'Talks vital to restore peace in the South'

Dialogue between officials and Malay separatists is developing trust: consul

Don PathanThe Nation

Pattani

A mid a new surge in violence in the deep South, a key man behind meetings of senior Thai officials and established Malay separatist leaders insists the dialogue must continue as peace in the volatile region could depend on the outcome. 

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, Shazryl Eskay Abdullah, honorary consul at the Royal Thai Consulate in Langkawi, said sides had reached a "certain level of comfort and trust" over the past year following a series of meetings. 

He encouraged the government to "shift to the next phase". "The next phase doesn't have to be in Malaysia. But it's important it continues because channels of communication have been established and topics for further discussion identified," Eskay said. 

Eskay and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad initiated the series of meetings over this past year. They became known as the "Langkawi process". Eskay said Bangkok took the talks seriously and this was illustrated by its sending of the then Armed Forces' Security Centre chief Lt-General Vaipot Srinuan and General Winai Pathiyakul of the National Security Council. 

Separatist participants have included Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani president Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman, Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) vice president Razi Bin Hassan, Barisan Revolusi Nasional Congress (BRN) president Abdulah Bin Ismail, its vice president Abdullah Bin Idris and Bersatu president Wan Kadir Che Man. 

The process started in late 2005 and by February 2006 a Joint Peace and Development Plan for Southern Thailand was handed to the government. It was a list of topics for further discussion. It remains unclear why the Thaksin-Shinawatra administration sat on it. With the former prime minister now out of power, participants are calling on the government to kick-start the next phase. 

Eskay said the Langkawi process was not a "formal negotiation" but "an attempt to identify common ground between the two sides and designed to reconcile differences". The most fundamental of these was the difficult relationship between Bangkok and the ethnic Malay historic homeland - including Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. 

Eskay explained the process discussed a wide range of issues already - including Malay identity, social mobility, use of Malay as a "working language", amnesty, education and economic development. The topic of a "separate state" was not on the table. 

"The Thai side would have never come to the table if the issue of a separate state was on the agenda," Eskay admitted. 

Eskay confessed there were hardliners among the separatists which he referred to as "splinters". They were unwilling to compromise on the issue of a separate state. Nevertheless, Eskay said "tremendous" ground had been made towards reconciliation with separatist groups. 

Many of these groups have been active since the 1960s. They disappeared or were rendered ineffective after a government amnesty crippled their military wings and forced their leaders into exile. Eskay said the Langkawi participants were willing to settle for less than complete independence for Malays in southern Thailand. 

He said the challenge now was to find ways these groups and their members could reconcile their past with the Thai state. This could be achieved at the next stage of the process. It is not clear if separatist leaders are hoping for some sort of political niche. To date the topics on the table have been broad and few specifics have been discussed, Eskay added. 

With communications open and a level of confidence achieved the government and separatist leaders could move to the next phase. This could tackle specifics and sensitive issues - including a ceasefire or permanent peace. This could end violence in the Muslim-majority South where as many as 1,800 people have lost their lives since January 2004. 

Eskay reported the separatist leaders who attended the Langkawi process admitted to Bangkok they had "a network of supporters" on the ground but fell short of confirming if they had any role in directing attacks. Much daily violence is blamed on a new generation of village-based militants, organised in small cells numbering about 10 and run by a leader. These cells call their own shots. Locals often refer to these cells as "juwae" - or fighters in the Malay dialect - and do not associate them with formal groups such as Pulo or BRN. 

But Eskay believed traditional-group leaders - some of whom emerged in the 1960s - could have influence with the juwae. A second phase of the Langkawi process may be an opportunity for hardliners to be included. There may even be room for suspected separatists such as Masae Useng or Sapae-ing Baso.

Hopelessly adrift in the stormy south

Stand-offs between villagers and officials at four other sites should have taught a lesson

Don Pathan
The Nation
Rangae, Narathiwat

It was somewhere between a pep talk and an order, but the words from the Fourth Army commander, Lt-General Ongkorn Thongprasom, to the two village heads summed up the deeply disturbed relationship between the ethnic Malays in the deep South and state officials sent here to maintain law and order.

"You have to tell the people in your village to work with us" Ongkorn told the headmen, who were at the scene where 10 men, believed to be insurgents, beat two elementary school teachers senseless in a small dark room. The teachers had been held hostage by a group of villagers demanding the release of two suspected militants arrested earlier in the day.

What's disturbing about the conversation between Ongkorn and the village officials is the sad reminder that not much has changed since Siam incorporated the region into its boundary over 100 years ago. The situation today is pretty much as it was then, although the Siamese elite have been replaced by pipe-smoking top brass more concerned about law and order than more abstract issues, such as identity, ethnicity, history and social mobility for Malays. Every generation or so, a separatist organisation emerges, saying a liberated Patani is the only solution to this predicament.

What's disturbing about the latest generation of insurgents is that they don't seem to abide by any guiding norms or rules of engagement, say local residents and exiled Malays living abroad.

"I was able to negotiate with the BRN [Barisan Revolusi Nasional] to get out of paying protection money. They left me alone because they knew five Muslim families depended on my plantation for a living," recalled a Buddhist local in Yala's Yaha district.

BRN was a prominent Malay separatist organisation formed to resist Thailand's policy of disbanding Islamic private schools.

The two young teachers who were savagely beaten in this Narathiwat district last week were from Chiang Rai. They came here to pursue their careers, bravely taking up an assignment in a region spurned by most civil servants. The village they were sent to has been declared a "red area", meaning it has a high concentration of insurgents. Yet the security units that swooped on Friday morning and sparked the violence appear to have given little consideration to the possibility of repercussions, even though similar incidents have occurred before.

The stand-offs between officials and villagers in Tanyonglimo, Ban Laharn, Ai Ba Thu and Ban Joh Koh show a pattern that should have become an important lesson for the security forces. But it took security officials about two hours to get to Rangae, by which time the two teachers were already being rushed to hospital.

Talk to local residents and you can feel their resentment at television anchors in Bangkok painting a simple picture of violence in the region, while ignoring that many Malay Muslims are caught up in this clash between state security forces and the insurgents. There is a breakdown of trust between the community, especially in remote areas, and the state apparatus. And when a community loses all respect for state agencies, it takes matters into its own hands - sometimes violently. Former hostages, such as the teachers who were held at Joh I Rong district's Ban Chor Koh School by hundreds of villagers, warn against implicating the entire community. Dire consequences face those who ignore commands and demonstrate in the streets, say the former hostages, who refuse to point out the five people who attacked them.

While the patrolling forces come and go, local villagers don't have the luxury of being able to pack up and leave. The fact few come forward to identify the miscreants among them reflects the lack of confidence they have in the government's ability to protect them. While no one here condones the brutality against the teachers, most are bitter the same kind of condemnation was not expressed when at least 78 unarmed Tak Bai demonstrators died in custody of police and soldiers 18 months ago. The taking of public school teachers as hostages following a dispute between security forces and local residents in this so-called "red area" could very well happen again.

Lt-General Ongkorn said from now, when a suspect was arrested, security officials will be required to stay and explain the charges to the local community, to prevent a repeat of this week's incident.

The villagers may listen to the officials who are armed to the teeth. But whether they will believe them is another thing altogether.