Artef Sohko
Special to The Nation
The attack last Friday against Buddhist monks at a temple in Sungai Padi district in Narathiwat province, which resulted in two deaths and two injuries, should be condemned in the strongest terms.
The three southern border provinces are together known locally as Patani, the historical homeland of the Malay people, whose feel their history, identity and narrative have been hijacked by the Thai state. Local activists and civil society organisations (CSOs) tend to believe the latest spike in violence is due to three factors: * The alleged torture of Muslim detainees in Thai military camps around the region.
Relentless pressure from Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur on the leaders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the only Patani secessionist group with control of the armed militants, to meet General Udomchai Thamsarorat, recently appointed to lead peace negotiations.
The gangland-style murders of three imams in the past recent months, killings that received little attention from the general Thai public and media and no acknowledgment from the government.
Dozens of southerners have been summoned for questioning by security officials, while others endure constant harassment. Silence from the state and the public reflects the indifference of Thai society towards the plight of the Malays of Patani, the Melayu.
The indifference stems from the fact that the Melayu view differs from that of the wider Thai society regarding the history that brought their region to such a sorry state today. According to various reports and academic research, the BRN is an organisation run by a secretive ruling council of elders with strong religious credentials.
The council is referred to as the Dewan Pimpinan Parti (DPP). From the DPP elders to the individual cells of combatants at the village level, every command is passed down in secrecy on a need-to-know basis, a structure of confidentiality deemed crucial to the movement’s survival and that of its members.
The politicians in Bangkok refuse to acknowledge the political nature of the southern conflict, fearing the legitimacy that would lend to the BRN and other secessionist groups. They refuse to even use the name of the group that has long been involved in peace talks, the umbrella organisation MARA Patani, referring to it instead as “Party B”, again to deny it legitimacy.
The group I chair – The Patani, a political-action group that promotes rights to self-determination in the Malay homeland – strives to maintain a semblance of civility in the conflict, but it’s an ongoing challenge.
In our view, both warring sides need to understand and appreciate international humanitarian norms and principles. Besides enhancing their respective status as state and non-state actors, these principles will help give southerners some degree of certainty until a political solution can be achieved.
Both sides need to know there is no military solution to this conflict and the only way to move forward is through negotiation. The Thai side has consistently painted the BRN as unreasonable, spurning talks and understanding only violence. But the government must be asked what concessions it is willing to make to get the BRN to the table so talks can begin. Thai authorities have shown little interest in giving the people of Patani, much less the BRN, the respect, and dignity to which they have a right.
And when the state employs violence, it is only natural that retaliation will follow. While it would be unrealistic to expect the BRN to disarm at this juncture, it is not unreasonable to demand that both it and the Thai military respect certain rules of engagement and international humanitarian law. If the two sides are going to keep fighting, they should at least embrace some degree of civility. A political solution will require the government to recognize the political nature of the conflict rather than casting it as a crime wave requiring harsh repression.
For too long the government has peered at the insurgents through the narrow lens of security and decided the only way forward is to hunt them down and kill them. If it adopted a non-military approach, it would have worked towards a political solution. A meaningful start to this would be appointing a ministerial-level, non-military agency to handle the peace process. The Army has amply demonstrated its inability to develop a policy regarding minority populations.
Moreover, the state should allow more space for debate about the fate of Patani as a region, even if some of the debate centred on contentious issues such as rights to self-determination and independence. Allowing people to talk about independence is not the same thing as granting them independence. We as Muslims are told that all human beings are created equal.
Yet in the situation confronting the Patani Malays, this doesn’t hold true. We are not equal in each other’s eyes, as demonstrated by the outpouring of sympathy for the murdered monks while the killing of the imams went almost unnoticed.
Until we come to an understanding that all lives matter, that the lives of Melayu are just as precious as those of Buddhists, justice in the truest sense of the word is still a long way off.
Artef Sohko is chair of The Patani, a political-action group that promotes the right to self-determination in the Malays’ historical homeland that today constitutes the southern border provinces.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30362759
DON PATHAN Senior Program Officer for Regional Security Cooperation at The Asia Foundation
Wednesday 23 January 2019
Tuesday 22 January 2019
Slaying of Buddhist Monks in Thai Deep South Jolts Nation
https://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/far-south-view/monk-deaths-01222019163803.html
Commentary by Don Pathan
BenarNews
Yala, Thailand
This past Friday, suspected separatist insurgents gunned down two monks – an abbot and vice-abbot – and wounded two other clerics during an attack on a Buddhist temple in Sungai Padi, a district of southern Thailand’s Narathiwat province.
