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. 

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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.
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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.
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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”.
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“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