ASIA TIMES : Eye on Catalonia, South Thailand yearns to vote

http://www.atimes.com/article/eye-catalonia-south-thailand-yearns-vote/

Malay Muslim activists in the insurgency-prone region have called for a referendum on 'rights to self-determination', a rally cry military authorities have curbed and silenced

By DON PATHAN YALA, OCTOBER 31, 2017 3:48 PM (UTC+8)

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An artist takes part in a graffiti event as part of the Saiburi Street Xhibit in Pattani - one of Thailand's southernmost Muslim majority provinces hit by a deadly insurgency - on February 28, 2016. Photo: AFP/Madree Tohlala

Spain may be halfway around the world from Thailand, but that hasn’t stopped ethnic Malay political activists in the Southeast Asian nation’s Muslim-majority southernmost region from tuning in to developments in Catalonia, where a vote for independence has been met with a swift and firm counter-response from Madrid.

Political activists here have observed the political crisis in Spain with curiosity, wondering how the Catalan population developed their political platform, strengthened their movement’s grass roots legitimacy and ultimately through democratic means challenged the Spanish government’s notion of undivided national sovereignty

http://www.atimes.com/article/eye-catalonia-south-thailand-yearns-vote/

Deadly bombings dim peace prospects in Thailand's Deep South

Dominant insurgent group BRN wants more say in negotiations with the generals in Bangkok

Thai army rangers walk through the scene of a roadside bomb which killed four army rangers in the restive Southern Thai province of Pattani on Sept. 22. (Photo by Tuwaedaniya Meringing/AFP)

https://www.ucanews.com/news/deadly-bombings-dim-peace-prospects-in-thailands-deep-south/80438

Don Pathan, Yala 
Thailand

October 11, 2017

The bomb blast was so powerful that it ripped in half the pickup truck carrying a group of Thai soldiers, killing four of them and wounding five others and a civilian. 

The insurgents had taken advantage of road construction in Sai Buri district in Pattani Province and planted a 100-kilogram bomb inside drainage pipes at a construction site. Two of the injured died in a Pattani hospital the following day.

Pattani is one of the three Muslim-majority provinces in Thailand's Deep South where nearly 7,000 lives have been claimed since a violent insurgency started in January 2004.

What upset the Thai officials over the Sept. 22 bombing, like many other previous attacks, was the refusal of locals to come forward with information. Popular support for the separatist militants at the grassroots level remains high.

A week earlier, on Sept. 14, insurgents carried out a double bomb attack in Yala's Yaha district, killing two security officials. At least 18 others were wounded by the blast.

Most of the victims attack were members of an army bomb squad who were on their way to inspect a power pole that was brought down the night before by an explosive device. It was a ploy luring them to the scene where the much bigger second bomb awaited them.

A month earlier, on Aug. 16, there was the carjacking of seven pickup trucks from a local second-hand dealer. The vehicles were intended to be used as car bombs.

When four hostages tried to escape, one of their abductors pulled out a gun and fired at them. One of the hostages died in hospital later in the day, while another survived with a bullet wound to the shoulder. The three survivors went straight to the police and soon after, the entire security apparatus in the region went on high alert.

The operatives scaled back their goals. Only two of the seven vehicles were used as car bombs. One hit an army vehicle and another was detonated at an apartment building for police officers.

Indeed, it has not been a good period for the Thai security apparatus. The beating that they have been taking has cast a dark cloud over an agreement that the Thai negotiators reached with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN).

Leaders of the BRN informed the Malaysian facilitator of the agreement that their combatants would not sabotage the much talked about "Safety Zone" project between Bangkok and MARA Patani, an umbrella organization of Deep South separatist movements. A verbal agreement was given by the BRN to the Malaysian facilitator two months ago towards the end of the Ramadan.

The Safety Zone refers to a provincial district where a ceasefire is to be observed. The BRN — the dominant insurgent organisation that controls virtually all militants on the ground — is not part of MARA Patani.

The verbal promise from the BRN, which included not sabotaging the Thailand-MARA Patani talks, was greatly welcomed by Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

But BRN militants on the ground said there is plenty of bad blood between them and MARA Patani. BRN militants suggested in an interview with me on Sept. 30 that the Safety Zone project will not have smooth sailing. They insisted that they should be the ones who Bangkok should be negotiating with, not MARA Patani. Their reasoning was based on the fact that they control the militants on the ground.

Bangkok has taken the warning seriously and decided to postpone the announcement of which district in the Deep South would be designated as a safety zone.

Discussions among BRN cadres on the ground and abroad over the past month have centered on the cost-benefit ratio behind the continuation of discrediting Bangkok and MARA Patani.

Acknowledging the bad blood stemming from competition between them and MARA Patani, some mid-ranking progressive BRN members are calling on the movement to move on from tit-for-tat attacks that may discredit the official dialogue process between the Thai government and MARA Patani but does little to advance BRN's cause and agenda.

The BRN source said his militant group is focusing more on how to engage the global community to learn about international norms and best practices. He also said understanding among the BRN about how to conduct proper negotiations is lacking and added that their negotiators will not come to the table until they are properly trained.

A Thai Army forensic team member inspects the site of a roadside bomb blast that targeted a Thai army patrol in southern Thailand's Pattani province on June 19. Six soldiers were killed by the explosion. (Photo by Tuwaedaniya Meringing/AFP)

Yingluck Shinawatra peace initiative

Peace talk proposals were initiated by the government of Yingluck Shinawatra in Feb. 28, 2013. The initiative came across as a big leap of faith by many observers. For the BRN, it was more like a hoax. Yingluck was ousted from power in May 2014 and her peace initiative came to a standstill.

The Thai junta announced in December 2014 that talks with the Patanni Malay rebels with Malaysian facilitation would continue. In August 2015, MARA Patani was introduced to the public at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. Like Yingluck's peace initiative, this one didn't have the endorsement or participation of BRN either.

Thai officials said they were fully aware that members in MARA Patani did not control the insurgents but justified the dialogue with the umbrella organisation by saying they were hopeful the BRN would eventually join in.

Like the Yingluck initiative, the junta had also taken a big leap of faith, hoping that one day, that Malay Muslim residents at the grassroots level would become tired of the violence and end their support for the BRN.

But more than four years after Yingluck launched her peace initiative, there is no indication that such support for BRN has diminished or that the intensity of their attacks will lessen.

The BRN have said they will come to the table only when they are ready, which means proper training and a better understanding of the international norms for members of their political wing.

The militant group said the ball is in Thailand's court and it is up to the generals in Bangkok to decide whether they are willing to internationalize the peace initiative in exchange for getting their representatives to the talk.

But so far, Thailand has not given any indication that it is willing to permit foreign assistance, much less make any concession to the BRN or the Malays of Patani.

"The junta is very worried about their legacy," said one Thai security officer who monitors the situation closely. "They don't want to be remembered as the guy who gave away Patani," added the source, referring to the contested Malay historical homeland that is now part of Thailand's southernmost provinces.

Don Pathan is an independent security analyst based in Thailand. He is also a founding member of Patani Forum, a civil society organization dedicated to promoting critical discussion on the conflict in Thailand's Far South.