The shooting was the first killing targeting the Buddhist clergy in the southern border region in five years.
The slain abbot, Prakru Prachote Rattananurak, was said to have had close working relations with local residents from both the Buddhist and Muslim communities. They praised his positive outlook on life, no matter how bleak the situation got in the historically contested and predominantly Islamic Thai Deep South.
Human rights organizations were quick to condemn the shootings, as did Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who ordered a manhunt for the killers and urged people not to lose faith in the military government’s efforts to end the conflict in the southern border region.
And, in a statement released Monday, Prayuth accused the insurgents of trying to provoke a nasty retaliation from the government’s security forces aimed at attracting international intervention.
After visiting the temple where the monks were killed, Thailand’s Army chief, Gen. Apirat Kongsompong told reporters that he planned to ask soldiers to volunteer to become ordained as monks in temples across the Far South to make locals feel safer. He didn’t say whether the undercover soldiers would carry weapons.
Insurgents targeted the monks in last week’s shooting to retaliate for the slayings in recent months of three Muslim clerics in the Deep South, and to reject pressure put on leaders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebel group to join Malaysia-brokered peace talks, sources familiar with the organization said.
BRN is a long-standing armed separatist group that controls virtually all insurgent forces in Thailand’s southernmost provinces.
According to the sources, top BRN leaders went into hiding because they grew tired of the relentless and nagging pressure on them to meet with Thailand’s negotiators in the talks.
What remains unclear is whether Friday’s killings represented a one-off incident or whether it marked a return to a period more than a decade ago, when insurgents regularly targeted Buddhist temples and monks as a way to humiliate the government’s security apparatus in the south.
Past attacks
In 2006-07, the region was gripped by a spate of arson attacks that targeted more than 100 public schools, and during which the bodies of dead soldiers were mutilated or decapitated. All that stopped after local Muslim leaders and activists spoke out and told the insurgents that the brutality only undermined their political objective.
Since then, there has been an understanding between the two warring sides, a sort of unwritten ground rule that no children and no religious figures, monks and imams should be harmed. However, there have been violations, which have usually fanned more violence.
On Jan. 11, Doloh Sarai, the last of the three imams to be slain in recent attacks, was shot dead by gunmen as he rode his motorbike in Narathiwat’s Ruesoh district.
The attack, in which the assailants used military-grade weapons, took place about 200 meters (656 feet) from an army checkpoint. Locals and separatist sources said a government or pro-government death squad was behind the killing.
There were little or no condolences from the country’s national leaders following the deaths of the three Muslim leaders, and investigations into their killings didn’t seem to be going anywhere, said a local Muslim activist, Suhaimee Dulasa.
“Peace will prevail when there is an understanding that all human lives are precious, regardless of who the victims may be,” said Suhaimee, a senior member of The Patani, a political action group that promotes the right to self-determination for the people of this restive region.
The last time a Thai Buddhist monk was killed in an insurgency-related incident was July 2015 in Sai Buri, a district of Pattani province, when an IED hidden in a trash can went off. The apparent target was a group of patrolling soldiers, not the monk.
In February 2014, in Pattani’s Mae Lan district, insurgents dressed in military fatigues opened fire on residents who were giving alms to monks. Four people, including a monk and a young boy, died in the attack.
It came days after three boys under age 10 were slain at their home in Narathiwat’s Bacho district. Two paramilitary rangers confessed to killing the boys – apparently to get a spate of retaliatory attacks to stop – but retracted their confession when the case went to court months later.
In November 2012, a member of the Islamic Committee of Yala province, imam Abdullateh Todir, was shot dead in Yaha district.
His killing ignited a six-week long spike of violence and a refusal by the Muslim leaders in the region to endorse a peace initiative by then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government that was officially launched in Kuala Lumpur in February 2013.
In May 2011, a roadside bomb killed, set off by insurgents who lay in wait from a nearby tree line, killed two monks in Yaha district. The attack fell on Visaka Bucha, the most important day on the Buddhist calendar.
