Deep South talks: a fresh attempt to revive the corpse

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

February 27, 2014 

Government negotiators are about to claim "progress"; in reality this is a sham process that refuses to include the real powers behind the insurgency

Last year on February 28, the Thai government announced it was entering peace talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) to seek a political solution to the conflict in the southernmost provinces.

Representing the BRN-C was Hasan Taib, the designated "liaison". Malaysia's former intelligence chief, Dato Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim, was appointed as facilitator by the Malaysian government.

The public face for the Thais was National Security Council (NSC) chief Lt Gen Paradon Pattanatabut, and by his side was the head of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, Pol Colonel Thawee Sodsong. Both men are extremely close to the Pheu Thai Party and its de facto leader, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Among Thai officials and some casual observers there is a longstanding belief that Malaysia has been backing separatist movements in the deep South.

They believed that with Kuala Lumpur on board the dialogue process, peace and political settlement was inevitable.

But the people who embrace this notion never bothered to ask whether the exiled separatist leaders and the Kuala Lumpur government had patched up differences that date back as far as 1997, when Malaysian officials handed over number of senior separatist leaders to their Thai counterparts. At the time, Malaysia wanted to show Thailand it was a friend, but the damage stemming from the handover has haunted Malaysia ever since.

The insurgents, or "juwae", operating in the South, wasted no time in displaying their disapproval of the Kuala Lumpur-backed initiative. Within 24 hours of the official launch of talks on February 28, 2013, juwae unleashed a bomb attack in the heart of Patani just metres away from the city's iconic clock tower. Since than, hardly a day has gone by without an insurgency-related attack in the contested region.

This is hardly surprising, given that the February 28 initiative did not have the blessing of the BRN-C's inner circle. Thawee and Paradon like to claim that Hasan is a part of that circle, but sources and operatives in the movement insist otherwise.

Instead, the movement "used" Hasan to make demands, knowing that the Thais would never agree. The idea was to test the water. And Team Thailand danced to their tune.

Tired of being kicked around like a football between the BRN, Malaysian authorities and the Thai negotiating team, Hasan threw in the towel and has been incommunicado since December last year.

Talking to Malay-Muslim separatist leaders is nothing new for Thai officials, of course. Back in the 1980s, the task went to mid-ranking army officers, who treated the dialogue as more of a news-gathering exercise for the top brass.

In 2006 the Thai NSC was brought into the picture, and then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont gave the green light for a Geneva-based NGO to facilitate talks.

The so-called Geneva Process brought together the Thai NSC and one of the three Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) factions, under the leadership of Kasturi Mahkota. NSC deputy secretary-general Somkiet Boonchoo was named Thailand's point-man in the negotiations.

Then, shortly after Yingluck came into power, the Geneva Process was scrapped and Malaysia was brought in to mediate the process.

Somkiet and his NSC chief at the time, Thawil Pliensri, were moved to inactive posts. Thawil kicked up a fuss about the transfer but Yingluck couldn't care less. She and her brother Thaksin were more concerned with loyalty, and they put their trust in Thawee and Paradon.

Not only did Thaksin conjure up the idea of bringing Malaysia to the peace process, he thought that if he played a more direct role he would add legitimacy to the process. Thaksin met with a group of 16 exiled separatist leaders in March, 2012, in Kuala Lumpur, asking them to close the book on this conflict.

Those who took Thaksin's bait were dismissed as 'opportunists", while the core insurgents, namely the BRN inner circle and the operatives, were labelled as "hardliners".

BRN leaders refuse to recognise Kuala Lumpur as an honest broker and have yet to forgive the Malaysians for the secret handovers.

Insurgent operatives also showed their disapproval of Thaksin's initiative by launching a triple car bomb attack on March 30, 2012, in the heart of Yala two weeks after he met with the 16 exiled leaders. A major hotel in downtown Hat Yai was also hit. In all, the attacks killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100.

But Thaksin, his political cronies and Malaysia decided to overlooked the warning and went ahead with the Kuala Lumpur-backed initiative in February last year.

Local politicians under the Pheu Thai Party's wing did the leg work to pave the way for a process that BRN leaders said had more to do with whitewashing Thaksin for his questionable handling of the conflict than getting to the bottom of the historical grievances between the Malays of Patani and the Thai state.