Deep South Peace Talks: Car-Jacked?

Commentary by Don Pathan
Yala, Thailand

BenarNews

Roadside blast that killed six Thai soldiers in Pattani, June 19, 2017. AFP

In June, near the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim, the Malaysian mediator of the Southern Thailand peace process, invited the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) to join the negotiations.

It was not the first time that such an invitation had been extended to the BRN, the most powerful insurgent group operating in southern Thailand. But, this time around, Zamzamin had reason to be optimistic.

At stake was the resolution of a 13-year-old armed conflict that has killed nearly 7,000 people in Thailand’s southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – areas that were part of a Malay Muslim sultanate before being annexed by Bangkok in 1909.

Malaysia is facilitating the negotiations between Bangkok and MARA Patani, an umbrella organization of southern insurgent groups.

In response to Zamzamin’s invitation, Doonloh Wae-mano (alias Abdullah Wan Mat Noor), the most senior official of BRN’s governing council, said he and his people “would have to think about it.”

Zamzamin also had assurances from the BRN that it would not sabotage the safety zone initiative, a limited ceasefire being planned in designated areas in Thailand’s three Muslim-majority provinces, collectively known as the Deep South.

This point was discussed during the Aug. 8 to 10 meeting between MARA Patani and Thai negotiators in Kuala Lumpur, sources said.

But on Aug. 16, less than a week after the conclusion of that meeting, seven young militants stole pickup trucks and snatched hostages from a second-hand car dealership in Songkhla province, just north of the Deep South.

Their plan – to convert the vehicles into car bombs – fell apart after four hostages tried to escape. Two hostages were shot, one died in hospital, and the survivors alerted authorities. The entire region went on high alert.

In the end, only two of the seven pickup trucks were used as car bombs, and a suspected militant died after an alleged shootout with Thai police.

Army chief Gen. Chalermchai Sitthisart said the seven militants were directed by Wae-mano – taking a jab at the man believed by many Thai officials to be the biggest obstacle to BRN joining the peace talks.

The carjackings dampened the optimism felt after BRN agreed not to sabotage the safety zone initiative – and served as a reminder that nothing comes easy in Thailand’s Deep South.

The next round of talks are expected this month, but MARA Patani has asked for more time to prepare for the meeting, which had been scheduled for Sept. 11, a Thai government official said.

‘Bad blood’

For their part, BRN sources said the chain of command in their movement is fluid, meaning that deals reached at the top level may not play out on the ground the way that Thai or Malaysian officials want them to.

Moreover, said the sources, there is bad blood between the BRN and MARA Patani, and this will take time to overcome.

“Pohsu Loh [Wae-mano] was being polite and diplomatic when he said BRN would refrain from hitting districts designated as Safety Zones. BRN has cells in just about every tambon [sub-district] and it remains to be seen how this agreement or understanding with Ahmad Zamzamin will play out,” said one BRN source, who added that his unit had not been informed of this particular deal.

BRN officials say Bangkok’s insistence that talks be in line with the country’s constitution, which clearly stipulates that the kingdom is indivisible, has always been a non-starter.

They say they would hypothetically be willing to talk to the government if that stipulation was not raised, and in turn, they would not mention the issue of independence.

BRN officials also say they will only come to the table if their negotiators are properly trained, and the talks are mediated by the international community – in line with peace processes in the southern Philippines and in Aceh, Indonesia.

A Thai military intelligence officer who monitors the Deep South conflict said involving the BRN would be an opportunity to talk to the people who have command-and-control over the militants.

In June, Deputy Defense Minister Udomdej Sitabutr publicly implied that MARA Patani may not be the right dialogue partners. In other words, he doesn’t believe MARA Patani has command-and-control over the insurgents engaged in the fighting.

But Udomdej’s statement was said to have rubbed Gen. Aksara Kerdpol, Thailand’s chief negotiator, the wrong way.

Aksara and many in the Thai government, including Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, believe that if the “real” BRN wants to join the talks, they need to come under MARA Patani’s umbrella, not start a new track.

Tit-for-tat

Even if the Thai military allows the presence of international participants, there is no indication that it would be willing to make concessions touching on the historical root causes and the deep-seated mistrust between the Thai government and the Malays of the Deep South.

BRN also pointed to the Thai government’s refusal to grant legal immunity to two MARA Patani negotiators as a sign of Bangkok’s unwillingness to make concessions.

Sukree Hari and Ahmad Chuwol, who fled Thailand in 2007 after posting bail under the then-military government, resurfaced as MARA Patani members when the panel was launched in August 2015.

The two requested the immunity that would permit them to return to Thailand and observe the safety zone pilot project, one source said. But the Thai Justice Ministry was firmly against it for fear that it would create an unwanted precedent.

Moreover, allegations of extra-judicial killings by both sides continued to dampen the atmosphere at the political level and set off tit-for-tat revenge killings.

Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security analyst and consultant. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.

http://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/far-south-view/car-jack-09052017165442.html

Bold car-bomb plot exposed security failures in South

DON PATHAN
SPECIAL TO THE NATION
Aug 20, 2017

ON THE SURFACE, the incident on August 16 came across as a spectacular operation – seven separatist insurgents swooped on a second-hand car dealer in one of the conflict-affected districts of the far South to steal six vehicles for use as car bombs on the very same day.

Police flats in Mayo district hit by a car bomb, Aug 17, 2017. (Nationphoto)

Needless to say, the incident sent shock waves around the country. And in keeping with the usual knee-jerk reactions of senior Thai security officers, all sorts of off-the-mark statements were issued. Some suggested a “new generation” of fighters had emerged, while others were taken aback by the insurgents’ audacity, calling it a “new” development. First of all, no one doubts the boldness and audacity of the operation. But what was relatively “new” on this occasion was that the insurgents combined hostage taking and car stealing.

Over the past 16 months, there have been four incidents of insurgents stealing vehicles and using them as car bombs the same day. The most recent one was the Big C car bomb in May this year that injured scores of onlookers who paid for their curiosity despite prior warnings in the form of a “smaller bomb” by the insurgents.

In February 2016, seven policemen were injured in a car-bomb attack near the Border Patrol Police base in Pattani’s Tambon Rusamilae. A Honda Jazz was stolen from the same district that day. In August 2016, an ambulance van was stolen from a tambon in Pattani and hours later used as a car bomb at the Southern View Hotel.

And in April 2016, three suspects carjacked a pickup truck, packed it with explosives and forced its owner to drive it into the heart of Yala while holding his wife as hostage. The plan fell apart as the driver abandoned the bomb-laden vehicle and ran for help. The insurgents didn’t go through with the threat and released the wife unharmed.

Deputy Defence Minister Udomdej Sitabutr blamed the August 16 operation on Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), one of the long-standing separatist movement that controls virtually all the combatants on the ground. He added that security lapses in the far South permitted insurgents to carry out attacks against government troops.

Army chief General Chalermchai Sitthisad dubbed the insurgents involved in the August 16 operation as a “new generation” of militants lured by money and under the control of Abdulloh Waemanor, an exiled headmaster of an Islamic boarding school, who Thai authorities believe controls the military wing of the BRN.  But if the Thai military intelligence is to be believed, then all Patani Malay combatants act under Waemanor’s directive. One has to wonder about the merit of his statement.

