Insurgents focus ire on local defence volunteers

Army's 'Thung Yang Daeng Model' is under pressure after militants 'send 'warning'

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Ban Pulea, Yala __Shortly after midnight on Friday, a group of about 30 insurgents attacked a small security outpost run by a local Defence Volunteer (DV) unit in Yala's Yaha district.

Eighteen of the DVs were left injured, six seriously, after nearly 30 minutes of gunfire and grenade attacks.

DV camp in Yala's Yaha district. Photo by: DON PATHAN

Local residents said it wasn't much of a fight as the DVs either fled or lay flat on their stomachs in the bamboo hut where they had been sleeping. Bullet holes and damage from the M79 grenades also suggest it was a one-way battle. The militants made off with seven government-issued weapons.

Nevertheless, villagers in the area expressed surprise at the fact that the Malay Muslim insurgents had launched an attack against the DVs.

Their logic was simple: DVs are part of the local community and that should count for something in the eyes of the Malay Muslim insurgents. That logic is backed by the low number of violent confrontations between insurgents and DVs since January 2004.

But Friday's attack signalled a change in that trend, exiled separatist leaders said.

Sources in the separatist community said the idea behind this latest attack was to issue a stern warning to local Malay Muslims not to join up with the security apparatus.

Specifically, Friday's attack was a slap in the face for the Thung Yang Daeng Model, an Army initiative to outsource routine security work to local residents including the DVs, village chiefs and kamnans.

With the initiative, the Thai military is basically telling village-based officials that they no longer have the luxury of "looking the other way", and that if they are going to be on the government's payroll, they have to put their lives on the line for the state security apparatus.

DVs comprise locally recruited security details that come under a chain of command that runs from the Interior Ministry through the provincial government, district chiefs, village heads and kamnans.

The DVs are sometimes called on to provide security for ministry officials, and the insurgents rarely single them out for attack.

The attack on Friday marked the first time that a DV camp had been overrun by insurgents. It also marked the first time since February 2013 that Malay Muslim insurgents had launched an operation on any sort of military-security camp in this restive region, where more than 6,000 people have been killed since January 2004.

The February 2013 operation saw some 50 insurgents charge a Royal Thai Marine camp in Narathiwat's Bacho district. The marines had prior warning of the attack thanks to information found on the body of an insurgent who had been killed two weeks earlier in nearby Sai Buri district.

The incident ended in the death of 16 insurgents but revealed a level of support for their cause among the local residents, many of whom attended funerals at which the attackers were celebrated as martyrs in line with Islamic tradition.

The attack on Friday in Yaha shared features with other insurgent operations. Two roadside bombs were placed to the east of the camp, while on the west side, a huge tree was felled and road spikes laid to slow the arrival of reinforcements. Yaha police station is just four kilometres away.

Besides mobilising the local officers in the Interior Ministry chain of command, the Thung Yang Daeng Model also calls for the recruiting of local Muslims as reconnaissance scouts for Paramilitary Ranger patrols.

The military believes that locally hired Rangers should have a better idea of where the local cells are concealed. Unlike the DVs, the Rangers don't see themselves as sitting ducks for the insurgents.

And with locally recruited young men working as their scouts and directives from the regular Army unit commanders, these Rangers are constantly conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols to hunt down insurgents.

For the time being, their family members are being left alone. Separatist leaders said the militants are not permitted to harass the family members of local Rangers, though the movement considers those who join the paramilitary unit "fair game".

Speaking to reporters at the scene of Friday's attack, Lt-General Prakarn Cholayuth, commander of the 4th Army Region, said the incident was an example of how such security units were at the "receiving end" partly through being exposed and out in the open.

Prakarn said the role of DVs would continue unabated but added that certain adjustments would have to be made in order to strengthen their capacity to counter the militants. He didn't say what sort of adjustment would be made. But from the look of it, all sides - the Army and officials at the village level - will have to do some serious soul searching.

The separatist militants have already let the government know how far they are willing to go to rattle the much-praised Thung Yang Daeng Model. The ball, it seems, is now in the Thai court.

Don Pathan is a consultant and security analyst based in Yala. He is also the founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).

Deep South: Under the wreckage of lies, a complicated truth

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Yala, Thailand

The killing of two Buddhist monks on Visakha Bucha day four years ago shed light on the nature of the conflict in this historically contested region

Just before dawn four years ago on Visakha Bucha Day, one of the most important days on the Buddhist calendar, two young men were hiding inside the tree-line keeping a look out for an oncoming Army patrol.