Kasturi's faction was kept out of the process while a rival Pulo faction, under the leadership of Noor Abdulrahman (also known as Abae Kamae), was given a seat at the table.

The snub for Kasturi's faction was understandable given that the Geneva Process wouldn't permit Kuala Lumpur to join their initiative. A deal was cut in October last year to give Kasturi's Pulo faction a seat at the table. Details about the trade-off were not disclosed but government sources said it centred on rules of engagement.

The Army, needless to say, never liked the idea of having civilians running a peace process. And so late last year, the Army sponsored three trips for Wan Kadir Che Man, former leader of the now defunct Bersatu, an umbrella group for the longstanding separatist movements, to speak in Thailand.

Wan Kadir, a well-known exiled separatist leader, has long been critical of using Malaysia as facilitator or mediator for talks. He didn't mince words in lashing out at the current peace process. He wasn't too keen on the Geneva Process either, and suggested that the Thai government and the separatist leaders should meet face to face. And if there was need for a mediator, Wan Kadir suggested that Western governments with a long record of humanitarian actions should be in the frame, not NGOs.

While the Yingluck government has paid lip-service to a political solution for the conflict, the Thai team working on the current initiative is an ad hoc group that hardly inspires confidence. There is no secretariat and team members have regular day jobs to attend to, only coming together a day before any meeting with Hasan.

From the beginning, their immediate goal has been to get Hasan to convince the core BRN leadership and the juwae to reduce the number of attacks in the South. They needed something tangible to show their political bosses and the public that they are moving in the right direction.

But when it became clear that the BRN-C and juwae were not going to play along, Hasan decided to thrown in the towel and go into hiding last December.

Ironically, the political crises and street protests in Bangkok have given everyone in the deep South talks breathing space. Team Thaksin and Zamzamin went back to the drawing board. This week Zamzamin is expected to announce the "progress" on the process, like securing the participation of the third Pulo faction, led by Samsudine Khan, as well as that of the Barisan Islam Pembangunan Pattani (BIPP). There is also talk of permitting other separatist groups and local NGOs into the process.

BRN sources are reportedly unimpressed with this numbers game. They say they look at Bangkok and see a big mess, and as a result there is no way they are going to believe anything that comes out of Thawee's or Paradon's mouth.

Moreover, regardless of how many NGOs or separatist groups take part in the next round of talks, without the blessing of the core BRN leaders and the juwae, any attempt to salvage this sinking boat of a peace process will be met with the insurgents' wrath.

Revenge killings torpedo chances for peace in South

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation February 19, 2014

Rescue team members work next to bodies of villagers shot dead by suspected militants in Pattani province on February 13. Five people, including a nine-year-old boy and a Buddhist monk, died in the attack.

Insurgents say pro-government death squads signal lack of unified position among Thai security agencies and policymakers

A two-man paramilitary Ranger team escorting an elderly Buddhist monk travelling in a beat-up saloon car was no match for six assailants on three motorbikes with automatic weapons.

Exiled rebel sources maintained that the insurgents were going after "legitimate" targets, thus the decision to spare the 70-year-old monk who was sitting in the front of the bullet-ridden vehicle. The incident took place Pattani's Sai Buri district in the morning of January 24.

Ten days later in Narathiwat's Bacho district, gunmen killed three brothers aged three, five and nine, in an attempt to liquidate an entire family who had just returned from evening prayers at the village mosque. The father took a bullet to his leg but kept running, and the mother, who was four-months pregnant, was also hit. The parents survived.

At first, Thai authorities moved quickly to dismiss any suggestion that the assailants were officials or a pro-government death squad. Two weeks after the deadly shooting of the three boys, officials are still repeating the same mantra - that insurgents killed the three boys as part of an escalating campaign of violence now targeting innocent civilians, like the policeman's wife, 28, who was shot dead then set on fire in front of a terrified crowd at an open market in Pattani's Tambon Ratapanyang on February 9.

A similar incident took place on a Pattani-Narathiwat highway on February 12 when gunmen riding pillion shot dead a female bank employee, 29, and set her body on fire.

A hand-written note to the army chief read: "To the Commander of the Thai Army. This is not the last victim. [This killing is] for the three brothers."

The following day, February 13, in Pattani's Mae Lan district, suspected insurgents dressed in military fatigues opened fire on residents giving alms to monks, killing four, including a monk and a boy. Six people received gunshot wounds. The attackers also came with gasoline, but the attempt to set the victims on fire was thwarted by the monk's security detail.