Thai Army sources said Chalermchai wants to put Waemanor in the spotlight to pressure him to endorse the ongoing peace dialogue between Bangkok and MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation made up of various long-standing Patani Malay separatist movements. Sadly, the military thinks it is only dealing with disgruntled Malays with guns and conveniently overlooks the historical root causes of the conflict.

The insurgents behind the August 16 operation were “new” only because they were not on the blacklist of any of the security agencies in the far South. Authorities quickly learned this reality when they were unable to match the faces of the suspects with anybody in their files.  And so when the top brass in Bangkok demanded some answers about the identity of these young men in black who were driving around in seven stolen vehicles, the officers at the operational level conveniently referred to them as “new faces”.

Although the act of stealing cars and using them as car bombs is not new, the militants’ August 16 operation by itself was a disaster.  Each of the six vehicles stolen from the dealer was driven by one suspect. The first vehicle, a Toyota Vigo, was packed with explosives and set off on Highway 418 in the vicinity of Pattani’s Nong Chik district, targeting a moving military vehicle. Four soldiers from a medical unit suffered minor injuries.

The second vehicle, a Mitsubishi Triton, ran out of petrol and was abandoned in Songkhla’s Thepa district, not far from the original crime scene, while the third pickup truck, an Isuzu Dmax, was abandoned in Pattani’s Tambon Klong Maning.  The fourth vehicle, a Dmax, was abandoned in a rubber plantation in Pattani’s Khok Pho district and the fifth, also an Isuzu Dmax, packed with a home-made bomb, crashed through a security checkpoint. But the vehicle was eventually hunted down and the suspected insurgent killed in a gunfight with the police in Nong Chik.

The sixth vehicle, an Isuzu Cab, was used as a car bomb in an attack on police homes in Pattani’s Mayo district. The seventh vehicle, a Mazda, was also and was left abandoned in Tambon Chanae in Songkhla’s Sabayoi district, with three gallons of petrol inside. It was this vehicle that transported the four from the auto dealer to a nearby wooded area where they were supposed to be executed.

The first victim was shot in the head and later died in hospital. The second survived a shot to the shoulder while the other two wrestled their way out and succeeded in escaping from the gunman.

In the end, only two of the six vehicles were turned into car bombs. The rest were abandoned, possibly because of the quick reaction by the authorities, who had been alerted to the robbery by the escaped hostages. Perhaps the insurgents had aimed too high, hence their failure to pull off more car bomb attacks. Perhaps our top brass were too panicky and tried too hard to sound like they were on top of things.

DON PATHAN is a consultant and member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation dedicated to promoting critical discussion on the insurgency in Thailand’s Malay-speaking South.  

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/politics/30324332

https://asia.nikkei.com/Viewpoints/Don-Pathan/Thailand-eyes-next-moves-in-southern-peace-talks?n_cid=NARAN012

August 17, 2017 12:30 pm JST

Don Pathan

Thailand eyes next moves in southern peace talks

Military leaders and Islamist insurgents must compromise to end violence

Thai army soldiers search the area of a roadside bomb blast in the southern province of Pattani, Thailand, June 19, 2017. © Reuters

Four years on from the launch of peace talks aimed at ending a separatist insurgency in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, progress is moving at a snail's pace. Some critics say that both the Thai government and Islamist militants appear to be going through the motions of a bogus peace process.

Both sides need to find a fresh approach. Divisions among the insurgents need to be overcome, allowing collective negotiations with the Thai government, and the ruling junta needs to stop ignoring the cultural and historical grievances between the population of the South and the Thai state. There must also be justice for innocent civilians killed and injured by both sides.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Viewpoints/Don-Pathan/Thailand-eyes-next-moves-in-southern-peace-talks?n_cid=NARAN012

Three years after coup, peace remains elusive in southern Thailand

Don Pathan
The Nation

EVEN though the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) did not cite the conflict in the far South as one of the reasons for launching a coup three years ago, the generals nevertheless inherited a mess of a challenge as they decided to continue with the peace initiative with the separatists initiated by the previous government.

The then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra kicked off her peace initiative on Feb 28, 2013, one year after her fugitive brother, Thaksin — with the help of his associates and cronies — paved the way for the official launch.

The Thai army was more or less kept in the dark throughout the entire planning and preparation process. The same goes for the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the one long-standing separatist movement that today controls virtually all militants on the ground, which was pretty much caught off-guard when the initiative was officially launched.

Hasan Taib was designated as the “liaison” by Thailand and Malaysia; his job was to convince all other long-standing separatist groups and leaders, especially members of the secretive BRN ruling council, to come to the negotiating table. When it was clear that the BRN wouldn’t budge, Hasan threw in the towel and went incommunicado.

At about the same time, the government in Bangkok went into a tailspin as “Shutdown Bangkok” set the stage for a coup in May 2014.

While the generals did not create the February 2013 peace initiative, they were stuck with this hot potato, and some wanted to scrap it altogether.

In the end, after nearly seven months of deliberation, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha went to Kuala Lumpur to meet his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak and formally request that Kuala Lumpur continue to act as the facilitator for the talks.

Security planners in Bangkok do not see Malaysia as an honest broker but rather as a stakeholder. But that is all the more reason for the Malaysians to be at the table.

Having three stakeholders in the talks with no neutral mediator would prove to be a disastrous endeavour given the historical mistrust among the three parties that still prevails.

The NCPO asked that a new phase of talks be inclusive, meaning all the long-standing separatist groups working under one common platform.

The junta also wanted to be sure that they were talking to the right people, and that participants at the talks could prove they had command-and-control on the ground. Their short-term goal was to reduce violence on the ground.

The problem with the Thai generals was that they were not interested in making concessions or addressing the historical grievances of Patani Malays. Their aim was to get the “real guys” to the table and go from there, they thought.

BRN members said the junta was only concerned with its own legacy and did not want to be seen as the people who “gave away Patani”, so they were not about to give much legitimacy to whoever came to the table.

By August 2016, MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation made up of long-standing separatist groups, was introduced to the public at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. It was billed as a platform for the separatists to make their case. The focus of attention was on a group of young religious teachers who participated under the BRN banner.

But BRN operatives on the ground and abroad insisted these few self-proclaimed “BRN leaders” did not have the mandate of the group’s ruling council. The BRN information department would issue a rare public statement late last year to say that they were not involved in this peace initiative. They issued a similar statement last month to say much the same thing, reiterating that any talk with the Thais must be observed by foreign governments.

Like previous Thai governments, the current junta wanted to treat the dialogue process as a domestic issue as much as possible. With the exception of Malaysia’s involvement, Bangkok will continue to resist any attempt by the international community, such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to assist with facilitation or mediation.

Attempts by OIC to raise the conflict in Thailand’s Malay-speaking South in their forum have been resisted by the current and previous Thai governments. The Foreign Ministry has been quick to send Thai diplomats, along with friendly Thai Muslims, to lobby groups such as the OIC and other Muslim countries.

Over the past three years, the NCPO launched various programmes to win the hearts and minds of the local villagers, the main backers of the BRN militants.

