Insurgents know that Bangkok isn't serious about peace: Wan Kadir

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

PATTANI __Wan Kadir Che Man, 72, the former leader of the now defunct Bersatu, didn't mince words when he lashed successive Thai governments for their "stupid" and "insincere" actions in three decades of failed peace initiatives in the deep South.

Speaking at a packed seminar at the Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani, the ageing academic, who this year was permitted to return to Thailand after more than 50 years in exile for his involvement with separatist movements, said the failure to generate a meaningful peace process was down to Bangkok's choice of facilitators/ mediators and go-betweens whose main interest was in "exploiting" talks for personal and political gain. Meanwhile, Thai officials who have taken part in three decades of negotiations have been more concerned with enhancing their professional rank than bringing peace.

The peace initiative launched on February 28 in Kuala Lumpur between the Thai National Security Council and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) is the latest example of Bangkok's lack of sincerity, said Wan Kadir, with separatist leaders Bangkok has brought to the table having no control over insurgents active in the three southernmost provinces.

The so-called BRN cadres at the talks appear to have been handpicked by local Malay Muslim politicians and leaders allied with the Pheu Thai Party.

Wan Kadir said it was difficult for the real leaders of various separatist groups to take the Thai government seriously and that many came "just for the delicious tom yam soup".

In other words, if the peace process is credible and coherent - and if the combatants and their political leaders are prepared - then the separatist movements will produce viable representatives.

But instead of rethinking the whole approach to peace and its negotiations, Thai authorities continue to go to the same "facilitators, mediators and go-betweens, some of whom have little understanding of the region's problems, and whose sincerity is often questionable".

"How can we expect some 'white-eyed' [coward] farang or some dato [Malay local ruler] to resolve our problems? The past 20 years have shown that this same old approach does not work. Are we that stupid not to see it, or are we just pretending not to see it?"

He was making obvious reference to prominent Malaysian figures involved in various peace initiatives, and Western organisations wanting to mediate the conflict in southern Thailand.

However, Wan Kadir said he greatly appreciate the moral support of various Western governments, including the United States, Germany and Sweden, suggesting that their participation as mediators or facilitators could add legitimacy to a peace initiative.

He said that longstanding separatist movements appreciated Western countries for seeing the deep South's problem as a "conflict" as opposed to "terrorism", and added that these respective governments treated the exiled Patani Malay separatist leaders in a dignified manner. "I was a refugee in Sweden but they issued me a passport so I could travel and take part in negotiations in Switzerland."

The troubles in Thailand's Malay-speaking provinces were "unique" and thus not resolvable by textbook negotiating tactics, he said, adding that he was impressed with academics who are trying to understand the dynamics of the conflict.

He lashed out at special security laws used in the deep South and added that such a "double standard" was applied only because the Thai state sees the Malays of Patani as "colonial subjects".

He also urged the Malay Muslims in the South to come to terms with their status as Thai citizens and fight for their rights and dignity through peaceful means. However, he added that the people of the region hold the right to chart their own destiny.

Development and education in Thailand's southernmost provinces have been neglected by the state, he said, despite the fact that the region has tremendous human and natural resources.

He noted that the Patani region was once the cradle of Islamic education in Southeast Asia and saw no reason why that glorious status could not be revived.

He said many people in the region were multilingual, speaking Malay, Thai, English and Arabic, and that quite a few - especially those who have lived in exile - spoke German and Swedish.

He urged local Malay Muslims leaders to take advantage of the existing political forums to push for policy change at the national level.

He said that since the current wave of insurgency began in 2004, the Thai state had consistently used military means to address the conflict, but it had continued unabated with no end in sight.

While Thai officials blame Malay Muslim militants for virtually all the violence, he suggested they should also examine their own role in provoking clashes. "Fighting back is natural for humans," he noted.

Bersatu, the umbrella group for longstanding separatist groups Wan Kadir once led, was strictly political with no armed wing attached. During his years in exile, Wan Kadir also helped set up the Barisan Islam Pembangunan Pattani (BIPP).

Though there have been reports that Thai authorities are trying to woo the BIPP to the negotiating table, the former separatist leader said he was not aware of any approach.

The ageing academic tried to return from exile in mid-2004 to work with the Thai state to help resolve the conflict, but the then government of Thaksin Shinawatra gave him the cold shoulder.

Don Pathan is a consultant based in Yala and a member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

Editorial: Govt will do well to heed Kadir's words

The Nation

The former leader of the Bersatu, a now-defunct umbrella group for a number of long-standing Patani Malay separatist movements, was in Bangkok recently to give a talk on the ongoing conflict in the deep South.