Approaching the point where the bomb was buried was a patrol of four soldiers riding pillion on two motorbikes. Behind them was a pickup truck with two soldiers on the back. Behind the truck were four soldiers on two motorbikes.

The young man had a split second to decide, and he went for the pickup. When it was all over, two monks inside the cab of the pickup lay dead. They were from nearby Suan Kaew Temple in Yala's Yaha district. The two soldiers on the back of the pickup were severely wounded. The vehicle they were travelling in was destroyed.

Thai national media went haywire for days, concluding that the Malay Muslim separatists in the southernmost provinces were out to drive a bigger wedge between Buddhists and Muslims. That the incident took place on an important day for Buddhists just reinforced that claim.

Separatist sources from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), on the other hand, maintained that the two brothers behind the attack did not know there were monks inside the truck. They saw a legitimate target and went with it.

Soldiers from the targeted unit, who were using the temple as a base camp, reiterated the same point - there was no line of vision, so the person who detonated the bomb could not have seen the monks.

Given the fact that monks hadn't been attacked for years, government officials didn't know what to make of the Yaha incident. But over time it became clear that this was a one-off incident.

Nevertheless, the damage had been done and now it was time for payback. Within a week or so, word got out that authorities were looking for two young brothers from a nearby village in the district.

No one was sure how the authorities were able to identify the two suspects so quickly. It could have been through informants - the dozens of so-called "Bt4,500 local security guards" who take their orders from the local Army unit. Or it could have been the moles that the authorities had put in place.

But less than two weeks after the incident, one of the suspects was shot dead in front of his wife's house. The other decided to leave Yaha for Narathiwat, where he would lay low for the next four years.

A BRN source would neither confirm nor deny that the two brothers were behind the Yaha attack. But he did say they were members of local cell and that the surviving brother, Saudi Setopa, had been relocated to Narathiwat shortly after the incident.

But Saudi's name would come up again in another major case. This time it was the massive July 2014 car bomb in Betong, a border town few thought would ever come under this theatre of violence given its remoteness and the logistics nightmare of carrying out such an operation here and getting away with it.

Though the BRN seldom publicises strategy specifics - at least nothing that could incriminate its members - the source maintained that Saudi was not involved in the Betong car bomb.

But from the perspective of the Thai security agencies, justice caught up with Saudi on January 30 this year, when 50 police officers surrounded him at a house in Kabang district, just east of Yaha.

Investigation by a BRN operative suggested that Saudi was spotted in Yaha district, most likely by an informant. He made a dash for nearby Kabang district but was foiled by the security grid that was already in place.

He took refuge in a nearby house and positioned himself for a two-hour gunfight. One officer was hit in the leg. Saudi refused to surrender and was eventually killed in the lopsided shoot-out.

It wasn't clear why Saudi had returned to his village earlier this year or surfaced in Yaha district on January 30.

Sitting on the patio in front of his one-storey home, Saudi's father didn't seem to be in the mood for a lengthy discussion about his son's life. He had buried Saudi's body the night before.

Hanging in the living room was a picture of Saudi with fellow soldiers after graduating from Army basic training in 1999. It wasn't clear if the father was trying to suggest that his son, at least at one point in his life, was patriotic, or whether it was merely the only picture he had left of Saudi.

Nevertheless, Saudi's case and chase did shed light on the nature of the conflict in this historically contested region, where more than 6,000 people, mostly Malay Muslims, have died in insurgency-related violence since January 2004.

From the network of separatist militants that stretches across the Malay-speaking provinces, to the police informants - not to mention the locally hired security details that the Thai soldiers don't trust to look after the Buddhist temples - there is an endless struggle for survival in every corner of this restive region.

Government soldiers in Yaha don't believe that their "Bt4,500 security details" will put their lives on the line for the unit that commands them. Instead, there is widespread acknowledgement that these village-based security guards often share the separatists' sentiment and historical mistrust of the Thai state.

The incident also revealed how eager the Thai media and wider society are to jump to assumptions about the conflict without looking at the finer details and circumstances surrounding the attacks.

The world will never know why Saudi decided to fight to his death. But for the Thai security forces, it was mission accomplished, even though his death did little to advance either peace or "victory" for the state.