Projects such as “Bring People Back Home”, a half-baked public relations exercise that was billed as an amnesty programme, was carried out but did nothing in terms of changing the course of violence. Mistrust between local Malay Muslims and the Thai state continues unabated.

The junta also pulled out regular army troops from the region and replaced them with locally hired, poorly trained paramilitary Rangers who form part of the military’s security grid in the restive region.

Outsourcing security work to locally hired officials, such as kamnan, village chiefs and defence volunteers is a work in progress. These local officials who fall under the interior ministry have been accused by the army of turning a blind eye to insurgents’ activities. But forcing them to put their lives on the line by going on foot patrols with regular soldiers has not produced the kind of outcome the army has been hoping for.

Former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, in an interview with The Nation, said the junta paid lip service to the long-standing argument that counter-insurgency work is political, not military.

But creating space to enhance state legitimacy in this historically contested region required a high degree of sophistication; the fact that the state agencies responsible for the conflict in the far South keep changing does not help the overall situation, especially when the aim is to enhance the capacity of those agencies.

Moreover, the front line cabinet dealing needs to be broadened so that diverse voices from the region can be represented.

Abhisit said the current inherited peace initiative should not open itself up too fast to the public, not before trust and confidence between negotiating parties can be established.

Last month, the BRN reissued their demand for talks with Bangkok. Similar demands were made in 2013 shortly after the Yingluck initiative was launched. But the idea then was to derail the process, according to sources in the movement. This time around, the intention is to engage in direct talks with the Thais.

Thai soldiers welcomed the move as they had pretty much lost hope with the current dialogue with MARA Patani. They said it would be good to establish a channel of communication with people who can actually control the combatants.

Bangkok did not rule out direct talks in principle but suggested that such a request should go through Malaysia, the designated facilitator.

Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are also concerned that a second track would undermine the existing one, in which both countries have already invested a great deal of resources.

Both countries would rather see the BRN come on board in the existing dialogue. But given the bickering between MARA Patani and the BRN, Thailand and Malaysia might have to wait a very long time before these two Patani Malay movements can patch up their differences.

—The Nation/Thailand

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017
https://www.dawn.com/news/1335018/three-years-after-coup-peace-remains-elusive-in-southern-thailand 

Peace remains elusive in deep South amid local bickering and mistrust

DON PATHAN
SPECIAL TO THE NATION

EVEN THOUGH the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) did not cite the conflict in the far South as one of the reasons for launching a coup three years ago, the generals nevertheless inherited a mess of a challenge as they decided to continue with the peace initiative with the separatists initiated by the previous government.



The then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra kicked off her peace initiative on February 28, 2013, one year after her fugitive brother, Thaksin – with the help of his associates and cronies – paved the way for the official launch.

The Thai army was more or less kept in the dark throughout the entire planning and preparation process. The same goes for the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the one long-standing separatist movement that today controls virtually all militants on the ground, which was pretty much caught off-guard when the initiative was officially launched.

Hasan Taib was designated as the “liaison” by Thailand and Malaysia; his job was to convince all other long-standing separatist groups and leaders, especially members of the secretive BRN ruling council, to come to the negotiating table. When it was clear that the BRN wouldn’t budge, Hasan threw in the towel and went incommunicado.

At about the same time, the government in Bangkok went into a tailspin as “Shutdown Bangkok” set the stage for a coup in May 2014.

While the generals did not create the February 2013 peace initiative, they were stuck with this hot potato, and some wanted to scrap it altogether.

In the end, after nearly seven months of deliberation, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha went to Kuala Lumpur to meet his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak and formally request that Kuala Lumpur continue to act as the facilitator for the talks.

Security planners in Bangkok do not see Malaysia as an honest broker but rather as a stakeholder. But that is all the more reason for the Malaysians to be at the table.

Having three stakeholders in the talks with no neutral mediator would prove to be a disastrous endeavour given the historical mistrust among the three parties that still prevails.

The NCPO asked that a new phase of talks be inclusive, meaning all the long-standing separatist groups working under one common platform. The junta also wanted to be sure that they were talking to the right people, and that participants at the talks could prove they had command-and-control on the ground. Their short-term goal was to reduce violence on the ground.

The problem with the Thai generals was that they were not interested in making concessions or addressing the historical grievances of Patani Malays. Their aim was to get the “real guys” to the table and go from there, they thought.

BRN members said the junta was only concerned with its own legacy and did not want to be seen as the people who “gave away Patani”, so they were not about to give much legitimacy to whoever came to the table.

By August 2016, MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation made up of long-standing separatist groups, was introduced to the public at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. It was billed as a platform for the separatists to make their case. The focus of attention was on a group of young religious teachers who participated under the BRN banner.

But BRN operatives on the ground and abroad insisted these few self-proclaimed “BRN leaders” did not have the mandate of the group’s ruling council. The BRN Information Department would issue a rare public statement late last year to say that they were not involved in this peace initiative. They issued a similar statement last month to say much the same thing, reiterating that any talk with the Thais must be observed by foreign governments.

Like previous Thai governments, the current junta wanted to treat the dialogue process as a domestic issue as much as possible. With the exception of Malaysia’s involvement, Bangkok will continue to resist any attempt by the international community, such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to assist with facilitation or mediation.

Attempts by OIC to raise the conflict in Thailand’s Malay-speaking South in their forum have been resisted by the current and previous Thai governments. The Foreign Ministry has been quick to send Thai diplomats, along with friendly Thai Muslims, to lobby groups such as the OIC and other Muslim countries.

Over the past three years, the NCPO launched various programmes to win the hearts and minds of the local villagers, the main backers of the BRN militants.

Projects such as “Bring People Back Home”, a half-baked public relations exercise that was billed as an amnesty programme, was carried out but did nothing in terms of changing the course of violence. Mistrust between local Malay Muslims and the Thai state continues unabated.

The junta also pulled out regular army troops from the region and replaced them with locally hired, poorly trained paramilitary Rangers who form part of the military’s security grid in the restive region.

Outsourcing security work to locally hired officials, such as kamnan, village chiefs and Defence Volunteers is a work in progress. These local officials who fall under the Ministry of Interior have been accused by the army of turning a blind eye to insurgents’ activities. But forcing them to put their lives on the line by going on foot patrols with regular soldiers has not produced the kind of outcome the army has been hoping for.

Former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, in an interview with The Nation, said the junta paid lip service to the long-standing argument that counter-insurgency work is political, not military.

But creating space to enhance state legitimacy in this historically contested region required a high degree of sophistication; the fact that the state agencies responsible for the conflict in the far South keep changing does not help the overall situation, especially when the aim is to enhance the capacity of those agencies.

Moreover, the frontline Cabinet dealing, which is led by Deputy Defence Minister Udomdej Saithibutr, needs to be broadened so that diverse voices from the region can be represented.

Abhisit said the current inherited peace initiative should not open itself up too fast to the public, not before trust and confidence between negotiating parties can be established.

Last month, the BRN reissued their demand for talks with Bangkok. Similar demands were made in 2013 shortly after the Yingluck initiative was launched. But the idea then was to derail the process, according to sources in the movement. This time around, the intention is to engage in direct talks with the Thais.