Wan Kadir, who was educated in the US and Australia where he competed his PhD on comparisons between the separatist insurgency in Mindanao and Thailand’s deep South, spoke candidly about what needs to be done to achieve peace. 

He didn’t mince words when he said the ongoing peace talks did not include people who could influence the course of action on the ground. In other words, the so-called representatives from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, are not in command or in control of insurgents on the ground.

More than nine months since the peace process was launched, it is difficult to disagree with what he is saying. This has raised the question as to why the Thai government rushed into the talks, before getting solid evidence of the bona fides of the people coming to the negotiating table.

The insurgents have demonstrated – as they did on January 2004 – that they can hit just about any place and at any time. Unfortunately, instead of coming clean about the difficulties the government is facing, the authorities continue to claim that they are moving in the right direction. 

Too many lives have been lost to this conflict for our officers to be playing public-relations games and stunts.

In spite of his criticism, Wan Kadir’s remarks should be welcomed because they shed light on this long-standing conflict that has cost the country too many lives and resources. 

Wan Kadir should have been permitted to return to Thailand long ago. Back in 2004, after the Krue Se stand-off on April 28, 2004, Wan Kadir made a public statement about wanting to return to Thailand to work with authorities to counter the new wave of insurgency surfacing in the country. 

Wan Kadir is from a previous generation of insurgents that emerged in the mid-1960s and went under in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The then government of Thaksin Shinwatra thought it was too much trouble to have him back in the country of his birth and Wan Kadir was given the cold shoulder.

This time around, it seems that he is wanted here to show the exiled community and leaders that Thailand is open-minded enough to have such people back. The fact that he believes the Thai negotiating team has been barking up the wrong tree, should not be held against him. If anything, we should thank him for what can only be described as a constructive observation and go forward from there. 

Wan Kadir was head of Bersatu, which has since been dissolved, but it does not mean that he is completely out of touch about what is going on within the circles of the exiled leaders. 

Thailand should also thank Malaysia for permitting him to travel to Thailand to speak to the local media. In fact, he should come to Thailand more often. There is much to learn from a man with vast academic experience. He should be free to meet with anybody he wants, whether they are fellow academics or foreign diplomats based in Thailand. 

The fact that his thinking challenges our notion of the nation-state construct, should not be held against him. If we are serious about moving forward with the peace process, we should be open-minded enough to listen to views of those that differ with our own administration. 

Reset for peace process in Thailand's deep South

Don Pathan

Artef Sohko
Special to The Nation
October 8, 2013

A member of an explosives disposal team inspects the bomb-damaged wreck of a military truck following a roadside attack by insurgents in Krong Pinang district of Yala province on October 2.

 

The government might not be talking to the right people in its attempt to end the ongoing Malay-Muslim insurgency in the three southernmost provinces

With their backs against the wall, Thai and Malaysian officials are working harder than ever to keep alive the peace initiative in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, where the Malay-Muslim separtaist insurgency continues unabated.

Sources in the Thai government and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) - the longstanding separatist movement that "controls" the largest number of insurgents - say that while the February 28 initiative has hit a wall, it does not mean that the two sides will not talk to each other again. The BRN wants a clean slate and to move forward from there.

Since being formed in the late 1960s, the BRN has presented itself as a movement working for the independence of the Malays' historical homeland in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand and the four Malay-speaking districts in Songkhla.

February 28 was the first time that the Thai government stated publicly that it would enter into peace talks with the BRN and other separatist groups. Previously, secret talks between the Thai Army and insurgent groups were conducted in various Middle-Eastern cities throughout the 1980s. The reason for the reset button, say BRN sources, is because the current peace initiative did not have their blessing. It was hastily put together because of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur's political needs.

"We want to talk with the Thai government, but discreetly and out of the public spotlight, to generate enough confidence before going public," said a BRN source.

The issue of mediation or facilitation should be put off for the time being, the BRN said. The selection and role of the mediator, if any, should be agreed by the two sides. BRN members said they could not understand why the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawtra had pushed for the February 28 meeting knowing that the two sides have yet to reach an understanding on a number of issues such as immunity for members of the BRN political wing who would come to the table, and a guarantee from Malaysia that they would not be deported.

BRN members and others often point to an incident in 1998 when Malaysian authorities quietly handed over three suspected separatists - Abdul Rahman Bazo and two brothers, Ismail and Da-oh Thanam - to Thailand as one of the reasons for their mistrust of Kuala Lumpur. The three are currently in prison.

The February launch failed to generate any traction or win support from insurgents, who continue their campaign of violence. What the event did was to set the stage for microphone diplomacy that has become a political circus.