Don Pathan is an independent consultant based in Yala, Thailand. He is also the founding member of Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com)

Some hearts will never be won in Thailand's tragic South

By Don Pathan
The Nation

Patae, Yala

Behind the wide smile of Fatimoh Paleakawor, one can sense the bitterness in her heart. The mother of ten had, the day before, buried her second child, Mahkoseng Pohtae, 39, who died in Yala Central Prison pending trial on charges relating to the southern insurgency.

Mahkoseng was accused of being part of the Muslim separatist movement that seems bent on carving out a separate homeland for the Malay Muslims in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. He was arrested in April 2009 and beaten senseless by the local police, forcing an intervention by senior government officials and human rights activists.

According to his mother and a senior provincial officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Mahkoseng was so badly beaten that he had to be taken away from the police and placed in Yala Central Prison. Upon his arrival, prison officials were extremely uneasy because of his condition.

"A physician was rushed in to examine him. This was to document that all the injuries inflicted upon him had been done before he arrived at the prison," said the Yala officer. "His kidney was severely damaged," he added.

For nearly a year and a half after the incident, Mahkoseng had been in and out of hospital for treatment.

"My son was never the same after that beating," Fatimoh said.

Two police officers and a ranger have been charged with torturing the suspect, and their cases are currently being reviewed by the National Counter Corruption Commission, the independent agency that oversees alleged police abuse and crime relating to government officials.

Two weeks ago, Mahkoseng succumbed to his injuries and died at the Yala Hospital. His lawyer and local human rights activists wanted to carry out a full autopsy, and managed to round up support in kind and money to pay for it. The aim was to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mahkoseng died from the injuries inflicted on him by the officials in April 2009.

But Fatimoh changed her mind the next day and decided to bury her son instead.

"He suffered enough. There is no need to torture him any more," she said.

For Fatimoh, burying her son within 24 hours of his death - in line with Islamic tradition - was a way of coming to terms with her loss.

An imam at the Patae village mosque, Dorateh Tohdey, made a similar decision when his daughter was shot at point blank range and killed on July 13 by a gunman. The assailant drove up to Dorateh's sedan in a pickup truck and fired a shotgun shell through the window. The round nipped the back of the imam's neck but hit his daughter, Patiya, 20, in the forehead, killing her instantly.

"She has gone to a safer and kinder place," said the imam.

Such killings are an everyday reality in the southernmost provinces, where the ongoing insurgency has claimed more than 4,200 lives since January 2004. Authorities tend to blame Islamic insurgents for all such incidents but no one can really say for sure what percentage of these attacks are personal or political in nature.

Like ordinary Malay villagers in this backwater of Yaha district -  a highly contested area where Thai Special Forces roam in groups to deter insurgent attacks - Fatimoh makes ends meet with the helping hands of her children and grandchildren. One works at a tom yum restaurant in Malaysia and sends money home regularly, she said.

Sitting at the doorway of her half-wood, half-concrete house, with a beat-up bench outside the front door and straw mats here and there, Fatimoh doesn't have much to show in terms of physical possession. There isn't even a picture of her late son.

The police took them all when they searched the house last year, she said.

The only available picture of him was a mugshot taken by the family's lawyer shortly after the beating. With bloodied lips, swollen cheeks and blackened, hald-closed eyes, Mahkoseng looked more like a political cartoon character.

But Fatimoh is determined to fight back, and has taken her case to various agencies. She is seeking legal assistance from human rights organisations and the Muslim Attorney Centre.

In the course of the interview, a Special Forces unit drops by with a bag of rice, canned fruit and cookies - part of the military strategy with local people who have lost loved ones.

"What do I do with this?" asked Fatimoh as she turned to a group of foreign journalists.

In spite of the government's stated policy of trying to win the hearts and minds of the local Malay population in the deep South, a culture of impunity continues to prevail among security officials, creating more problems for reconciliation, as well as security.

Fatimoh is part of the growing number of people who have been speaking out against the use of torture against suspects in the deep South, according to Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch.

"Mahkoseng's death is a test case for the Abhisit government on whether it is willing to hold abusers accountable," Sunai said.

"For too long, successive governments in Bangkok have allowed abusive police and soldiers in the South to organise cover-ups and escape criminal prosecution," he added.

According to observers and officials in the region, questionable methods employed by the security forces have pushed more and more people toward the insurgents' side, even to the point of taking up arms.

A number of high profile cases have gone unresolved, including some that have grabbed national and international media attention.