Thai soldiers welcomed the move as they had pretty much lost hope with the current dialogue with MARA Patani. They said it would be good to establish a channel of communication with people who can actually control the combatants.

Bangkok did not rule out direct talks in principle but suggested that such a request should go through Malaysia, the designated facilitator. Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are also concerned that a second track would undermine the existing one, in which both countries have already invested a great deal of resources.

Both countries would rather see the BRN come on board in the existing dialogue. But given the bickering between MARA Patani and the BRN, Thailand and Malaysia might have to wait a very long time before these two Patani Malay movements can patch up their differences.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30315994

DON PATHAN is a security analyst and a consultant based in Yala, one of the three conflict-affected southernmost provinces. He is also a member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil |society group dedicated to promoting critical discussion on the insurgency in Malay-speaking South.

Answers to the puzzle of Pattani Big C bombing

Attack on mainly Muslim shoppers may have been launched by rogue BRN militants, even as their handlers’ express willingness to talk peace  

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Pattani

Within hours of Tuesday’s bomb attack at a Big C supermarket in Pattani, Thai security officials were pointing the finger of blame at Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the longstanding separatist movement that controls virtually all the insurgent combatants.


Twenty-four hours later, authorities announced they had identified the four culprits but would not make their names public.

Photos and video were released of the stolen pickup loaded with a homemade bomb as it passed through the store’s security checkpoint.

Tinted windows that disguised the assailants’ faces were lowered just far enough to hand over an identification card, which belonged to the owner of the stolen vehicle, whose body was later found in a village in Pattani.

The security guard apparently didn’t bother to check if the face of the driver matched the photo ID. As at most security checkpoints in Thailand, it was a case of going through the motions and waving the customer through.

The two attackers transporting the bomb made it through with ease. Waiting for them on getaway motorbikes nearby were two accomplices.

Despite the forest of checkpoints and security cameras across this conflict-affected region, where an ongoing insurgency has claimed nearly 7,000 lives since January 2004, insurgents continue to evade detection by security officials and their network of informants.

For the past 13 years, this has been a cat-and-mouse game for the Thai security apparatus. Preventive measures and the security grid have failed to curb hit-and-run attacks against patrols and remote military and police outposts. Soldiers patrolling back roads are sitting ducks for militants manning detonators, with weapons locked and loaded to finish off casualties from the blast.

Many of the soldiers are young and sent to this historically contested region with little understanding of the conflict’s nature. They find themselves up against “ghosts” – no state official really knows who is an active insurgent – but also an entire Patani Malay community that is indifferent to the government’s counter-insurgency operation and wider plan for the region.

The authorities are quick to blame separatists for almost every violent incident. For the local Malays, however, it is clear that pro-government death squads are also part of the picture. When a group of armed men jump out of a pickup and start firing into a teashop full of Muslim villagers, it is difficult to reach any other conclusion.

On the other hand, coordinated and simultaneous attacks, roadside bombings, and ambushes against security units are generally understood to be the work of insurgents. News travels fast in this restive region. Yesterday’s incident is chewed over at breakfast the next morning in village teashops. “Were the victims goats or pigs?” is usually the first question as the men sip tea and eat roti. “Goats” means Malay Muslims while “pigs” refers to Thai Buddhists.

But on Tuesday in Pattani, the “goat and pig” distinction got all mixed up as both Malays and Thai Buddhists lay injured outside Big C waiting to be treated by paramedics.

More than meets the eye

A government spokesman wasted no time in lashing out at separatist militants. But senior officials monitoring the situation closely were scratching their heads over why the BRN would launch an attack against the people they are supposed to be “liberating”. Nothing is being ruled out, including the possibility of an attack by a rogue unit upset with BRN leadership for stating their willingness to negotiate with the Thai state last month.

Evidence from many attacks prior to Tuesday’s bombing suggests insurgents had not been targeting civilians. The raid on a Narathiwat district hospital last year saw 30-plus insurgents evacuate the building of medical staff before using it as a staging ground to assault the Paramilitary Ranger camp next door. Buddhist doctors and nurses even told reporters how polite the insurgents were.

In other incidents, innocent bystanders have been killed by insurgents’ stray bullets, though Thai authorities don’t make a distinction between such accidental killings and murder. In their eagerness to demonise the insurgents, they purposely leave out certain facts. In doing so, they also undermine their own analysis and credibility.

Insurgent sources in the South say they don’t believe anybody in their movement could have carried out Tuesday’s attack, given the fact that most shoppers at the supermarket were Muslims. However, the fluidity of the BRN command-and-control structure means that each cell is given freedom to decide which targets to hit. And given such leeway there is naturally a tendency to escalate the intensity and scale of the violence.

Attack on peace process?

One senior Thai security officer suggests the Big C bombing could be the latest in a wave of attacks avenging the extrajudicial killings of two militant suspects on March 29 by Rangers.

Sources in the BRN said the April attacks were also aimed at discrediting the ongoing peace dialogue between the government and MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation of several longstanding separatist movements.

It’s an open secret that MARA Patani and the BRN are competing to strengthen their constituencies – winning over combatants, as well as civil society organisations and community leaders in the region, to further their cause and agenda.

One advantage that MARA Patani has over others lies in its inclusion in the peace dialogue – the quasi-official track with the Thai state that is being facilitated by Malaysia.

The BRN insisted last month that it was the legitimate dialogue partner for talks with the Thais but that other foreign governments must also be involved as facilitator-observers.

Hope in BRN statement

Needless to say, the BRN statement generated a great deal of interest at all levels of Thai officialdom. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha didn’t shoot the idea down but instead suggested that the BRN talk to the facilitator, Malaysia.

But for Thai soldiers in the far South, the statement was a welcome one.

“It would be great to be able to talk to somebody who has command and control [over the insurgents],” said one Thai army intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

When asked if he thought Bangkok was prepared to make meaningful concessions to the BRN or the Malays in the far South, he replied, “Probably not. But at least it’s an opportunity to go over issues that are within our reach and to exchange ‘pigs’ and ‘cats’,” said the officer, using the Thai expression for horse-trading.

“We can go over things like rules of engagement, and use the meeting to verify which side was responsible for this or that particular incident. After all, there are many competing actors who have no qualms about using violence to get what they want in this region.”

Don Pathan is a security analyst and freelance consultant based in the far South and a member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation promoting critical discussion on the conflict in the far South. 

BRN holds all the weapons – and the keys to peace

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

There was nothing new in the statement delivered by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) on Monday, but that doesn’t mean the message was without merit or impact.

The significance of the statement, said sources in the BRN movement, was the timing. Similar demands were raised back in early 2013 shortly after the Yingluck Shinawatra government kicked off a peace process. But the intention then was to derail the initiative, which BRN members felt had been forced on them.

The BRN said it knew the Yingluck administration and the Thai Army would make no concessions at talks launched in Kuala Lumpur on February 28, 2013. Thus the main separatist organisation refused to join the process.

Today, the BRN is suggesting it is ready to talk with Bangkok but adds that it is not under any pressure to do so.

