THE NATION
SOLDIERS and police inspect the scence of a roadside bomb attack on a passing police vehicle in Pattani's Yarang district.
BESIDES the criminalisation of the MalayMuslim insurgent movement in Thailand’s deep South, there is also the problem of ongoing brutality by both sides that undermines mediation efforts by the old guard of Malay separatists. It’s not easy claiming to have command and control of the new generation of militants and then have to face up to the kind of violence that takes place on the ground, exiled leaders say.
With regard to the lack of unity among the long-standing separatist groups, the same can be said of the Thai side. No official agency can really claim a sole mandate to carry out a peace process, not even the Army, because a significant number of hardliners in the military do not like the idea of talking to the enemy.
During the Surayud administration, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, as well as European countries were asked to help. They were seen as credible partners and were asked to take a direct role in facilitating meetings with the separatists. Surayud thought it made sense to work with the international community, especially countries where many of the old guard were exiled.
The Abhisit government retreated from Surayud’s hands-on approach and told the rest of the world that the deep South was an internal matter. The idea of negotiating peace was just too controversial and the government needed what one officer at the PM’s Office called “deniability”.
That doesn’t mean that Abhisit Vejjajiva wasn’t aware that various security and intelligence agencies were talking to the separatist groups. The PM just couldn’t be seen as sanctioning these initiatives because it was too sensitive politically.
Surayud, on the other hand, headed a military-appointed government that didn’t have opposition in Parliament to contend with. Unfortunately, the vision Surayud put forth never materialised as mediators and the exiled groups became territorial. Then the following administrations – from Samak Sundaravej to Abhisit – pushed foreign governments and international bodies away.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya may have publicly thanked Kuala Lumpur for supposedly informing Thailand about the Organisation of Islamic Conference’s (OIC) initiatives on Thailand’s deep South, after news about their meeting with the old guard went public late last year. But no one who followed the issue closely believed what he said. They saw his statement as a face-saving measure. This is because the Thai government does not want outsiders to get involved in the deep South.
Like others, Kuala Lumpur is concerned that the violence could either spill over to its side of the border or lure Malaysian citizens into the conflict. After all, the Thai-Malaysian border is as artificial as any other. Today, what concerns the international community is the idea that the political context of the conflict will change – from a Patani Malay nationalist cause to a global jihadist cause where the fight becomes one for Islam.
There is nothing to suggest that the conflict is moving in that direction, however. One of the reasons is that the new militants, locally referred to as juwae, or “fighters” in the local Malay dialect, see themselves as winning, as they are able to attack anyone, any place, at any time. The juwae share the same resentment toward the Thai state as local Malay villagers. This explains why so few people help Thai security officials with their investigations.
Thailand will be hard pressed by the OIC members to explain the culture of impunity among its officials in the deep South. Thailand’s unwillingness to crack down on pro-government death squads or its own people accused of torturing suspects continues to drive a deeper wedge between the Malays in the deep South and the state. The June 2009 Ai Bayae massacre in Narathiwat and a May 2011 shooting spree in Bannang Sata in Yala are just two incidents that come to mind. Both incidents were carried out by former paramilitary rangers with an axe to grind with local insurgents but decided to take it out on ordinary villagers. And the fact that the Bannang Sata shooting took place just 200 metres from an Army outpost, and that none of the soldiers bothered to come to check the five locations that gunmen hit, reinforced the perception that the Army turns a blind eye or that soldiers had colluded with Buddhist gunmen. Warrants were issued and the suspects sent home after turning themselves in. If the Ai Bayae massacre is any indication, the suspects are likely to walk free.
Still, the Army is convinced it is the most suitable negotiator and determined to be at the head of any negotiations with the insurgents. The Army believes that with help from Indonesia and Malaysia, the old guard will come to the table – assuming they can get over their grudges – and that will serve as an entry point to the new militants. It is not clear what kind of concession the Army could make to the old guard to gain the attention of the insurgents who, seeing themselves as winning, don’t seem to be interested in talking.
Another thing that is unclear is why the Army is assured that it has the right to engineer any peace process given the fact that it talked to the old guard in the 1970s and 80s but failed to achieve any breakthrough. A retired senior officer in the Malaysian government who helped facilitate some of the meetings in the 1980s said the Thai Army was never serious about moving talks beyond an informal setting.
In the coming months, it is likely that Thai soldiers and the Patani Malay old guard will come face to face again for a round of talks. Meanwhile violence continues and there doesn’t seem to be much anybody can do to stop it. Some people believe that sooner or later the militants will get tired of fighting and look for a way out. But this end game the old guard hope for might not materialise.
The problem with the new generation of militants is that there will always be a new crop of young fighters to replace them. Judging from the recent past, especially the conduct of the post-Tak Bai generation, the replacements will be just as vicious and brutal, if not more so.