Afterward Thai national media went crazy for days, concluding that the attack was a deliberate attempt to drive a bigger wedge between Buddhists and Muslims. But investigators said there was no line of vision and the perpetrators could not have seen the monks sitting inside a taxi.
‘Now it’s time to back off’
The killing of the monks on Friday came amid a spike since last November in violence by the insurgents. According to conversations with sources on both side of the conflict, the rebels were sending a message to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur to stop pressuring their leaders to come to the negotiating table.
The shooting death of the three imams over the past recent months was also a factor because it violated the aforementioned unwritten ground rule, the sources said.
The spike in violence in this restive region has come at a time when the current crop of the junta is about to announce the date for the next general election.
There isn’t much for Gen. Prayuth to show for in terms of a legacy for his counterinsurgency in the Deep South. A simple face-to-face meeting between Thai representatives and BRN leaders at this juncture would be considered a major breakthrough, and perhaps good enough for Prayuth to claim progress.
Prayuth recently replaced his chief negotiator for three years with another retired army general, Udomchai Thamsarorat, who appeared to be reaching out to members of the international community for advice – but not meditation – on how to advance the talks.
Other than that, Bangkok doesn’t appear to want to make any meaningful concessions to the BRN, who have already said they were not interested in negotiating with the Thais at this time.
And if and when they do decide to come to the table, according to the BRN’s demands, the peace process must be in line with international best practices – which means mediation by members of the international community.
The Friday killings of the monks jolted the entire nation, including representatives from local Malay civil society organizations (CSO) who have been quietly trying to convince the insurgents to respect humanitarian principles and international norms.
“They have made their point, and now it’s time to back off a little,” said one CSO member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Bringing in some degree of civility has been a very difficult challenge. A significant number of militants on the ground still see these humanitarian principles, such as International Humanitarian Law and rules of engagement, as foreign ideas that not only tie their hands in a fight where the playing field is already against them,” the source said.
Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security and development consultant for international organizations. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.
https://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/far-south-view/monk-deaths-01222019163803.html
Commentary by Don Pathan
BenarNews
Yala, Thailand
This past Friday, suspected separatist insurgents gunned down two monks – an abbot and vice-abbot – and wounded two other clerics during an attack on a Buddhist temple in Sungai Padi, a district of southern Thailand’s Narathiwat province.
The shooting was the first killing targeting the Buddhist clergy in the southern border region in five years.
The slain abbot, Prakru Prachote Rattananurak, was said to have had close working relations with local residents from both the Buddhist and Muslim communities. They praised his positive outlook on life, no matter how bleak the situation got in the historically contested and predominantly Islamic Thai Deep South.
Human rights organizations were quick to condemn the shootings, as did Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who ordered a manhunt for the killers and urged people not to lose faith in the military government’s efforts to end the conflict in the southern border region.
And, in a statement released Monday, Prayuth accused the insurgents of trying to provoke a nasty retaliation from the government’s security forces aimed at attracting international intervention.
After visiting the temple where the monks were killed, Thailand’s Army chief, Gen. Apirat Kongsompong told reporters that he planned to ask soldiers to volunteer to become ordained as monks in temples across the Far South to make locals feel safer. He didn’t say whether the undercover soldiers would carry weapons.
Insurgents targeted the monks in last week’s shooting to retaliate for the slayings in recent months of three Muslim clerics in the Deep South, and to reject pressure put on leaders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebel group to join Malaysia-brokered peace talks, sources familiar with the organization said.
BRN is a long-standing armed separatist group that controls virtually all insurgent forces in Thailand’s southernmost provinces.
According to the sources, top BRN leaders went into hiding because they grew tired of the relentless and nagging pressure on them to meet with Thailand’s negotiators in the talks.
What remains unclear is whether Friday’s killings represented a one-off incident or whether it marked a return to a period more than a decade ago, when insurgents regularly targeted Buddhist temples and monks as a way to humiliate the government’s security apparatus in the south.
Past attacks
In 2006-07, the region was gripped by a spate of arson attacks that targeted more than 100 public schools, and during which the bodies of dead soldiers were mutilated or decapitated. All that stopped after local Muslim leaders and activists spoke out and told the insurgents that the brutality only undermined their political objective.
Since then, there has been an understanding between the two warring sides, a sort of unwritten ground rule that no children and no religious figures, monks and imams should be harmed. However, there have been violations, which have usually fanned more violence.