What the BRN wants right now, said sources in the movement, is to establish a legitimate and recognisable political wing that can surface publicly and engage with the international community in the same manner that negotiators from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) or Moros leaders in Mindanao have been doing. In this respect, the BRN said it would be willing to work with international organisations that can help with capacity building and give it a better understanding of a wide range of issues such as peace negotiations, mediation, international norms, the Geneva Convention, humanitarian law and so on.

The problem with Bangkok is that the government thought it could achieve desirable results in one push by bringing in Thaksin Shinwatra, the de facto leader of the ruling Pheu Thai Party, to meet with 16 leaders from various separatist groups in Kuala Lumpur in March last year. The BRN was represented at that meeting by a member of the organisation's youth wing.

Meanwhile, the Thai government has been trying to get well known figures like Sapae-ing Basor, a respected spiritual leader and former principle of Thamvithya Multini School in Yala, to come to the table for photo ops to give credibility to the February 28 initiative. Sapaeing has been accused by the Thai authorities of being a top BRN leader. A warrant for his arrest was issued in 2005, signed by the current Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre chief, Police Colonel Thawee Sodsong.

Sapae-ing has so far refused to take part in the process because he was extremely angered by the Thai authorities demonising him. At one time, the police had even offered Bt20 million for information leading to his capture. Thai officials who read the charges against him said the allegations were too weak and that he would beat the case should it go to court. The BRN has been tight-lipped about Sapae-ing's status and whereabouts, but stated that he has long been an important spiritual leader for the Patani Malay Muslims.

The BRN said the next phase of the peace initiative could very well be without Kuala Lumpur, citing hard feelings that date back to the handing over of suspected separatist leaders in 1998. These differences would have to be overcome before Kuala Lumpur could have a seat at the table, they said.

But officials in Bangkok are not really sure how to break this impasse with the Malaysian government. Bangkok had asked for Kuala Lumpur's participation, and embarrassment could now be inevitable.

Nevertheless, other channels are being explored. In addition to the February 28 initiative, the Thai government has discreetly given a green light to a second round of talks - the so-called Track 1.5 - that include longstanding separatist groups that were not invited to Kuala Lumpur to take part in the February 28 initiative. Two meetings were held in Indonesia between Thai representatives and 15 senior leaders from these groups, and another this past week in Sweden. Moreover, earlier this year, Pheu Thai also discreetly sent a senior officer to Malaysia to meet with BRN leaders through interlocutors within the group's youth wing, but the exiled senior BRN leaders were not in the mood to talk.

If anything, these attempts show that the Pheu Thai Party is not putting all its eggs in the February 28 basket, the so-called official and visible track - or Track I.

No one in the BRN can give a clear explanation as to why its top leaders are willing to talk to the Thais at this juncture. One explanation, a mid-ranking BRN cadre said, has to do with the generation gap between the exiled leaders and the current crop of militants, the so-called post-Thak Bai generation, who could become increasingly uncompromising and/or unwilling to accept the guidance of the elders living in exile. Right now, the BRN elders believe that they have what it takes to influence the combatants and change the course of the conflict, but such a task will be increasingly difficult as time goes by.

Don Pathan is a security analyst at the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com). Artef Sohko is the former secretary-general of the Student Federation of Thailand and currently the director of Foreign Affairs at the Academy of Patani Raya for Peace and Development.

Ball now in govt's court as BRN peace talks look to be over

By Don Pathan

It is not the first time that Hassan Taib, the "liaison" for the ongoing dialogue between the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) and the Thai government, has threatened to quit the peace process. But he keeps coming back to relay more or less the same demands and the process has continued.

But the recent release of a statement on YouTube by three hooded men suggests that the peace talks are on their last legs.

In the video clip, the hooded men said there would be no more talks until the Thai side meets earlier-stated demands, such as the withdrawal of non-permanent troops from the region, a release of all prisoners and detainees and the dropping of charges against suspected insurgents.

International observers - from ASEAN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) - must also be permitted to sit in on future negotiations.

Deputy Prime Minister Pracha Promnog, the head of national security, did not dismiss the three hooded men's statement as a hoax. In a face-saving statement, Pracha said the three were trying to stall the talks, not derail them entirely.

Sources in the movement told The Nation that the three were legitimate sources and maintained that the peace process was likely to become history. But that does not mean they will never talk to the Thais again.

Thai security planners are wondering, meanwhile, about future encounters with the BRN should the current process be derailed. One thing the Thais would like to see is a new "liaison" from the BRN-C's inner circle and possibly a person known among the Patani Malays.

Hassan doesn't fit any of these descriptions. He leads a motley crew that includes a couple of BRN cadres, who do not take orders from him, but report back to the BRN's political wing.