The April 10 statement highlighted the BRN’s terms for talks, which include the participation of foreign governments, and agreement on the terms of reference for negotiations by the two opposing parties – Thailand and the BRN. At present Bangkok prefers negotiating with MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation of separatist movements that has been talking to the Thai government for the past two years.

The statement was meant to remind Thailand that the BRN is the organisation that calls the shots on the ground, not MARA Patani.

Tension between the two separatist organisations is high but not beyond repair, said BRN sources, who added that MARA Patani is welcome to join BRN-led talks with the Thais “but only as an individual movement, not an umbrella organisation”.

MARA Patani a ‘Thai creation’

BRN members said they see MARA Patani as a “Thai creation”, pointing to the so-called “Track 1.5” forum that started in 2011. Overseen by the late Jeeraporn Bunnang from the King Prajadhipok’s Institute, the forum brought together exiled leaders from the separatist community to explore peaceful resolutions to this conflict. This quiet initiative would evolve over time and resurfaced in August 2015, when it adopted the name of MARA Patani.

One problem with this forum was that the self-proclaimed BRN members in MARA Patani did not have the endorsement or a mandate from the movement’s ruling council, also known as the Dewan Pimpinan Parti.

Publicly, Thai officials insist they are on the right track and talking to the right people. But lately, some in the Bangkok policy circle are quietly admitting that the so-called “right people”, MARA Patani, do not have command and control over the insurgent combatants.

“It’s a vicious cycle. Whatever we agree with MARA Patani in talks, BRN militants move quickly to discredit it,” said a Thai government source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But while BRN fighters waste no time discrediting the current peace initiative, the group said it has shut the door to individual MARA Patani members joining it in future talks.

A senior Thai Army officer who has had dealings with Malay separatist leaders since the 1980s said the BRN is reminding Thailand, Malaysia and MARA Patani that it is the one with control over the insurgent militias.

“The BRN wants to show the separatist community that it is fair and open to other possibilities and suggestions from other separatist movements as long as its people are at the head of the table,” said the officer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

BRN leaders out of their depth?

But if the Thai government does give in to BRN demands for international mediation of talks, BRN leaders, who have strong religious credentials, “will be in over their heads” because of their lack of understanding of international norms and legal principles, the officer added.

“These babors [elders] know Islam’s holy book. But if and when negotiations between them and Thai officials take off, much of the agenda will be very technical, as it will be based on tangible issues and on secular, humanitarian and legal principles,” said the officer.

“I’m not so sure if these ulema [scholarly Muslims] are ready for it. I’m not even sure if Bangkok is prepared to go that route.”

There is also the question of Malaysia’s role as facilitator if foreign governments are permitted to oversee the talks.

Old methods won’t work

Talking to the separatists is nothing new for the Thai Army. Many like to boast of how their “negotiating skills” brought down the communist insurgency and armed Patani Malay separatist movements. Some think they can repeat that success using the same tactics – tangible incentives in exchange for laying down arms.

But such tactics do nothing to address the historical and cultural narrative that provides the legitimacy for the Malays’ armed struggle. BRN sources said Thailand’s claims of success are exaggerated.

They said the armed struggle waged by various separatist movements went under in the late 1980s because their main backers in the Middle East and North Africa were repositioning themselves for a post-Cold War era.

Today, the BRN’s training and financing is self-sufficient and conducted from within the region.

Combatants are no longer camping out on mountaintops or travelling to Libya for training as happened in the 1980s. Instead they are scattered throughout the region, where villagers provide them with logistical support.

Thailand wrongly assumed that the absence of violence during the 1990s meant peace; in reality the period was merely a lull before another storm. As long as the Thai state rides roughshod over the Patani Malay narrative of cultural and historical difference, a new crop of separatist insurgents will always resurface to take up where the previous generation left off.


Don Pathan is a Thailand-based consultant and security analyst. He is also the founding member of Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation dedicated to critical discussion on the conflict and insurgency in Thailand’s far South. 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/guest_columnist/30312244

COMMENTARY: Thai Deep South: BRN Takes Aim at Peace Talks

Don Pathan
BenarNews

Bangkok

A soldier watches as Thai Muslim men offer prayers during a peace gathering at a hospital in the Deep South where suspected separatist militants launched an ambush two days earlier, March 15, 2016. AFP

As if a spike in violence in the Thai Deep South wasn’t enough to rattle the government, the region’s most prominent separatist insurgent group upped the ante this week with a statement dismissing the current peace process and reiterating its demand for negotiating with Bangkok directly.

Rebel group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) reminded the Thais that a meaningful peace process must be in line with international norms, which means an impartial “mediator” should lead the talks.

“Any peace dialogue must be based on the willingness of the two parties involved in the conflict and voluntarily agreed to find a solution,” BRN said in the statement it issued Monday.

Asked to clarify the reference to “two parties,” a BRN operative replied, “the Thai government and the BRN,” not MARA Patani, an umbrella organization of long-standing Patani Malay separatist groups that have been negotiating with the government since 2015 in informal peace talks facilitated by Malaysia.

BRN controls virtually all of the militants on the ground, the operative said, and the group insisted that Bangkok deal directly with them and that the international community observe the process.

Crossing a red line

The statement followed a spike in insurgency-related violence in Thailand’s Muslim-majority provinces along the southern border that came in retaliation for the recent shooting deaths of two ethnic Malay Muslims, which were largely unreported by the national media.

Separatist militants on the ground were determined to let the government know there was a price to pay for crossing the red line.

Suspected separatist insurgents Isma-ae Hama, 28, and Aseng Useng, 30 were shot and killed on March 29 by paramilitary rangers who said they fired in self-defense during a car chase.

The 15-year-old niece of one of the suspects said the two were not armed. The two stepped out of the vehicle, as instructed by the security officials who led them away, while she waited in the vehicle as instructed. Moments later, she heard gunshots.

Later that day, a photograph of the two dead men about 50 meters from their vehicle along a back road in Rueso district, Narathiwat province, was posted on websites. Beside them were an M16 rifle and a 9-mm handgun.

At the end of the day, it’s her word against the authorities. As expected, there was no outpouring of sympathy from the general Thai public outside the Malay-speaking Deep South, especially when police said the two might have been linked to the killing of a Buddhist deputy village chief and three members of his family on March 2.

Historically, Thai people have shown that they can be extremely unkind to people who challenge their narrative.

Patani Malay separatist militants wasted little time in showing their displeasure with what they deemed was the crossing of a red line by the government.

The following day, about five insurgents hopped on back of a pickup truck, drove up to the Narathiwat’s Rangae district police station, and commenced firing at group of officers who were lining up in formation for the start of their day. One officer was killed and five injured.

Four days later, about 30 insurgents stormed a security outpost in the Krong Pinang district of Yala province, injuring at least 12 police officers. And shortly after midnight, April 6, insurgents unleashed dozens of explosions and arson attacks, crippling the power grid and causing widespread blackouts throughout the region.

Deeply rooted in community

Rules of engagement established through negotiated text do not exist between the two warring sides of this conflict. In this respect, how one interprets “violation” or “legitimate killing” has been subjective.

Separatist sources said they could live with the fact that their combatants get killed in a gunfight with government security forces in a normal theater of violence, such as a battlefield or in a setting that constitutes a battle ground. But they will not tolerate targeted killing of suspects.