On Jan. 11, Doloh Sarai, the last of the three imams to be slain in recent attacks, was shot dead by gunmen as he rode his motorbike in Narathiwat’s Ruesoh district.
The attack, in which the assailants used military-grade weapons, took place about 200 meters (656 feet) from an army checkpoint. Locals and separatist sources said a government or pro-government death squad was behind the killing.
There were little or no condolences from the country’s national leaders following the deaths of the three Muslim leaders, and investigations into their killings didn’t seem to be going anywhere, said a local Muslim activist, Suhaimee Dulasa.
“Peace will prevail when there is an understanding that all human lives are precious, regardless of who the victims may be,” said Suhaimee, a senior member of The Patani, a political action group that promotes the right to self-determination for the people of this restive region.
The last time a Thai Buddhist monk was killed in an insurgency-related incident was July 2015 in Sai Buri, a district of Pattani province, when an IED hidden in a trash can went off. The apparent target was a group of patrolling soldiers, not the monk.
In February 2014, in Pattani’s Mae Lan district, insurgents dressed in military fatigues opened fire on residents who were giving alms to monks. Four people, including a monk and a young boy, died in the attack.
It came days after three boys under age 10 were slain at their home in Narathiwat’s Bacho district. Two paramilitary rangers confessed to killing the boys – apparently to get a spate of retaliatory attacks to stop – but retracted their confession when the case went to court months later.
In November 2012, a member of the Islamic Committee of Yala province, imam Abdullateh Todir, was shot dead in Yaha district.
His killing ignited a six-week long spike of violence and a refusal by the Muslim leaders in the region to endorse a peace initiative by then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government that was officially launched in Kuala Lumpur in February 2013.
In May 2011, a roadside bomb killed, set off by insurgents who lay in wait from a nearby tree line, killed two monks in Yaha district. The attack fell on Visaka Bucha, the most important day on the Buddhist calendar.
Afterward Thai national media went crazy for days, concluding that the attack was a deliberate attempt to drive a bigger wedge between Buddhists and Muslims. But investigators said there was no line of vision and the perpetrators could not have seen the monks sitting inside a taxi.
‘Now it’s time to back off’
The killing of the monks on Friday came amid a spike since last November in violence by the insurgents. According to conversations with sources on both side of the conflict, the rebels were sending a message to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur to stop pressuring their leaders to come to the negotiating table.
The shooting death of the three imams over the past recent months was also a factor because it violated the aforementioned unwritten ground rule, the sources said.
The spike in violence in this restive region has come at a time when the current crop of the junta is about to announce the date for the next general election.
There isn’t much for Gen. Prayuth to show for in terms of a legacy for his counterinsurgency in the Deep South. A simple face-to-face meeting between Thai representatives and BRN leaders at this juncture would be considered a major breakthrough, and perhaps good enough for Prayuth to claim progress.
Prayuth recently replaced his chief negotiator for three years with another retired army general, Udomchai Thamsarorat, who appeared to be reaching out to members of the international community for advice – but not meditation – on how to advance the talks.
Other than that, Bangkok doesn’t appear to want to make any meaningful concessions to the BRN, who have already said they were not interested in negotiating with the Thais at this time.
And if and when they do decide to come to the table, according to the BRN’s demands, the peace process must be in line with international best practices – which means mediation by members of the international community.
The Friday killings of the monks jolted the entire nation, including representatives from local Malay civil society organizations (CSO) who have been quietly trying to convince the insurgents to respect humanitarian principles and international norms.
“They have made their point, and now it’s time to back off a little,” said one CSO member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Bringing in some degree of civility has been a very difficult challenge. A significant number of militants on the ground still see these humanitarian principles, such as International Humanitarian Law and rules of engagement, as foreign ideas that not only tie their hands in a fight where the playing field is already against them,” the source said.
Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security and development consultant for international organizations. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of BenarNews.
https://www.benarnews.org/english/commentaries/far-south-view/monk-deaths-01222019163803.html
Strong-handed approach not working in the South
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| Photo: CHAROON THONGNUAL |
DON PATHAN
SPECIAL TO THE NATION
IN AN attempt to calm fears about the security situation in the deep South, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha issued a statement yesterday urging the public not to lose faith in his government’s efforts to bring an end to the conflict in this historically contested region.
