In the South, the media, too, must think outside the box

Don Pathan
Pattani

Just recently a couple of dozen reporters based in the three southernmost provinces came together in Pattani, along with senior members of the Thai Journalists' Association, to brainstorm on the ongoing violence in the restive region and how to better cover it.

Top security officials were invited to make their case, particularly over how they perceived the media's coverage of the conflict in the region. Naturally, they asked that their side of the story be heard and that the media be more sympathetic to the challenges confronting them. According to these officials, the media has a role to play in reconciling the differences between the people of the Malay-speaking, Muslim-majority South and the rest of the country. The reporters agreed.

What they couldn't agree on was who, if anybody, should have a monopoly on defining what constitutes reconciliation - or in this case, reconciliatory news stories.

Like any government, the current administration and its bureaucratic machines claim that they have the facts. And because they have the monopoly on these facts, they are the ones who, supposedly, know what's best for the country. And so they issue official lines to the media to be presented to the public. What bothered many journalists was how these facts have been presented. They made it clear that the authorities must share the burden, but essentially agreed that it was part of their responsibility to present accurate and well-rounded stories.

But still, the question remains: should anybody have a monopoly on shaping the context of the story? For too long, the way the deep South was understood had been shaped by the state. For the officials, the answer is clear-cut and simple: the country is facing a new generation of Malay-Muslim militants who embrace a false teaching of Islam and are taught a wrong version of history - the version that says the Malay-speaking South has always been a part of Thailand, even before the world came up with this relatively new notion called the "nation-state".

Moreover, one should not deviate from this notion because, in doing so, one would be accused of adding to the problem instead of being part of the solution. What the state didn't say was that a new can of worms would be opened and they would be left to clean up the mess.

Reporters at the workshop admitted that being too close to the official line had taken its toll on them and they were concerned about their safety. Many said they had alienated their audience, particularly the Malay Muslims, who make up about 80 per cent of the people in the three southernmost provinces. Some even experienced verbal abuse from Muslims, who see them as a government mouthpiece.

It would be different, of course, if the Malay-Muslim public trusted the state. For years, the question of the legitimacy of the Thai state in the historical Malay-speaking homeland has loomed over the region. Since this wave of violence erupted in January 2004, more than 3,000 people have been killed.

According to the journalists, one way to get around this - to not be perceived as a mouthpiece of the state - is to call a spade a spade. Specifically, they asked that editors in Bangkok do less in terms of "sexing up" their stories and instead permit more human-interest stories. For most problems, acknowledging shortcomings is the first step toward a solution. Whether Thai journalists can think outside the box and withstand the wrath of state officials, on the other hand, remains to be seen.

Unlike conflicts elsewhere, there is no message from the insurgents. While the region is not short of critics, all agree that news reporting on the South would be elevated to a higher plane if the opposing forces designated their own spokesmen. But this won't happen anytime soon. Southern Thailand is not Aceh at its worst or Mindanao in its current predicament. One can't just pick up the phone and get the "other side of the story".

Because of the ongoing violence, Thailand's South is the most studied region in the country. For the most part, narratives on the region are presented essentially as sub-narratives of Thailand as a whole. The Thai media have been reluctant to acknowledge that a disturbing portion of the southern population have not come to terms with the country's notion of nation-state - because in doing so, they risk being seen as sympathetic to the people who, in the words of the state, have been misled by the false teaching of history and who embrace the wrong brand of Islam.

The challenge, it seems, is not just for the state to come up with a more realistic explanation as to why generation after generation question the legitimacy of the Thai state in the deep South. The media, too, must learn to think outside the box.

Lessons from the southern insurgency not learned

Published on March 20, 2008 -

Last May in Yala, then Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told a press conference that he had received "positive feedback" from separatist groups over the idea of establishing some sort of "dialogue".

But he warned that more work had to be done before permanent peace in the Malay-speaking deep South could be achieved.

Kasturi Mahkota, foreign-affairs chief of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), immediately welcomed Surayud's statement. He called it a "positive gesture".

But on Tuesday in Bangkok, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, ruled out the idea of negotiating with the separatists. Local media gave Samak's statement a great deal of coverage but failed to provide a proper context to this sticky issue.

For as long as anybody can remember, Thai security officials have been going to the Middle East, Europe and neighbouring countries to talk to the leaders of long-standing separatist groups, including the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) and Barisan Islam Pembebasan (BIPP).

However, the outcomes of these off-and-on chats have failed to have any affect on policy because they are carried out in an ad-hoc manner. They just want to sound out the separatists rather then work towards achieving something more constructive.

"Of course, they all say they are representatives of the Thai government," said one exiled leader who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Samak said most government agencies disagree with direct negotiations. However, he was tight-lipped about the secret meetings between the two sides while insisting that the government was not going to sit down with the separatists on an equal basis.

Jolted by the weekend car bombs in Pattani and Yala, Samak had to sound uncompromising in public. The veteran politician knows he is dealing with an issue that cannot be easily translated into a quick political victory. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the premier and his interior chief, Chalerm Yoobamrung, have been side-stepping the issue.

The problem with the Thai security top brass is that, after years of talking to the separatists, their attitude has not changed. They see themselves as "negotiating with bandits" rather than being in a "dialogue with fellow citizens" - people who embrace a different political ideology, as the communist insurgents did two decades ago.

The only thing that successive Thai administrations have agreed upon is that the issue should not be internationalised. In other words, no foreign governments or international organisations should be involved in mediating the talks or be allowed to snoop around the deep South, where allegations of gross human rights violations and questionable security practices are rife. Thailand looks at East Timor and Aceh and tells itself that this is not what it wants.