Although the insurgents justify the targeted killings of people who spy for Thai security agencies, they insist the government cannot use the same rationale and logic to summarily and extra judiciously kill anyone they think is associated with separatist militants.

Just about every Malay Muslim in the Deep South knows somebody in the separatist movement, one senior BRN field operative said.

In this respect, accusing someone of being “associated” with insurgency is the easiest thing to claim and impossible to refute. In other words, if Isma-ae and Aseng could be killed, anybody could be killed.

The BRN network has a strong support base from the grassroots Malay community that provides members with logistical supports and serves as its eyes and ears. Thai officials on the ground know this but are unable to say much because policy-makers in Bangkok dominate the narrative on the Deep South.

As for the combatants and security officials on the ground, the challenge is deciding who constitutes a legitimate target. And without a joint clearing house where both sides could work out a proper rules of engagement, perceived “violations” will inevitably go on.

Don Pathan is a consultant and security analyst based in Thailand. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.

EDITORIAL Army chiefs forever handcuffed in the South

THE NATION

Lt-General Piyawat finds fresh ways to offend as he tries to ‘do his best’ under such restricted circumstances

Every general assigned to command the Fourth Army jurisdiction tries while overseeing day-to-day operations to make the best of the keen media attention directed that way, knowing his time in the contested southern region will last only until he’s promoted to the inner circle in Bangkok, as has proved inevitable in modern times. Bangkok is the prize and any regional command is a temporary posting, a stepping stone to the ultimate goal. Those handed the far South, as troublesome as it can be for the officials in charge, are under little pressure to find a way to end the conflict. The past 13 years suggest that such an accomplishment is an impossible dream anyway.

Instead, each new commander makes a grand show of introducing a fresh strategy that will achieve the impossible. It is human nature, after all, to wish to seem better than one’s predecessor. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, the commanders merely pass along the exact same objective to their successors – to remove as many ethnic Malay insurgents from the field as possible, through kills, capture or coercion. Only the means to complete this mission vary.

Lieutenant General Piyawat Nakwanich, the man in charge since late last year, is no different from his predecessors despite earnest efforts to seem so. His personal touch has been demonstrating the utmost accessibility – when visiting conflict areas, he likes to shout out his phone number and invite any insurgents who might be listening to call him and discuss the terms of their surrender. He guarantees them fair treatment under the law and offers to helicopter into their jungle hideouts to ferry them out. Does it work? A few weeks ago, Piyawat rode a chopper into the middle of field to pick up a young man apparently ready to surrender. But the event was so obviously staged that security officials in Bangkok were shaking their heads in embarrassment.

Another ploy the commander has tried is called “Bring People Back Home”, a campaign that encourages parents (especially dear old mums) to persuade their renegade sons to quit the movement and surrender in exchange for fair treatment. Doing so ensures them that their name will be expunged from a government “black list”, but the local people are all too aware that, once on any of the several varieties of black lists, there’s no getting off.

When one media outlet reported recently that the insurgents are aiming to recruit a million new combatants over the next 15 years, General Piyawat demonstrated arrogance in lieu of professionalism and appalling shallowness in his understanding of the insurrection. He told reporters not to worry, since the deep South 15 years hence will be fully developed, with good roads and high-speed train service. There will no longer be a reason for anyone to take up arms against the state, he said.

Ignoring the insurgents’ fundamental grievance – that the Thai state denies the southern Malay-Muslim majority the basic dignities it is due – Piywat seeks to lecture them and other members of their community that they should swallow their pride, stop biting the hand that feeds them and behave like good citizens. He evidently does not understand why so many young people took up arms in the first place.

To be fair, none of the military men placed in charge of the region has been given a mandate to guide policy based on his own observations, much less set policy. The bloodshed in the South will continue as long as its political, administrative and military management remains centralised. If the situation is ever to improve, the government and Army must give the regional commander far greater authority.

Tragic realities being turned into propaganda in far South

Govt and civic organisations have been quick to condemn separatists over the killing of a family in Narathiwat – but there’s more here than meets the eye  

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

The killing of a family of four Thai Buddhists, including an eight-year-old boy, as they made their way to school along a back road in Narathiwat’s Rueso district earlier this month has generated condemnation from all quarters.

Police gathered scores of rounds from M16 and AK47 machineguns and a 9mm handgun at the scene of the attack, which saw the pickup truck carrying the four victims veer off the road and into trees.

Police have not ruled out a personal dispute as the motive. But given the method of attack, all fingers are pointing to the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the erstwhile separatist movement that controls virtually all the insurgents in the far South.

Unlike other rebel groups around the world, the BRN does not have an identifiable political wing or spokesman to confirm or deny such allegations. But their refusal to surface is mainly due to the fact that the Thai government is not willing to engage them in a frank manner and on an equal footing.

Information about the identity and thinking of the BRN leadership is scarce but operatives say that, as a policy, their combatants are not supposed to attack innocent civilians. However, mistakes have been made and “collateral damage” is sometimes unavoidable, they add.

Rules of engagement

Efforts have been made to get both state forces and separatists to respect rules of engagement outlined in the Geneva Convention. But for the time being, combatants on both sides decide for themselves what constitute legitimate targets, as well as how their operations are carried out.

Like any militant separatist movement, the BRN identifies “legitimate targets” – which include informants who provide information about their activities to state security forces.

The suspected collaborator, though, is supposed to receive at least one warning before militants step in.

In like fashion, members of pro-government death squads or rogue officers target local residents suspected of being close to separatists. Officially, the government does not have a policy on such “target killing”.

In the eyes of state forces and their militant supporters, a cleric like the late Abdulateh Todir from Yala’s Tambon Patae was considered fair game because of his alleged closeness to a local militant cell. He was gunned down in November 2012 in Yala’s Yaha district. But the insurgents didn’t think he was a “fair” target and responded with a series of vicious bombings and ambushes over the next six weeks.

The deliberate targeting of innocent civilians, such as a group of villagers in a crowded teashop, on the other hand, is understood to be part of the tit-for-tat hostilities between the separatists and state security forces.

One high profile example of deliberate targeting of civilians was the February 2014 killings of three Malay Muslim boys, aged 3, 5 and 9, in Narathiwat’s Bacho district by at least two Army Rangers who, at a press conference announcing their capture, insisted they had acted alone and not on the orders of their superiors.

The Rangers’ surrender was said to be part of a concession deal by the government to get the insurgents to end revenge killings that included the murder of three Buddhist women shot at point-blank range and their bodies set on fire. But when the two suspects appeared in court, they retracted their confession and were immediately released on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Tragic mistake

In the early years of this phase of insurgency, which erupted in January 2004, soft targets such as public schools, monks and teachers were attacked – although not very often. A significant number of local residents deemed sympathetic or too close to the insurgents have been killed as well, including Muslim community leaders and Islamic religious teachers.

While it was pretty clear that the boys in Bacho were deliberately targeted, the same cannot be said for the killing of the family in Rueso two weeks ago. The incident prompted all sorts of condemnation and criticism from Thai officials and rights organisations. Unfortunately, most of it lacked perspective.