The people behind the deadly attack on a temple in Narathiwat province last week wanted to provoke the forces into launching a forceful crackdown and in the process draw international attention to the situation in the South, Prayut said.
“Those who were behind the attack in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district on January 19 intended to destroy the morale, spirit as well as the patience of Thailand in using peaceful methods to solve the ongoing conflict and violence in the South,” he said in the statement. His security tsar, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, urged security officials on the ground to exercise utmost restraint, to desist from any revenge motives, and to take recourse to the country’s justice system.
Analysts said there was nothing new in the government’s reaction. Prayut sounded very much like a broken record when he accused the separatist militants of trying to provoke a nasty retaliation by the security forces, of killing monks in order to discredit Thailand’s “peaceful approach” to the conflict, and of using violence to attract international attention.
Judging from the tone and content of his statement, it is clear that Prayut is worried about his legacy. He has been in power since the military coup in May 2014 and there is hardly anything that he and his government can point to in terms of success or progress in the deep South.
The government spent the past three years barking up the wrong tree, talking to MARA Patani – which has no control over the insurgents on the ground – about a quirky Safety Zone Project. Thai negotiators were led to believe by the previous Malaysian government – the official facilitator of the talks with MARA Patani – that a breakthrough was around the corner and that the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) would come to the table for face-to-face talks with the Thai negotiator, respect the Safety Zone and observe the ceasefire.
None of that was true. When a new government came to power in May last year in Kuala Lumpur, led by veteran Mahathir Mohamad, it adopted an all-or-nothing approach with the BRN leaders – come to the table to negotiate with the Thais or face unspecified consequences.
The BRN leaders decided to go into hiding, sources said. The problem with this strong-handed approach was that the BRN leaders and its political wing did not have a chance to prepare for the peace process, they said. The authorities in Bangkok knew that the peace process was uncharted territory for BRN leaders. They did not want the international community to work with the movement to prepare them for possible talks. Today, that zero-sum game approach is returning to haunt the authorities. Peace negotiations may be a no-go area for the BRN, but it does not mean that they will not come to the table someday. But the process, which can lead to that day, is yet to start.
The ongoing pressure on these leaders, coupled with the killings of imams in recent months, as well as allegations of torture in detention centres, have resulted in nasty retaliation from the militants on the ground. Prayut should have thought about his legacy four years ago when he decided to continue with the peace initiative that was started by the government he ousted. Pressuring the BRN leaders to come to the table so that Bangkok can claim some sort of a breakthrough will only invite more retaliation on the ground. Moreover, his defence planners should have seen the writing on the wall after the targeted killings of three imams in recent months. There is an unwritten rule that Muslim and Buddhist religious leaders and children should be free from harm.
The past decade, unfortunately, has seen bloody retaliations whenever this ground rule has been violated. The BRN militants look at their leaders as spiritual figures. And when these “spiritual leaders” get targeted, they stoop to a no-holds-barred approach. The past 15 years is a testimony of this sad reality.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30362692
EDITORIAL
Eye for an eye: Why clerics are dying again in the South
The Nation
January 22, 2019
Both sides in the unrest are aware of an unwritten rule – leave the holy men alone or pay a high price
Insurgency violence in the southern border provinces looks to be entering another disturbing phase, matching the level of mayhem witnessed 10 years ago with attacks on Buddhist monks and temples.
The strategy appears the same – discredit the state security apparatus put in place to quell the separatist uprising. Friday’s attack in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district left two monks dead and two others wounded, ensuring a jolt to the nation. Buddhists and Muslims alike are repelled by such attacks on defenceless targets in sanctified places.
There was room for doubt the last time a monk was murdered in the South, in 2015. It was argued that the bomb hidden in a roadside trash bin in Pattani was intended to kill or maim patrolling troops, not a passing holy man. This time there can be no doubt about the intent.
In February 2014 a monk was shot dead along with three laymen, one a youngster, at an alms-giving rite in Pattani’s Mae Lan district. Insurgents dressed in military fatigues opened fire on the crowd in retaliation for the killing days earlier of three little boys in Bacho district by a pair of paramilitary rangers. Only the monks’ own security detail prevented more deaths at the scene.
The revenge killings stopped after the two rangers admitted to killing the youths – confessions withdrawn months later when the case went to court. The rangers, both Muslims, insisted they acted alone, but there were reports of a Buddhist military officer also being present in what was described as an attempt to wipe out an entire family.