Police believe at least one of the assailants was hit by return fire, and authorities are seeking tip-offs from locals about where the wounded man might be receiving treatment.

While the monk who survived the January 24 attack on two rangers was "collateral damage", the victims of the February 13 killings were intentional, said an exiled separatist cadre and member of a longstanding separatist group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), who was ordered to look into the series of events since the murder of the three boys.

The BRN-C cadre was tight-lipped about the accusation that the boy's father was a member of a Bacho cell, but pointed out that he had fought the allegation in court and been acquitted.

Over this past weekend, preliminary findings by the Southern Border Provinces Administration and Development Advisory Council said the killing of the three boys may be linked to a paramilitary ranger wanting to settle a score with the Bacho cell after losing a family member. The ranger had acted alone, believing the boys' father was an insurgent member, the council said.

The suggestion that the ranger had acted alone without instruction from higher-ups drew criticism from the Muslim Attorney Centre, who accused the council members of reaching a premature decision.

The use of death squads against civilian targets to settle scores is not uncommon in the deep South. For the authorities, the challenge has always been how to handle the aftermath of such incidents. No Muslims in this historically contested region believe the separatists could ever shoot at a mosque or a teashop full of people of their own kind.

But it is not in the nature of Thai officials to blame their own people. In the aftermath of the Ai Bayae massacre in June 2009, for example, in which gunmen mowed down a mosque full of Muslims, killing 10 and injured another 12, then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was clever enough not to draw premature conclusions, like blaming the separatist militants. As with other cases, a committee was set up to look into the massacre and over time people forgot about it.

Extrajudicial and target killings, needless to say, have always been a major obstacle to any peace initiative between the government and the separatist movements.

Since February 28 last year, when the Thai government entered into peace talks with the BRN, at least 10 ex-detainees, all of whom are accused of committing treason and are fighting the charges in court, have been shot and killed, presumably by pro-government death squads.

Observers of the southern conflict are reminded of the spike of violence from mid-November 2012 to the New Year, when soft targets that had apparently dropped off the radar screen returned to insurgents' hit lists. Three Buddhist teachers were killed and three public schools came under arson attack, joining other "legitimate" targets, like police and soldiers. During this period, on December 11, a teashop full of Muslims in Narathiwat's Rangae district also came under attack, leaving four dead, including an 11-month-old baby girl, and another four injured.

The six-week spike was set off by the target killing of a Yala imam, Abdullateh Todir, 49, on November 14, 2012. Abdullateh was also a member of the Yala Islamic Committee. Abdullateh was one of the clerics who the military and Thai officials at the Malaysia-backed peace talks were competing among themselves to garner support from to act as a go-between with active separatist militants and the exiled leaders. But some rogue unit didn't see it that way and decided to take him out, according to a military source. About one year before his death, a gunman fired at him but instead hit his daughter. Army Special Forces immediately provide Abdullateh with a security detail.

A cleric like Abdullateh was an ideal person to act as a go-between as he was respected by both warring sides. Both the BRN and senior Thai officials working on the peace process said he was a man of integrity and would have served the peace talks well.

But when a pro-government death squad took him out in November 14, 2012, other clerics immediately dropped the idea of playing interlocutor for any government agencies. Thailand's lack of unity was costly, as the six weeks of intense violence showed.

No one knows if and when the current spike in violence will end. Buddhist civic groups have called for calm and condemned the killings.

But local Muslims residents and observers generally dismiss the authorities' claims that the insurgents are using the death of the three boys as an excuse to hit civilian targets. Europe-based Kasturi Mahkota, the president of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), also issued a statement condemning the massacre of the three boys and blamed a Thai security outfit for the killings.

Groups like Human Rights Watch have pointed to the use of target killings by pro-government death squads as an obstacle to peace initiatives in the South.

For the time being, the Malaysia-backed peace talks that were launched on February 28 last year have hit a big snag as the designated BRN-C "liaison", Hasan Taib, has thrown in the towel and gone incommunicado.

BRN elders say they are in no mood to talk, especially given the current political deadlock in Bangkok, not to mention the absence of a unified position among Thai security agencies and policymakers.

The peace initiative has managed to secure the participation of the three Pulo factions, but few expect it to change the course of the conflict in this contested region.

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