Despite the long history of tit-for-tat conflict between state forces and the insurgents, unofficial rules of engagement do exist. The agreement is not in writing, but there is nevertheless an understanding between the two sides that there are red lines you do not cross. Failing to respect them will invite bloody, sometimes overwhelming retaliation.

Meanwhile Malay Muslim locals point out that Islam permits Muslims to take up arms against unjust rulers but forbids the militants from decapitating, castrating or otherwise mutilating dead government soldiers.

Such acts are not in line with Islamic principles, local religious leaders argue. Insurgents have responded by ending their practice of defiling dead government soldiers.

Another example of how combatants have heeded locals’ calls for greater “civility” in the conflict concerns the arson attacks on public schools, which propagate Thailand’s state-construct identity and narrative.

In 2007, a total of 164 schools in the far South came under arson attack. That number dropped to 14 the following year after criticism from local residents and clerics. The Thai government was of course quick to credit their security measures for the drop, deliberately ignoring the wider perspective.

Meanwhile the government dismisses any suggestion that its military sanctions the use of death squads, though locals say it’s hard to think otherwise when they witness armed hooded men jump off a pickup truck and mow down a teashop full of Muslim villagers with machineguns.

More than 6,800 people, mostly Malay Muslims, have died in insurgency-related violence in the Malay-speaking southernmost provinces since January 2004.

For public consumption, Thai authorities blame practically every violent incident on the separatists. But they have not succeeded in influencing the narrative that drives the insurgents and legitimises the armed struggle in the eyes of many ordinary residents.

And the more the authorities blur the line between what constitutes collateral damage and intentional killings, the wider the trust gap between the authorities and the local Malay Muslim population.

Separatist sources say they are disturbed that civil society organisations and community leaders are often quick to take the government’s line before looking at the facts available.

A BRN operative points out that mistakes have been made by the insurgents, but mistakes are not the same as intention. The BRN says collateral damage has been part of its internal debate for a very long time. But too often, militants in the field feel they cannot retreat for fear of retaliation or hot pursuit.

Another built-in protection measure is the requirement that the hitman or hitmen must not come from the local militant cell, to reduce the possibility of facial recognition. With these kinds of restraints, tragic mistakes are bound to occur, BRN members say.

Don Pathan is a security consultant and member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation based in Thailand’s conflict affected far South. The group is dedicated to critical discussion on the nature of the conflict in the historically contested region.

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Thai Deep South: ‘Bring People Home,’ a PR Exercise or Effective Tool Against Insurgency?

Commentary by Don Pathan
Yala, Thailand

March 1, 2017

AddThai army Lt. Gen. Piyawat Nakwanich takes alleged insurgent Ahama Duere toward an awaiting military helicopter in Yala province, Feb. 24, 2017. Photo: Courtesy of ISOC4

Surrounded by reporters and television crews, the senior-most military commander tasked with quelling the insurgency in Thailand’s Deep South flew in on his helicopter last week to meet a rebel who, after eight years of on the run, decided to surrender in exchange for leniency from the law.

For a suspect with at least four warrants out for his arrest, Ahama Duere was calm and collected when he met Lt. Gen. Piyawat Nakwanit. Piyawat’s subordinates and press crews treated Ahama kindly and smiled as they walked with him to an awaiting helicopter.

Ahama was not handcuffed. As far as anyone knew, he could have been any of the reporters accompanying the commander of the Fourth Army Area on a field trip.

The targeted audiences were insurgents contemplating whether to give up their armed struggle and surrender and, of course, their parents whom local authorities have urged to talk their sons into turning themselves in through the “Bring People Home Project.”

Separatism as an ideology among the Malay population in the historically contested Deep South runs deep, thus making virtually all Malay Muslim men here suspects or sympathizers in the eyes of authorities.

Often, roadside bombs targeting military and police patrols are buried within the eyesight of residents. This speaks volumes about the relationship between the villagers and the combatants.

Nevertheless, the Thai government calls the project a success but offers no meaningful justification to support that claim. Every now and then, authorities put together a boot-stomping public ceremony where former combatants and authorities get together in a show of force and unity with hugs and handshakes in front of the media and villagers.

But in remote villages, insurgents keep operating freely mainly because villagers continue to support them. They take turns making food for insurgents and sometimes providing them with shelter if their unit has been moved from another area for whatever reason.

Improved government intelligence over the years meant cell members had to relocate, even to another province. Sometimes this meant moving far from their families and loved ones. Such a move has brought hardship for many, as Ahama claimed.

The decision to quit a combatant’s life and return to civilian life is not a difficult one, but requires taking a chance with Thai authorities. Such a decision does not constitute desertion as long as the cell leaders and the individual wanting to leave reach an understanding followed by an oath that they would not reveal the identity of their fellow comrades who are still active.

Possible retaliation

Violating this oath could lead to deadly retaliation.

For the Thai side, the challenge is to strike a balance between cashing in on the publicity around an insurgent’s surrender and squeezing him for more intelligence. For those insurgents who turn themselves in, the aim is not to provide too much, at least not to the point that it could come back and haunt them.

Active combatants, on the other hand, are indifferent to the public relations exercise behind the Bring People Home Project, saying they are fully aware that the Thais are controlling the narrative.

What matters to them is that they continue to capture the imagination and trust of the local Malay Muslim residents whose grievances and mistrust of the Thai state provided them with the legitimacy to carry on with their struggle for a separate homeland.

How the narrative of the conflict evolves will depend on the main rebel group, Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), which controls virtually all of the combatants on the ground.

For the time being, combatants said they do not consider the go-between – be it government officials or local civil society organizations working for security forces to persuade the insurgents to surrender – a target or a threat to the movement.

Somebody's blacklist

Locals here think everybody is on somebody’s blacklist, rendering it somewhat meaningless. But from the perspective of a parent, it is an opportunity to remove his or her son from such a list that could very well mean death. Nearly 7,000 have been killed, mostly ethnic Malays, from insurgency-related violence since January 2004.

Moreover, BRN cadres said they are not too worried about combatants wanting to quit because the movement does not need that many people, not at this stage of the struggle anyway. In this kind of “unconventional warfare,” what matters is that the movement can demonstrate that it can still be a threat to the state security apparatus.

Keen observers of the conflict and local Malay Muslim residents of this region don’t buy the official line. So this begs the question: what is the purpose of this ongoing public relations offensive?

Senior policy makers said the idea behind Bring People Home and the so-called peace dialogue with MARA Patani – an umbrella organization of long-standing separatist groups who no longer control combatants on the ground – is all part of a long-term strategy that rests on the hope that villagers will become tired of the violence and turn their backs on the BRN and their combatants.

Like other peace initiatives, the strategy is more like a big leap of faith. Few policy planners take the time to look back into history and ask what went wrong in the relationship between the state and its Malay minority and why, nearly half a century after the region came under direct rule of the state, an armed insurgency erupted and shattered the comfort level between the two sides.

Translations:

http://www.benarnews.org/thai/commentary/TH-bring-home-03012017181211.html (Thai)

http://www.benarnews.org/malay/komentar/my-don-brn-170303-03032017121642.html (Malay)

Don Pathan is a consultant and security analyst based in Thailand. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.