The slain boys’ father and four-months-pregnant mother were shot but survived. It was claimed that the presence of the third party was kept secret because the authorities wanted to dismiss the killings as part of a feud among Muslims. Charting the violence in the deep South in a bid to understand its causes and find solutions is of course exceedingly difficult.
Hampering efforts is the fact that the separatist movement has no identifiable spokesperson able to issue confirmations or denials. One clear trend in recent years, though, is that civility disappears whenever there is a perceived violation of the unwritten ground rule that religious figures must be left unharmed. When one side breaches that rule, the other side will respond with extreme force.
In the past two months, three imams – Muslim religious teachers – have been shot dead gangland-style and many more have been detained, interrogated and otherwise harassed.
There have been reports of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur harassing people with strong religious credentials to help get peace negotiations rolling.
The pressure applied to bring forward leaders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) has had the opposite effect – driving them deeper underground. The attack on the monks in Sungai Padi last Friday must be condemned in the strongest possible terms as an attack on the very fabric of local society.
It’s possible that the abbot, Prakru Prachote Rattananurak, was targeted – despite the enormous respect he commands among both Muslims and Buddhists – simply to test southerners’ resilience.
The government spent three years talking about establishing “safety zones” free of violence and conducive to peacemaking, only to jettison the idea recently when a new chief negotiator arrived on the scene. This is what ratcheted up the pressure to find the BRN. The murder and harassment of Muslim clerics cannot continue with impunity and without repercussions. We will all continue paying a high price for violations of the rules.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30362681
Thursday 10 January 2019
Insurgency flare-up signals Bangkok still on wrong track
Don Pathan
Special to The Nation
(www.nationmultimedia.com)
Treating insurgents as criminals only pour fuel on a conflict underpinned by historical grievances
This past Tuesday, a group of separatist militants killed a retired schoolteacher in Songkhla, stole his pickup truck and used it for a car-bomb attack on a military target. Investigating officers found him hanging from his neck in the bathroom of his home in Saba Yoi district. Separately, just before the New Year, on December 28, a group of separatist militants entered a community hospital in Rangae district of Narathiwat to use it either as a launching pad to attack the Army unit next door or to take cover from return fire.
As expected, the incidents triggered another round of debate about civility and rules of engagement in a 15-year-old conflict that still has no end in sight. Local Malay villagers sympathetic to the insurgents’ struggle (though not necessarily in agreement with their tactics) said the militants were merely dodging gunfire from a Thai Army unit that shares the same fence as the Rangae community hospital.
Thai officials, meanwhile, predictably seized on the incident for public relations gain. A small public protest was organised, and the separatist militants accused of using hospital staff and patients as a human shield.
Sending a message One senior Thai Army officer in Narathiwat offered a different reading: the insurgents knowingly entered the hospital, but not to use its occupants as a shield. “I think they wanted to make couple points,” said the officer, who spent much of the past decade in the far South.
“First, they wanted to see what kind of reaction this would generate from the Thai side. And second, they wanted to highlight the fact that the community hospital and the Army unit share the same fence.” The positioning of security units in and around civilian facilities such as schools, hospitals and places of worship has long been a sore point between locals and the military.
Local Thai Buddhists want the military around, but not so close that they risk getting caught up in the crossfire. Patani Malays, on the other hand, see the presence of the soldiers as intimidation, made worse by a culture of impunity within the ranks. For many, the presence of government troops is a constant reminder that the historical homeland of the local Malays is now occupied territory. International norms prohibit military bases being located amid civilian communities, much less next to sensitive landmarks such as places of worship, schools, and medical facilities.
In March 2016, Narathiwat’s Cho Ai Rong district was rocked when some 30 militants seized a hospital and used it as a base to attack the paramilitary outpost next door. An unusually high number of militants were mobilised resulting in an especially lengthy battle which saw bullets flying back and forth for about 30 minutes. Nobody was killed since this was not the aim of the attack.
The idea, it seems, was to put on a “performance” via the scores of security cameras placed in and around the medical facility. Insurgency is largely a communicative action, and in Cho Ai Rong the message of the militants’ capability was loud and clear. The militants thought that by first making efforts to place hospital and staff out of harm’s way, they could legitimately use the hospital to launch the attack. But the loudest condemnation came afterward from the local Muslim villagers, who accused the insurgents of recklessly placing them in the line of fire.
