Lights, camera, action!

The recent spike in violence in the South is spearheaded by a new crop of insurgents who often choose to attack in front of security cameras, striving for a bigger psychological impact.

Don Pathan
The Nation on Sunday

Pattani

It was like synchronised swimming. The two pickup trucks came from behind and neatly positioned themselves adjacent to each of the two motorbikes. Within a split second of coming neck-and-neck with the two motorbikes, the gunmen on the back of the pickups commenced fire, riddling four soldiers with bullets from close range.

Another pickup truck flanked the third motorbike and kept the two remaining soldiers at bay with sporadic gunfire. Outgunned and outnumbered, the soldiers stayed put and then retreated.

The timing and coordination of the Ma-Yor attack was dead on. But this was not Olympic sport. In fact, such incidents take place almost on a daily basis in the three southernmost border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat where more than 5,000 have died in the violence.

It didn't take long for the footage to make its way to local television, YouTube and other media. The vividness of the Ma-Yor attack sent a big chill throughout the country and shook up security officials and policy-makers, who are now forced to explain the spike in violence despite claims of progress on the ground.

"The insurgents appeared to be more daring and bold, often choosing to attack in front of security cameras. They are looking to create a greater psychological impact with little regard to civilian casualties, said Human Rights Watch's Sunai Phasuk.

Leaders in the exiled community confirmed the analysis, saying the current crop of militants, locally referred to as juwae, or fighters in Patani Malay dialect, have stepped up their attacks in recent months as part of their ongoing strategy to make the area as ungovernable as possible.

As a sign of desperation, the government quickly appointed Deputy PM Chalerm Yoobamrung, a veteran but erratic politician, to take care of security matters in the deep South.

Angkhana Neelaphaijit, chairperson of the Justice for Peace Foundation, called the move a "knee-jerk" reaction. "I believe Prime Minister Yingluck needs to take direct charge of the situation in the South, instead of passing the buck to a politician who has a reputation of disrespecting other people's viewpoints."

Two days after the announcement, the insurgents launched an attack on CS Pattani Hotel, a place popular among foreigners and local VIPs visiting the deep South. And last Wednesday, a public school came under arson attack. The incident was a chilling reminder of 2007, when more than 100 public schools were burned down by insurgents.

Assistant Prof Srisompob Jitpiromsri, the director of Prince of Songkhla University-based Deep South Watch, believes the insurgents are drifting towards a higher level of information warfare. "It was as if they were performing for the camera, as if they wanted the authorities to see what they are capable of doing," said Srisompob, in reference to the Ma-Yor and other attacks.

"Insurgency and terrorism are essentially communicative actions. In the Ma-Yor operation, the insurgency scored big and managed to use the government's communication equipment to get their point across," Srisompob said.

If the insurgents in the deep South are looking to create greater psychological impact by their activities, then making the area ungovernable may no longer be enough for them.

For the time being, said Sunai, all agencies are hard-pressed to come up with a better explanation and analysis than the usual simplistic line that described the militants as drug-crazy youth who have embraced false Islamic teachings and are being taught a distorted version of Thailand's history. The spike in violence over the past eight months coincides with the government's effort to carry out secret talks with leaders of long-standing separatist groups in exile. They are hoping the old guard could talk sense to the new generation of militants. The talks led up to a secret meeting last March between fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra, the de facto leader of the current government, and about 16 Patani Malay separatist leaders.

Thaksin thought his presence would make a difference. But as it turned out, the meeting was boycotted by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), the one group that has the best working relations with the new generation of militants currently operating on the ground.

Two weeks after the meeting, militants on the ground carried out triple bomb attacks on a short stretch of a busy street in downtown Yala, killing 10 and injuring more than 100 people. The same day also saw a car bomb going off at a basement parking lot in a downtown hotel in Hat Yai that killed three and injured more than 400.

Sunai called the March 31 attack a slap in the face for Thaksin and the so-called peace initiative of the government. With the secret peace move floundering and violence rising, all eyes are on Yingluck to see what steps she will take.

Insurgents make it clear there is no neutral ground

Don Pathan
Pattani

It was dubbed "Rick's Cafe" by one foreign diplomat, in reference to the hangout in the movie Casablanca, neutral turf where all World War II warring factions cautiously mingled, trying to figure out their opponent's next move.