The problem with the Thai generals is that they think like Thai politicians. They all want the violence to end under their watch. Never mind that the problem is deeply rooted in history and shaped by mistrust and the resistance of southern Muslims to Thailand's policy of assimilation.

Another problem is that the old guard - older members of the separatist groups - don't and, in most cases, can't control the new generation of militants on the ground. Locally known as juwae, the new generation of insurgents do not necessarily identify with the old guard, and they engage in the kind of brutality unheard of by the previous generation. They are organised in cell clusters but have the capacity to coordinate attacks - 100 targets at a time - throughout the region.

Even after years of being on the receiving end of this battle, the government is still unable to fine-tune a number of important initiatives. At a recent Thai Journalists' Association seminar in Pattani, the provincial Task Force commander, Major General Thawatchai Samutsakorn, said the "government can't tell me what they [insurgents] will get if they surrender".

Often, a suspect who surrenders is paraded in front of the media, unable to speak freely, while top officials tell the public how the suspect has come to his senses after being misled by some false religious teaching and distorted history.

And afterwards, when released, the "reformed" militant becomes a target of his former comrades.

Nearly 3,000 people have been killed in the insurgency since it began in January 2004.

Insurgents make it clear there is no neutral ground

Don Pathan
Pattani

It was dubbed "Rick's Cafe" by one foreign diplomat, in reference to the hangout in the movie Casablanca, neutral turf where all World War II warring factions cautiously mingled, trying to figure out their opponent's next move.

But whatever "neutrality" the CS Pattani Hotel had in the past ended on Saturday evening, as the violence in this restive region took its toll on the hotel, one of the most important commercial establishments in the deep South.

For much of the past five years, this hotel was the venue for some of the fiercest debates among top government officials, local elites, Muslim clerics, human-rights activists and local politicians.

They all came to sip tea and chat with acquaintances at the terrace restaurant next to the very spot where a car armed with three fire-extinguisher canisters, each filled with 10 kilograms of explosive materials, was parked.

Given the high-profile nature of CS Pattani, not to mention the unprecedented nature of the car-bomb attack, it was somewhat odd that Cabinet ministers remained tight-lipped throughout the weekend.

Two bombs exploded simultaneously on that unforgettable night, killing two and injuring about 15 others. But a third bomb, found about 30 metres away from where the car was parked, was a dud.

The blast tore up a row of vehicles parked in front of the hotel and shattered all the windows on the front side of this eight-floor hotel, as well as those of two rows of nearby shop houses.

Besides putting an end to the longstanding notion of the CS Pattani as a violence-free zone, the use of a car bomb against this soft target was an indication that the violence in this restive region has crossed a new threshold.

Earlier in the day, a similar incident took place in front of a Yala public school when a bomb, also hidden in a vehicle, exploded mid-afternoon, killing the driver who was said to have been a key bomb-maker for a militant cell in the province.

While many were stunned at the loss of the last safe haven in this restive region, Pattani Task Force commander, Maj-General Thawatchai Samutsakorn, said he had serious doubts as to whether the use of car bombs would become a major component in the militants' fight against the Thai state.

Sunai Phasuk, of Human Rights Watch, sees Saturday's attack as a blunt statement by militants after 10 months of being on the receiving end of the military's shakedown, which has forced some cells to go under and has put some militants on the run.

The controversial shakedown campaign, kicked off in July 2007, has consisted of blind sweeps of remote villages withup to 100 individuals taken in for questioning. Individuals deemed to be in the "high-risk" category have been sent to military boot camps under the guise of "job training" and "counselling".

On the ground, allegations of torture, wrongful arrest, and target killings were piling up towards the end of the term of the military-installed government, which was replaced by the current administration.

But while the blind sweeps succeeded in halting roadside bombings, especially in the more highly contested areas in Yala and Narathiwat, where the suspects behind Saturday's operation were based, top security brass didn't predict how the insurgents would make their comeback.

The car bomb at the CS Pattani Hotel, Sunai said, was more than just a way of telling the security apparatus that they were back.

"They are sending a spine-chilling message across the region that the separatist fighters are striking back, and that no one and nowhere is safe," Sunai said.

Separatist militants in Thailand's southern border provinces are not known for respecting universal principles prohibiting attacks on civilians and civilian targets. Such a radical and brutal ideology feeds on ongoing abuses and injustice committed by Thai security forces in their counterinsurgency operations, Sunai said.

"But nothing can justify human-rights violations. The fight for freedom or acts of retribution against state-sponsored abuses does not give these militants justification to shoot, or blow up civilians like this. This is madness, not a liberation war," Sunai added.

But Thawatchai warned against overrating Saturday's operation, saying it appeared to be the work of one particular cell and added that there is nothing to suggest that other cells would follow suit or that they would have the means to do so.

He also pointed to their blunders - the fact that the third canister didn't go off, and the premature detonation of the car bomb in Yala, which ended up taking the operative's life.

Unlike the previous generation of separatist fighters who camped out in remote pockets along the hills near the Thai-Malaysian border, today's militants, often referred to as "juwae", or fighter, by local residents, are organised in cells or clusters of cells with a high degree of coordination. This enables them to carry out simultaneous attacks across this historically contested region where about 80 per cent of the inhabitants are Muslims of Malay ethnicity.

Thawatchai thinks local residents would be less sympathetic to the juwae's fight if their bombs continue to go off in areas popular among Muslims, such as the CS Pattani.

Indeed, killing Muslims suspected of spying for the Thai state is one thing; a powerful bomb that sees no racial or ethnic lines is another. Two men died from Saturday's blast at the CS Pattani. One was a Muslim security guard and the second a Thai Buddhist cook.