Thai authorities often exploit attacks such as this for publicity. But at the same time, they know well that such incidents can place an unwanted spotlight on their conduct in this historically contested region. It’s natural for locals to question why a military unit, however small, has to be situated right by a community hospital.‘Bandits, not guerrillas’ In an effort to deny the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) movement the recognition and legitimacy that it craves, Thai authorities continue to classify the southern violence as “disturbances” rather than armed conflict. In the view of many Thai policymakers, these Patani Malay insurgents are nothing but a bunch of criminals.
But BRN cadres insist they are more than just “jone” (bandits) – the term that Thai authorities like to apply to the outfit that controls virtually all the combatants in the Malay-speaking South.
The militants operate with loose guidance but no strict code of conduct for their attacks. Decisions on what to target and how to carry out attacks are made at the cell level by operatives who don’t always think about rules of engagement, international norms or humanitarian principles. Recent attacks are part of an ongoing spike in violence including a bombing spree from December 26-29 that began with the destruction of an iconic mermaid sculpture on a Songkhla beach.
The spike is in response to efforts by Thailand, and talks facilitator Malaysia, to pressure BRN leaders to come to the table and meet General Udomchai Thamsarorat, the newly appointed chief negotiator for Bangkok’s peace initiative for the far South.BRN not ready to talk BRN sources said their leaders are not yet ready to talk and have other priorities – like enhancing the understanding of international norms across their whole organisation.
Udomchai was supposed to meet BRN leaders Abdulloh Waemanor and Deng Awaeji on November 24 in Malaysia. But the two refused to show up and went into hiding. One Thai Army source said the two leaders had decided on December 5 to step down from the BRN ruling council “in order to save the movement”.
“If they do come to the table and meet Udomchai, it will be in a personal capacity,” said the Army officer. But another Army officer, from a military intelligence unit, said rumours the pair had resigned were a ploy generated by the BRN to get the Thais off its back.
Artef Sohko, an activist from The Patani, a political action group promoting rights to self-determination for the locals in this predominantly Malay-speaking region, said: “The idea of a BRN figure stepping down or leaving the organisation to save the movement is not far-fetched. It has been done before.” Unlike other Patani Malay movements, the BRN is not ruled by any one particular person but by a secretive council of elders who have strong religious credentials.
In short, the BRN decision-making process is not led by one person; decisions are made collectively. As such, Abdulloh and Deng could be easily cast aside by the BRN should they change their minds, for whatever reason, and come to the negotiating table.
That fate befell Sukri Hari, a well-known and respected figure in the far South who surfaced in August 2014 to join negotiations on the side of MARA Patani. The separatist umbrella group still has very little control over militants in the far South, but it remains the only group with whom Bangkok is negotiating.
Don Pathan is a Thailand-based development and security consultant and a founding member of Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation dedicated to critical discussion of the conflict in Thailand’s far South.
Special to The Nation
(www.nationmultimedia.com)
Treating insurgents as criminals only pour fuel on a conflict underpinned by historical grievances
This past Tuesday, a group of separatist militants killed a retired schoolteacher in Songkhla, stole his pickup truck and used it for a car-bomb attack on a military target. Investigating officers found him hanging from his neck in the bathroom of his home in Saba Yoi district. Separately, just before the New Year, on December 28, a group of separatist militants entered a community hospital in Rangae district of Narathiwat to use it either as a launching pad to attack the Army unit next door or to take cover from return fire.
As expected, the incidents triggered another round of debate about civility and rules of engagement in a 15-year-old conflict that still has no end in sight. Local Malay villagers sympathetic to the insurgents’ struggle (though not necessarily in agreement with their tactics) said the militants were merely dodging gunfire from a Thai Army unit that shares the same fence as the Rangae community hospital.
Thai officials, meanwhile, predictably seized on the incident for public relations gain. A small public protest was organised, and the separatist militants accused of using hospital staff and patients as a human shield.
Sending a message One senior Thai Army officer in Narathiwat offered a different reading: the insurgents knowingly entered the hospital, but not to use its occupants as a shield. “I think they wanted to make couple points,” said the officer, who spent much of the past decade in the far South.