Sources in the BRN-C said the movement's political wing would not surface, let alone go to any negotiating table, unless the Thai government grants diplomatic immunity - something they say is standard practice internationally when entering peace negotiations.

They also want a guarantee that Kuala Lumpur, in its capacity as "facilitator", will not deport them to Thailand.

In fact, many exiled Patani Malay leaders said that since the late 1990s - when some of their associates were deported back to Thailand and are now doing life sentences - they have yet to resolve their differences with Kuala Lumpur.

The idea of scrapping the current peace talks gained momentum following a number of humiliating developments, such as the failure to establish a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramadan.

A new peace process should not be a "political circus" like the current one, one BRN source said. This would mean no more YouTube and "microphone diplomacy" as all discussions would be carried out discreetly.

Besides granting immunity to members of the BRN political wing, the Thai Parliament would be asked to endorse the peace process. In other words, the talks would have to be state-sanctioned - not just reliant on one government administration that might be here today, but gone tomorrow.

Indeed, both sides have had difficulties with this microphone diplomacy. On the Thai side, negotiators are quickly running out of spin and justification for keeping the talks going. They had pinned their hopes on an immediate reduction in violence, while ignoring the fact that Hassan and his crew don't have much influence on the BRN leadership - much less cell leaders on the ground.

The government's unexpected announcement on February 28 that it intended to enter into peace negotiations generated incredibly high expectations among the public. And so when violence continued, Team Thailand, led by heads of the National Security Council and Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre - two of the Pheu Thai Party's favourite bureaucrats - were lost for words except to accuse the other side of being peace breakers.

For Hassan and his team, microphone diplomacy means responding to some nagging questions and allegations, such as the attacks on soft targets and the assassination Yacob Raimanee, the Imam of the Pattani Central Mosque, described as "Bangkok's man in the deep South".

The video clip posted on Tuesday evening could very well be the last nail in the coffin for the current peace talks. For a new initiative to start, immunity and a guarantee that no deportations will be carried out - as well as parliamentary endorsement of the peace process - would need to be put on the table first.

It's up to Bangkok to respond.

Businesses keep faith in South after latest attacks

By Don Pathan
The Nation

TWELVE HOURS after the warehouse of the rubber factory was set on fire, the smoke was still swirling out of the wreckage.

One fire truck remained to hose down the debris of the rubble from this gigantic storage structure that looked more like a collapsed indoor football stadium.

But Mother Nature wasn’t finished with the Teck Bee Hang rubber factory yet. A strong gust of wind kicked up heavy clouds of smoke. Minutes later, the rubble was spitting out huge balls of flame into the sky like an angry fire-breathing dragon.

The heat spread to the section where propane gas canisters were stored. One by one, the canisters exploded, their blasts shaking this enormous compound.

An Army helicopter swirled high above. The explosions were getting louder and louder, the smoke was filling the sky, billowing over the factory compound.

The 200 or so migrant workers from Myanmar residing in the compound weren’t taking any chances. They grabbed whatever belongings they could and headed for the gate. When asked where they’d spend the night, "I don’t know," one replied.

Teck Bee Hang, along with two other rubber factories, and nine major and medium-sized business outlets in Pattani, Yala and Songkhla, came under arson attacks on Friday morning, between 3 and 4am. Damage was in the billions of baht.

The Friday attacks on business establishments were not the first time separatist insurgents have carried out coordinated raids, causing severe damage to local enterprises. But faith in the economic outlook of the region is still sound as land and property prices climb steadily. Part of the misperception of outsiders, said local residents, is that many believe the region is besieged. But both life and economic activities go on.

Besides economic growth, race relations between ethnic Malay Muslims and Thai/Chinese Buddhists remain sound. The fabric of society holding this ethnically diverse region together is still strong in spite of the fierce violence, which is pretty much confined to security officers and separatist militants. If anything, say the exiled separatist leaders, Friday’s attacks were a slap in the face to the ongoing peace talks they said were hastily put together by Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

The fact that militants are disregarding the presence of a platoon from a cavalry unit less than 1 km away illustrates their indifference to the government’s military presence - as well as the claim the two sides reached a ceasefire agreement during the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, which ends in less than a week. Hardly a day goes by without insurgent violence in this restive region.

As for the activities of the civil society, a network of youth leaders teamed up with ex-detainees last week at the Malaysian Consulate in Songkhla to demand that Kuala Lumpur, in its capacity as official "facilitator" for the peace talks, raise the issue of targeted killings of former detainees who have either been acquitted or are fighting charges in the law courts.

