past, our identity and our self-respect; that is all. But people saw us as a threat because we chose to speak out. It should be understood that our demand for respect does not mean we were against the people of Thailand or the country. In fact, we share the same goal of a peaceful Muslim region in southern Thailand, not a separate state. Bersatu is not about using force. We do not have any military capability and do not control troops on the ground.

So what do you make of the situation in Thailand’s Muslim South, and how is it affecting the country as a whole?

From what I gather, the fabric of society that once held the common people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, together has been shattered. This is extremely sad. The ongoing violence will have a long and lasting impact. The longer we wait, the harder it will be for the country to repair the damage. In previous decades, fighting was mainly between armed separatist groups and security forces. Today bombs are going off, and officials are assassinated, and nobody is claiming credit. This is very different from the past. I want to see an end to this fighting and to the loss of innocent lives, and I hope that by resigning now I will have opened the way for a new generation of leaders who can play a more active role in stopping the violence there. The idea is for Malays to use the democratic process to empower themselves, so they can work with the rest of the country to chart their own future.

What will happen to Bersatu as a result of your resignation?

Bersatu is a coalition, and so it will be up to each of the member groups to decide what happens. The job of a Bersatu leader is to provide general guidance as to how the movement should progress.

What is uniting the Malay people in southern Thailand now?

The Malays are united by their cultural identity and a long history of resentment. They don’t see their region getting a fair share of the country’s wealth and development, and they don’t see their history being taught in school or their past being recognised by the country that they are supposed to be a part of. I think that if the state makes a concerted effort to bridge this gap, perhaps the tension will subside and both sides will begin to trust each another. For this to happen, all sides have to work together. Whether we are Buddhists or Muslims, we are all equal in the eyes of God. But this is not enough: we must be equal in the eyes of each other as well.

Officials have accused Islamic schools of being breeding grounds for separatism. What is your comment on that?

Because some of the leaders of today’s separatist groups have religious education, the government made the false assumption that the institution of Islamic education was at fault. Islamic boarding schools, locally known as pondok, have been accused of being breeding grounds of separatism. Officials unfairly singled out the institution of pondok, and this has created a great deal of resentment. Militant groups can train anywhere: it doesn’t have to be religious schools.

What does the future hold for you? What will you do now?

I’m an old man now, as I said, and all I wish to do now is be allowed to live in peace with my family and retire, but I will continue to make myself available to other people, be they academics, government officials, civil society or whoever. I hope to see peace restored in my homeland and see my people live in peace within my lifetime.

Making sense of the muddle in the South

By Supalak Ganjanakhundee,  Don Pathan

Armed Forces supreme commander General Chaisit Shinawatra has never been so honest about his shortcomings.

In a recent interview on Radio Thailand, the military chief admitted candidly that one year after Muslim insurgents had decided to take their fight directly to the country’s security forces when they raided an Army battalion in Narathiwat, he still doesn’t know what they want.

Chaisit pointed to the ongoing upsurge of violence that over this past year has expanded from traditional targets – police and military officers – to innocent victims, including students and local villagers. Other “soft targets” – such as noodle shops, school buses and small eateries and street vendors – have also been caught up in the violence.

“I see no reason for them to attack innocent targets, nor do I understand what they hope to gain,” Chaisit said. “I don’t detect an ideology in any of this.”
One reason why Chaisit and government security planners cannot understand their adversaries, say analysts, is that they have failed to acknowledge the magnitude of the resentment of the local Muslim community in the Malay-speaking South towards the state. Likewise, they have failed to recognise the new political context in which the militants are working.

Unlike in previous decades – when separatists were positioned in remote hills and carried out their fight through the actions of conventional warfare – members of the new generation see themselves as holy warriors inspired by religion and fuelled by age-old anger towards the state. Their preferred method seems to be drive-by assassinations of security officials and their informants, though security officers have also blamed them for the recent spate of bomb attacks on restaurants frequented by government officials.

Despite the obvious changes in the style of the militants’ activities, the government has continued to respond in a very conventional manner. In the aftermath of the January raid, for example, the Thai-Malaysian border was sealed off and much of the three southernmost provinces were placed under martial law. About 4,000 troops were mobilised to the restive region with loosely defined rules of engagement permitting them to carry out search-and-destroy operations, and if necessary, shooting to kill. But one year later, these short-term measures have more or less become the norm. While the government boasts about its progress, security officials are still being assassinated on a daily basis, while innocent bystanders are quickly becoming the targets themselves.

Unable to come up with a new way of thinking and not knowing what to make of the bits and pieces of information they have obtained through interrogation and intelligence sources, security planners continue to deal with the violence the only way they know how – with brute force, as seen in the April stand-off at the Kru Se Mosque and the mass deaths during and after the Tak Bai incident last October.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s all-or-nothing attitude towards the problems in the Muslim South have placed Thailand in a bad light in the eyes of the international community, while locally the Tak Bai tragedy has pushed many resentful locals into the arms of the insurgents, said a former Barisan Revolusi Nasional member.

Internally, rivalries among security agencies have taken their toll on the overall efforts to bring peace and stability to the region. The latest humiliating episode ended in the transfer of assistant police chief Lt-General Wongkot Maneerin because he stated that the current structure had given the military too much power.

But disputes between the military and the police are only the tip of an iceberg, and such quarrels are seen as an integral part of Thailand’s bureaucracy because of its overlapping duties and unclear divisions of labour.

Indeed, just about every security agency and office has established some sort of presence in the Malay-speaking South, but their mandate and operating procedures are still very unclear, resulting in some serious loggerheads between individuals and their respective agencies.

Last year a report from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) alleging that the police had been carrying out extrajudicial killings of Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani members resulted in a group of police kicking down the door of the NIA office in Narathiwat.

Moreover, reports about the leader of the separatist Bersatu group, Wan Kadir Che Man, wanting to return to Thailand and work with the authorities on reconciliation have split the country’s top brass into two camps.

Aware that the Thais can be unforgiving in the face of any challenge to their notion of Thailand’s sovereignty and national identity, Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh has started lashing out at those who have supported the idea of Wan Kadir’s return. The issue has become so heavily politicised that it has had to be taken off the state’s agenda indefinitely to avoid further embarrassment.

Another cause of dispute within the intelligence community concerns a well-known Middle Eastern-trained cleric, Ismail Lutphi Japakiya, the rector of the Islamic College of Yala.
Certain sections of the intelligence community have gone out of their way to identify him as the Thai link to certain international terrorist organisations, while a number of Muslims and non-Muslims alike see his orthodox and puritanical outlook on Islam as promoting instability. Chavalit has repeatedly made public references equating Lutphi’s puritanical approach – commonly referred to as Wahabiism – to extremism.

Some feel that putting too much pressure on Lutphi could invite unwanted complaints from the governments of Muslim countries and mullahs in the Middle East, who have been very generous with his education projects in southern Thailand.

Regardless of the attempts by certain parties to single Lutphi out, the country’s political elite still seeks his endorsement for all kind of activities.

The cleric continues to lend his name to various organisations under the title of consultant or adviser to these organisations’ boards. The verdict, it seems, is still out on what kind of man Lutphi should be made out to be, as well as on whether the country’s security agencies will ever be able to sing to the same tune.