But whatever "neutrality" the CS Pattani Hotel had in the past ended on Saturday evening, as the violence in this restive region took its toll on the hotel, one of the most important commercial establishments in the deep South.

For much of the past five years, this hotel was the venue for some of the fiercest debates among top government officials, local elites, Muslim clerics, human-rights activists and local politicians.

They all came to sip tea and chat with acquaintances at the terrace restaurant next to the very spot where a car armed with three fire-extinguisher canisters, each filled with 10 kilograms of explosive materials, was parked.

Given the high-profile nature of CS Pattani, not to mention the unprecedented nature of the car-bomb attack, it was somewhat odd that Cabinet ministers remained tight-lipped throughout the weekend.

Two bombs exploded simultaneously on that unforgettable night, killing two and injuring about 15 others. But a third bomb, found about 30 metres away from where the car was parked, was a dud.

The blast tore up a row of vehicles parked in front of the hotel and shattered all the windows on the front side of this eight-floor hotel, as well as those of two rows of nearby shop houses.

Besides putting an end to the longstanding notion of the CS Pattani as a violence-free zone, the use of a car bomb against this soft target was an indication that the violence in this restive region has crossed a new threshold.

Earlier in the day, a similar incident took place in front of a Yala public school when a bomb, also hidden in a vehicle, exploded mid-afternoon, killing the driver who was said to have been a key bomb-maker for a militant cell in the province.

While many were stunned at the loss of the last safe haven in this restive region, Pattani Task Force commander, Maj-General Thawatchai Samutsakorn, said he had serious doubts as to whether the use of car bombs would become a major component in the militants' fight against the Thai state.

Sunai Phasuk, of Human Rights Watch, sees Saturday's attack as a blunt statement by militants after 10 months of being on the receiving end of the military's shakedown, which has forced some cells to go under and has put some militants on the run.

The controversial shakedown campaign, kicked off in July 2007, has consisted of blind sweeps of remote villages withup to 100 individuals taken in for questioning. Individuals deemed to be in the "high-risk" category have been sent to military boot camps under the guise of "job training" and "counselling".

On the ground, allegations of torture, wrongful arrest, and target killings were piling up towards the end of the term of the military-installed government, which was replaced by the current administration.

But while the blind sweeps succeeded in halting roadside bombings, especially in the more highly contested areas in Yala and Narathiwat, where the suspects behind Saturday's operation were based, top security brass didn't predict how the insurgents would make their comeback.

The car bomb at the CS Pattani Hotel, Sunai said, was more than just a way of telling the security apparatus that they were back.

"They are sending a spine-chilling message across the region that the separatist fighters are striking back, and that no one and nowhere is safe," Sunai said.

Separatist militants in Thailand's southern border provinces are not known for respecting universal principles prohibiting attacks on civilians and civilian targets. Such a radical and brutal ideology feeds on ongoing abuses and injustice committed by Thai security forces in their counterinsurgency operations, Sunai said.

"But nothing can justify human-rights violations. The fight for freedom or acts of retribution against state-sponsored abuses does not give these militants justification to shoot, or blow up civilians like this. This is madness, not a liberation war," Sunai added.

But Thawatchai warned against overrating Saturday's operation, saying it appeared to be the work of one particular cell and added that there is nothing to suggest that other cells would follow suit or that they would have the means to do so.

He also pointed to their blunders - the fact that the third canister didn't go off, and the premature detonation of the car bomb in Yala, which ended up taking the operative's life.

Unlike the previous generation of separatist fighters who camped out in remote pockets along the hills near the Thai-Malaysian border, today's militants, often referred to as "juwae", or fighter, by local residents, are organised in cells or clusters of cells with a high degree of coordination. This enables them to carry out simultaneous attacks across this historically contested region where about 80 per cent of the inhabitants are Muslims of Malay ethnicity.

Thawatchai thinks local residents would be less sympathetic to the juwae's fight if their bombs continue to go off in areas popular among Muslims, such as the CS Pattani.

Indeed, killing Muslims suspected of spying for the Thai state is one thing; a powerful bomb that sees no racial or ethnic lines is another. Two men died from Saturday's blast at the CS Pattani. One was a Muslim security guard and the second a Thai Buddhist cook.