Some observers suspect the Friday attacks on the rubber plants were in reaction to the Supreme Court decision to drop charges against officials involved in the Tak Bai massacre.

But unlike other sub-national insurgencies elsewhere, this one in Thailand’s deep South has yet to evolve into a conflict where either side is willing to confirm outright or deny its activities, be they alleged targeted killings by pro-government death squads or alleged attacks against military and non-military targets by separatists.
- See more at: http://signin.nationmultimedia.com/national/Businesses-keep-faith-in-South-after-latest-attack-30211887.html#sthash.i5agQhbG.dpuf

Peace deal meaningless unless militants can take it seriously

Don Pathan
The Nation

No one in their right mind expected to see any real breakthrough at the recent peace talks between a National Security Council (NSC)-led team and a group calling themselves Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) members.

The two sides entered into a historic “agreement” on February 28 in Kuala Lumpur. Representing the separatist side was Hasan Toib, an exiled figure who called himself a “liaison” officer for the BRN-C. 

NSC chief Paradon Pattanabut, a close ally of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, co-signed the agreement that is billed by some as a spectacular development because it is the first time that a Thai government has given this much legitimacy to the Malay-Muslim separatist movement.

For others, the agreement is a big leap of faith because Hasan Toib doesn’t have much clout within the separatist community, much less command and control over militants on the ground, who have not ceased their campaign of violence in the deep South.

Hasan doesn’t have much to offer except a promise that he will talk to others, such as the BRN-C’s inner circle known as the Dewan Penilian Party (DPP), and ask them to come to the table. So far, the DPP is still giving Hasan and the Thai side the cold shoulder.

As a “liaison” officer, Hasan is stuck in limbo. BRN-C leaders do not take him seriously, but instead toy with him by asking him to raise certain sensitive issues knowing that the Thais do not have the stomach to accommodate them. These issues include the granting of diplomatic immunity to the negotiators and the rest of the BRN-C political wings, so that they can’t be charged with crimes. A well-placed source in the Malaysian government, which is faciliatating the talks, confirmed such demands.

Another issue the BRN-C would like the Thai side to take up is official and public acknowledgement that Patani, which constitutes the three southernmost provinces of Thailand, is the homeland of the Malay-Muslims. In other words, the Malays of Patani are Thailand’s equals, not inferiors, when it comes to their meeting at the table.

One leader from the BRN-Congress, a separate branch within the BRN circle, said that for his group, such official acknowledgement is also necessary because there has to be some understanding from the Thai side that there is a historical root to this conflict. “It’s about our dignity and the reason why we took up arms in the first place,” he said.

Another pending issue, said a BRN-C cadre, is the fact that the separatist movements and the Malaysian government have yet to get over their differences. Kuala Lumpur burned its bridges with exiled separatist leaders when when it deported some of them to the Thai side in the late 1990s and assisted Thailand in obtaining permanent observer status in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Thailand’s status in the OIC has effectively blocked the long-standing Patani Malay separatist orgnisations from making any real headway in the 57-country organisation.

Desperate for public acceptance, the NSC and the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) chief, Police Colonel Tawee Sodsong, threw names out, publicly and privately, at closed-door meetings with officials, about how certain individuals like Masae Useng and Sapae-ing Basor, would be coming to the March 28 meeting, or sending their representatives. Of course, these two men did not show up.

According to Paradon, among the groups that also came to the March 28 talks were the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) and Barisan Islam Pembangunan Patani (BIPP), as well as Bersatu.

But the BIPP leaders confirmed to The Nation that they were not invited.

“It is very likely that they went to some friendly exiled individuals who, thirty years ago, were members of BIPP, and invited them,” said a top leader in this particular oganisation.

Moreover, Paradon and the SBPAC didn’t seem to realise that Bersatu, an umbrella organisation for the long-standing separatist groups, is now defunct, having fallen apart about two decades ago. Moreover, he didn’t seem to realise that there are three different people who claim to be the legitimate president of Pulo. So much for Thailand’s PR sound byte.

“The government needs to show more sincerity. If they are going to spin information for public consumption, they should base it on some facts. Bersatu is a thing of the past,” said Artef Sohko, a youth leader from Narathiwat. 

Besides the clumsy public relations exercise, the Thai side has difficulties obtaining friends – people who matter, anyway – to endorse its initiatives or, better yet, join it at the negotiating table.

The Ulema Council, which is made up of traditionalist (Shafi’i jurisprudence) Muslim clerics in the three southernmost Malay-speaking provinces, has rejected an invitation from the government to take part in the peace talks. About 90 per cent of the local Malay-Muslims embrace the Shafi’i school of though. 