“First, they wanted to see what kind of reaction this would generate from the Thai side. And second, they wanted to highlight the fact that the community hospital and the Army unit share the same fence.” The positioning of security units in and around civilian facilities such as schools, hospitals and places of worship has long been a sore point between locals and the military.
Local Thai Buddhists want the military around, but not so close that they risk getting caught up in the crossfire. Patani Malays, on the other hand, see the presence of the soldiers as intimidation, made worse by a culture of impunity within the ranks. For many, the presence of government troops is a constant reminder that the historical homeland of the local Malays is now occupied territory. International norms prohibit military bases being located amid civilian communities, much less next to sensitive landmarks such as places of worship, schools, and medical facilities.
In March 2016, Narathiwat’s Cho Ai Rong district was rocked when some 30 militants seized a hospital and used it as a base to attack the paramilitary outpost next door. An unusually high number of militants were mobilised resulting in an especially lengthy battle which saw bullets flying back and forth for about 30 minutes. Nobody was killed since this was not the aim of the attack.
The idea, it seems, was to put on a “performance” via the scores of security cameras placed in and around the medical facility. Insurgency is largely a communicative action, and in Cho Ai Rong the message of the militants’ capability was loud and clear. The militants thought that by first making efforts to place hospital and staff out of harm’s way, they could legitimately use the hospital to launch the attack. But the loudest condemnation came afterward from the local Muslim villagers, who accused the insurgents of recklessly placing them in the line of fire.
Thai authorities often exploit attacks such as this for publicity. But at the same time, they know well that such incidents can place an unwanted spotlight on their conduct in this historically contested region. It’s natural for locals to question why a military unit, however small, has to be situated right by a community hospital.‘Bandits, not guerrillas’ In an effort to deny the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) movement the recognition and legitimacy that it craves, Thai authorities continue to classify the southern violence as “disturbances” rather than armed conflict. In the view of many Thai policymakers, these Patani Malay insurgents are nothing but a bunch of criminals.
But BRN cadres insist they are more than just “jone” (bandits) – the term that Thai authorities like to apply to the outfit that controls virtually all the combatants in the Malay-speaking South.
The militants operate with loose guidance but no strict code of conduct for their attacks. Decisions on what to target and how to carry out attacks are made at the cell level by operatives who don’t always think about rules of engagement, international norms or humanitarian principles. Recent attacks are part of an ongoing spike in violence including a bombing spree from December 26-29 that began with the destruction of an iconic mermaid sculpture on a Songkhla beach.
The spike is in response to efforts by Thailand, and talks facilitator Malaysia, to pressure BRN leaders to come to the table and meet General Udomchai Thamsarorat, the newly appointed chief negotiator for Bangkok’s peace initiative for the far South.BRN not ready to talk BRN sources said their leaders are not yet ready to talk and have other priorities – like enhancing the understanding of international norms across their whole organisation.
Udomchai was supposed to meet BRN leaders Abdulloh Waemanor and Deng Awaeji on November 24 in Malaysia. But the two refused to show up and went into hiding. One Thai Army source said the two leaders had decided on December 5 to step down from the BRN ruling council “in order to save the movement”.
“If they do come to the table and meet Udomchai, it will be in a personal capacity,” said the Army officer. But another Army officer, from a military intelligence unit, said rumours the pair had resigned were a ploy generated by the BRN to get the Thais off its back.
Artef Sohko, an activist from The Patani, a political action group promoting rights to self-determination for the locals in this predominantly Malay-speaking region, said: “The idea of a BRN figure stepping down or leaving the organisation to save the movement is not far-fetched. It has been done before.” Unlike other Patani Malay movements, the BRN is not ruled by any one particular person but by a secretive council of elders who have strong religious credentials.
In short, the BRN decision-making process is not led by one person; decisions are made collectively. As such, Abdulloh and Deng could be easily cast aside by the BRN should they change their minds, for whatever reason, and come to the negotiating table.
That fate befell Sukri Hari, a well-known and respected figure in the far South who surfaced in August 2014 to join negotiations on the side of MARA Patani. The separatist umbrella group still has very little control over militants in the far South, but it remains the only group with whom Bangkok is negotiating.
Don Pathan is a Thailand-based development and security consultant and a founding member of Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com), a civil society organisation dedicated to critical discussion of the conflict in Thailand’s far South.
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