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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Anupong's remarks may add fuel to the fire in the South

By DON PATHAN
THE NATION

Published on June 17, 2009

For a man who is known for choosing his words carefully, Army chief General Anupong Paochinda has over this past week sounded more like a buck private who couldn't bribe his way out of an army draft.

Knowing that tension would be high in the aftermath of the massacre of 11 Muslims attending an evening prayer at a village mosque in Narathiwat's Joh I Rong district, Anupong concluded prematurely that it was the work of insurgents.

He, along with deputy premier Suthep Thaugsuban, the so-called security tzar, was dispatched to the deep South immediately after the massacre at the Al Pukon mosque in Narathiwat's Joh I Rong district.

Instead of buying more time and looking for ways to ease the tension, the two security bigwigs made things worse. They prematurely dismissed any suggestion that the attackers could be anybody else other than Malay Muslim insurgents.

For local Muslims, their position drove in a bigger wedge between their community and the rest of the country. Few thought the mistrust could go any lower after a controversial court ruling on May 29 that cleared security officials of the Tak Bai massacre of 2004.

Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch noted a worrying trend over the past five years that has seen rogue elements in the volunteer and regular security units attacking mosque, Islamic schools and teashops in retaliation for the killings of Buddhist officials and civilians.

"This is a worrying trend that has fuelled communal tension and worsened the conflict in the South over the past five years," Sunai said. "The widespread suspicion in the Muslim community after the Al Pukon mosque massacre shows how the failure to hold the perpetrators accountable has led to deep distrust of the government," Sunai added.

While it may have crossed their minds that the massacre could have been the work of some rogue outfit, retaliating for a week-long mayhem that included brutal killings, beheadings, car bombs and an attack on a passenger bus full of Buddhists, Suthep and Anupong just did not want to confront other possibilities. Embracing old habits could be comforting.

If anything, the position taken by the two men became a much-needed comfort zone for officials who did not want to debate why a group of Malay Muslim insurgents would want to indiscriminately gun down people from an area where they probably received the most support.

In spite of a track record of abuses and extra-judicial killings, it is still unthinkable for the country's top political leaders to come to terms with the notion that one of their own may have committed such a thing.

Some of the security spin-doctors reiterated this half-baked but long-standing explanation that blamed the insurgents for all the atrocities because they want to raise the profile of the issue and draw the attention of the international community, such as the UN and the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). Killing their own people was supposed to be the best way of attracting international sympathy.

In Bangkok, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva saw the deep South drifting further away from the kingdom, and tried to do some damage control.

He warned against reaching premature conclusions and added that "an attack on a mosque is unusual and not the style of separatists".

For the militants, it was payback time. Assoc Professor Srisompob Jitpiromsri of the Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani said the clock could be turned back to the scale of the violence in 2007 when collateral damage was also high - 164 public schools came under arson attack, a big jump from 43 in 2006.

Naturally, the security agencies take credit for the significant drop in 2008 that saw only 14 public schools coming under arson attacks.

But local residents say the real reason has more to do with the fact that the insurgents are losing support at the grass-roots level. In spite of the historical mistrust and dislike of state institutions, such as public school, essentially, a Siamese education for their children is better than no education at all, they said.

In spite of the unprecedented nature of these past two weeks, few want to make the connection between the spike in violence and the court verdict on May 29 that cleared soldiers, police and paramilitary rangers involved in dealing with the Tak Bai protest. The incident ended in the death of 85 Malay Muslims protesters, 78 from suffocation when they were stacked one on top of another, up to four, on the back of military trucks.

What complicated the situation further was that local media only picked up on Anupong's statement about not negotiating with the separatists. Few noted that the statement contradicted Abhisit who did not rule out the idea of talking to separatists.

What Abhisit said was that at the policy level the government does not have such a position but added that at the operational level a channel of communication with separatist groups is already in place.

But keeping the dialogue at the operation level may not be enough as security and intelligence personnel don't have the political will to go further than collect data and go after insurgents and kill them.

A number of professional mediators, including retired military top brass familiar with insurgency in the deep South and neighbouring countries, have been knocking on Abhisit's door asking him for permission to do the mediating job.

So far, Abhisit has not given anybody the much-sought-after mandate. Given the uncertain nature of the current political situation, as well as the fact that such a move will be costly in political terms, it may be a very long time before Abhisit puts all his eggs in anybody's basket.