Another group that gave the state the cold shoulder is the Saudara, a student/youth movement that works on the promotion of Patani-Malay cultural and historical identity.

Giving the government the cold shoulder is understandable because these groups – who are said to be only one-step removed from the insurgency because their relatives and friends are either locked up on charges of treason or are on the run because they are on the authorities’s “blacklist” – have too much to lose. Besides, say student leaders and clerics, the foundation for the historic February 28 “peace agreement” was based on the political necessities of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, not the needs of the Malays of Patani. 

Others who are indifferent to this “peace process” are the militants on the ground, who continue to carry out vicious attacks with even more intensity.

Perhaps the most interesting development is the fact that the ruling Pheu Thai Party has been quietly sending stratgists abroad to make deals with BRN-C elders. But so far these strategists have not been able to make any real headway, as the BRN-C’s DPP members are not in the mood to meet anybody for the time being.

But the fact that Pheu Thai has been sending strategists suggests that it, too, understands that the official track is somethig just for show and that there is only so much Paradon and Hasan can do in their capacity as chief negotiator and “liaison”, respectively.

The problem with Paradon and the SBPAC is that the platform they are working under was desgined to serve Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup because, among other reasons, of his handling of the deep South.

The BRN-C argues that Bangkok is using the February 28 peace dialogue as a way to clear Thaksin’s name, and that’s why it didn’t matter who Bangkok extended the olive branch to.

Until Bangkok can come to the understanding that there are differences between political interests and the national interest, bringing peace to this highly constested region will be a thing of the future. 

https://www.nationthailand.com/perspective/30203136

DEATH OF MILITANT: In death, another side to insurgent Mahrosu is revealed

By  Don Pathan

BACHO, Narathiwat __ Mahrosu Jantarawadee's parents had to wait for four hours before Narathiwat Hospital would release his body because the commander of the Fourth Army Area and other VIPs wanted to see what the 31-year-old man looked like.


Mahrosu was one of the 16 insurgents killed in Wednesday morning's gunfight between heavily armed militants and members of the Royal Thai Marines in Bacho district. About 50 insurgents had walked into a trap. Officials say they had prior knowledge about the planned attack.

To the authorities, Marohso was a fierce militant, a misguided young man they say was caught up in an armed movement that embraces distorted history and false teaching of Islam. He had more than 10 warrants out for his arrest and had been on the run for the past five years.

But to his family and neighbours, he was a responsible person who cared deeply for his wife and children.

"He made sure that our children and I live comfortably. He built this house from the money he made from buying and selling cattle," said Rusanee, 25, the mother of Mahrosu's six-year-old girl and a 17-month boy.

"He bought our daughter a computer tablet and talked about how he would like to see her grown up as an educated woman, religiously pious and possibly go abroad to study," Rusanee said.

"There was this one time that they wanted him to surrender so bad that they took his younger brother into custody thinking that it would get him to surrender," his mother said.

Marohso's funeral drew a huge crowd and was somewhat emotional. Young and old men queued up in an orderly column to pass his body, wrapped in white sheet. In the background there was a constant chant of "Allah Akbar" (God is great).

In spite of the high number of troops in the region, Mahrosu and others on the wanted list move around somewhat freely, mainly because the local community will not turn them in.

Authorities say the villagers are scared of the insurgents but residents say the militants are part of the community. Like the insurgents, they share some of the same sentiments and historical mistrust of the Thai state.

Che Mah Che Ni, 52, said her son's life changed dramatically after the Tak Bai massacre in 2004 that ended in the death of 86 unarmed demonstrators, most of whom died of suffocation.

"He was one of the guys they stacked one on top another in the back of the military truck," Che Mah said.

The massacre, in which no government officials were punished, has radicalised an entire generation of Malay Muslims in an already highly contested region and become part of the local narrative that feeds into the justification for taking up arms in the separatist movement.

A couple of years after the Tak Bai incident, Mahrosu and Rusanee got married. Rusanee said she knew exactly what she was getting into and understood the risks.

The two tried living and working in Malaysia but returned when they were expecting their first child.

Back in Bacho, Mahrosu picked up from where he had left off.

When asked about his insurrection activities, Rusanee replied: "Everybody knows what this is all about."

Mahrosu visited his wife and children three times this past month and made a phone call to his wife before his outfit raided the marine unit just a few kilometres from his village.

"He said he would be home soon and not to worry," Rusanee said.

Mahrosu did come home as he said, but in a body bag. He was buried as a "shahid", or martyr in Islamic tradition.

"This was something he always wanted," said Rusanee, who is proud of her husband and is grateful for the things he provided. She said she has no regrets.

In a way, Mahrosu's death was a blessing in disguise. At least, said the wife, there is no longer any worry about him being caught alive. "He was certain he would be tortured severely if they had got him alive," she said.

___________________________________________________________________

Group says 'fighter' cell may have been infiltrated

DON PATHAN
THE NATION

Bacho, Narathiwat February 15, 2013

Separatist chief considers existence of mole

A senior operative from the Barisan Revolusi National-Coordinated (BRN-C) said his movement has not ruled out the possibility that there was a mole within the local militant cell responsible for planning and implementing Wednesday morning's failed attack on a Marine base in Narathiwat's Bacho district.

He said BRN-C, a separatist group that surfaced in the 1960s and claims to have the best relations with the militants, said the two groups would go back to the drawing board to rethink their future plans, especially those involving such daring attempts.

The Marine Task Force 32 commander, Marine Lt-Colonel Thamanoon Wanna, said information about the attack was obtained from a map found on the body of Suhaidee Tahir, a suspected insurgent who was killed last Saturday in Narathiwat's Sai Buri district in a gunfight with security forces.

Authorities had accused Suhaidee of killing Thai-Muslim schoolteacher Chonlatee Charoen-chon, who was shot dead in front of his students on January 23. BRN-C denies that Chonlatee was killed by the militants, locally known as juwae, which means "fighter" in the local Malay dialect.

The operative said the juwae had killed three teachers and burned down two schools from mid-November to the first week of January in retaliation for the November 14 assassination of Abdullateh Todir, the imam in Yala's Yaha district, and for the Rangae district teashop massacre on December 11, allegedly carried out by a pro-government death squad.At the insistence of senior BRN-C leaders, the juwae stopped targeting teachers and schools around the first week of January, and Chonlatee was not on their hit list, the operative said. He described Marohso Jantarawadee, one of the leaders of Wednesday's attack, as a dedicated juwae.

"Whatever happens in this area, Marohso always gets blamed," said his mother, Che Mah Che Ni, 52, who went on to blast the authorities for being insensitive for sending four truckloads of security officials to search her and her neighbours' homes on the same day that they killed her son in a gunfight.

The action was in stark contrast to statements by political leaders, who earlier expressed regret over the suffering of the families of the slain insurgents.

The Wednesday morning ambush was billed an operational and intelligence success, although statements from officials contradicted each other. While a senior Marine said information about the plan had came from insurgents killed in the earlier operation, other officials said villagers and/or defecting militants tipped them off.

Two villages over from the camp, Ahama Sohkuning, 25, one of the 16 insurgents shot dead, was buried in a cemetery metres from his parent's backdoor. Like Marohso, he left behind a young wife. She is five months pregnant and their son is just 18 months old.

According to Ahama's parents, he went into hiding shortly after he was released from a 30-day confinement in the Ingkrayuth Camp in Pattani where he said he was tortured. He was finally let go because the Emergency Law permits no more than 30 days in detention without formal charges. The torture inflicted upon him had forced him into the movement, his family said.

Like his fellow cell member, Ahama was also buried as "shahid". For the two families, burying their dead as martyrs was as way of coming to term with their losses.

"People here prefer to see their sons killed fighting government troops then dying of drugs because there is no stigma in being a martyr," said a local aid worker. This is the kind of sentiment the Thai public and the state do not want to hear, much less understand, he said.

Bangkok must do more to get separatists around the table

Don Pathan
The Nation

The Thai Army and the Malay Muslim separatists are trying to outdo one another in public-relations exercises that they claim can influence the course of the conflict and secure the futures of people on the ground.

These include a recently staged surrender of 93 suspected insurgents orchestrated by the leadership of the Fourth Army Area. Retaliation was swift from the insurgents, with a massive car bomb striking Pattani’s Sai Buri district on September 6, killing six people, including four passers-by, and wounding about 30, nearly half of whom were security and forensic officers.

The 93 young men in the staged surrender were finally paraded in front of the media on September 11. But sources in the separatist movement said the vast majority of the suspects, with the exception of half a dozen, were little more than sympathisers who at most had provided logistical support or worked as the “eyes and ears” of the militants. In other words, they weren’t combatants or juwae in the local Malay language.

The episode echoes of an announcement in April 2011 by the then secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC), Panu Uthairat, that 1,692 sympathisers had surrendered to the authorities between January and March of that year.

The figure sounds impressive, but people soon forgot about it as violence continued to dominate in the mind of the public.

Sources in the Patani Malay exiled community and in the Thai police said Panu had worked with a former Europe-based separatist leader to carry out the staged surrender. Apparently, the aim was to save Panu’s job, but the result was a flop when his contact couldn’t get anybody from the exiled community to surrender, mainly because they couldn’t see the merit in such a staged event.

Exiled separatist leaders, mainly members of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) with working relations with juwae, said they were not convinced that the recent surrender, or similar activities over recent years, would have any impact on the course of the insurgency. And as the recent car-bomb attacks and other high-profile incidents suggest, things could get worse before they get better, they said.

But because Thailand is desperate for good news, few were willing to ask tough questions of the Army over the recent mass surrender of the 93. These questions include why these suspects had not been through any legal proceedings, and whether the Sai Buri car bomb was a retaliatory act, as claimed by the exiled separatist leaders.

Just as uncertain is the fate of the 93 men who surrendered, and were then immediately sent home. Local residents said they hoped the military had more sense than to turn these men into double agents after exposing their identities.

Juwae have demonstrated over the years that spies are fair game, and many of these “agents of the Siamese” have wound up killed by gunmen firing from very close range.

The government in Bangkok praised the event as well. But political insiders said the security team of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government was not happy with the surrender because it was preparing a staged surrender of its own. The military had beaten them to it and stolen the show.

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung in early August announced that 40 suspected insurgents would be surrendering to authorities. His initiative turned out to be a flop.

But the most significant response from the juwae didn’t require the use of bullets or bombs. For the last three Fridays, shopkeepers in the three southernmost provinces Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat have been ordered to observe the Muslim Sabbath by closing their shops.

Needless to say, this is a big slap in the face for the authorities, as the closure demonstrated that the people had lost faith in the state security apparatus.

It is not clear whether the juwae can sustain the shutdowns, as a similar initiative six years ago did not last more than two weeks. Moreover, the moral support that the juwae enjoy from the local Malay Muslims could quickly evaporate if the closing of businesses on Friday continues indefinitely.

Officials and security analysts often paint the ongoing conflict as a battle for hearts and minds between the insurgents and government officials. Getting the local residents on your side is the name of the game.

Where the violence with political underpinnings ends, no one seems to know. For the time being, the juwae, as well as their BRN-C backers, appear to be more interested in creating a greater psychological impact with their attacks.

Judging from the reaction from the Yingluck government, the strategy is working. All of a sudden, many people in Bangkok are speaking of the strife in the deep South in political terms. There have also been some massive knee-jerk reactions. Political heavyweight Chalerm Yoobamrung was brought into the line-up and the so-called Pentagon II was established to give the impression of civilian control over policy for the South.

Few journalists have bothered to learn the official name of this new set-up or where it is, much less whether its headquarters actually has five sides.

But after the initial huff-and-puff from the military, a deal will be cut. Deputy Prime Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha will remain the symbolic head of the Pentagon II while the Army will have day-to-day control over the centre’s operation.

Furthermore, the army has agreed not to sabotage the Pheu Thai Party’s secret peace process with the militants, which mainly involves speaking with the exiled leaders from long-standing Malay-Muslim separatist movements, who may or may not have much influence over the juwae on the ground.

This task has been given to the current SBPAC chief, Thawee Sodsong, one of the government’s most trusted bureaucrats. Before Thawee, the job of talking to the enemies was undertaken by the then deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council, Somkiat Boonchu, who was recently moved to an inactive post. Thaksin Shinawatra’s confidant Lt-General Paradorn Pattanathabutr is now the NSC chief and the agency is expected to play a supporting role in Thawee’s initiative.

At first, Thawee was using former Wadah politicians and local leaders to do his legwork. But after the juwae retaliated with a triple car-bomb attack in Yala and Hat Yai on March 31, Thawee and the team went back to the drawing board. This time he is looking for friendly Muslim clerics to do the legwork.

On the political front, the Pheu Thai Party is also asking the Democrats to be good sports on this. After all, everybody at one time or another has met the leaders of the exiled separatist groups.

The Malaysian government has agreed to help facilitate this peace process but sources in the BRN-C say they are not particularly interested in mediation because they don’t see an honest broker anywhere around, not even in an organisation like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which they say has only paid lip service to the idea of peace for the past three decades but is not willing to employ serious pressure. In fact, the OIC has permitted Thailand Permanent Observer status, thus in effect blocking all the Patani Malay separatist organisations from obtaining the position.

In essence, say exiled leaders, it is up to the Thai side to make the kind of concessions needed to move a peace process forward. They are in the best position to judge Thai sincerity and commitment, not outsiders.

Unfortunately, for the time being, it doesn’t seem that the juwae are in a hurry to talk. And so, says one source, whatever the Thai government is going to offer will have to be very bold and attractive to bring the juwae to the table.