Ethnic armies could lose buffer role in border zone

Don Pathan
The Nation

In April 2005, Shan rebels and Wa militia fought each other to a standstill as the latter tried but failed to take over a strategic hilltop just metres away from the Thai border. The Shan State Army (SSA) claimed to have killed more than 330 troops from the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a 20,000-strong drug army that entered into a ceasefire agreement with the military government of Burma in 1989.

UWSA Chairman Bao Yuxiang, D Pathan and Wa FM (2003)

As the Wa militia and its Burmese allies pounded the SSA's Loi Tailaeng with rockets and mortars, kicking up one mushroom cloud after another, Shan snipers took out Wa soldiers one by one as they climbed up the hilltop in a mission that was somewhat suicidal. The fighting went on for more than a week and by any standard, successfully defending the Loi Taileang stronghold was no mean feat.

From a bird's-eye view, the bloody clash was just a part of the cut-throat politics of the notorious Golden Triangle, where stakeholders - opium warlords, the Thai Army and Burmese generals - play for keeps.

The UWSA, the world's largest drug-trafficking army, with eight leaders on the United States' most wanted list, "was merely living up to its role as a Burmese proxy. Attacking the pro-Thai SSA was just a way of getting the Burmese off their back", a Thai military intelligence officer said.

As long as anybody can remember, armed ethnic groups operating along the Thai-Burmese border have always functioned as a buffer between the two nagging neighbours. At the behest of the Thai or Burmese militaries, these ethnic armies do the dirty work, keeping the hands of their respective overlords clean.

Pathan in SSA camp near Thai border(1999)

Many groups turned to opium smuggling to finance their insurgency. Most have entered into ceasefire agreements with the Burmese military government in return for limited self-rule in so-called "special regions" where they grow opium and churn out methamphetamines.

There is one golden rule, however: if an outfit is pro-Rangoon - meaning they signed a ceasefire with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) - they are automatically considered a security threat to Thailand. But if they are still fighting the Burmese junta, they are deemed friendly to Thailand.

But the traditional buffer role may be coming to an end, say Thai Army sources. A growing number of Thai security planners believe the benefits of improved ties with Burma outweigh the cost of maintaining a buffer. And so they are toying with the idea of ending the unspoken buffer-zone policy.

But retreating from the policy cannot be achieved overnight. If the plan goes through, it will have to be a slow retreat to ensure that the transition goes smoothly.

However, Thai military leaders say the end of the buffer zone will not mean an abandonment of the rebel armies and the thousands of refugees in camps that dotted the border. Depending on how events inside Burma evolve, the aim on the Thai side is to see the deactivation of the rebel armies such as the Karen National Union and the SSA. Naturally, their rank and file will be kept intact to ensure that, if need be, these armies can be reactivated and reassume their role as a buffer.

But it takes two to tango and the question over whether Burma will dance to the Thai Army's tune remains to be seen. The Thai Army is not calling for reciprocity from its Burmese counterparts but believes that as the strengthening of Thai-Burmese military relations continues, the function of the ethnic armies as a buffer will diminish accordingly.

For some time now, the Burmese government has been putting pressure on the UWSA, ordering them to retreat to the Sino-Burmese border - the so-called Special Region 2 - or face possible military consequences.

"It was the closest thing yet to a declaration of war against the UWSA," said the Thai Army officer. "But they could be bluffing. We have seen it in the past," he added.

Wa leaders had their meeting earlier this year and they will stand down along the Thai border in spite of the threat from Rangoon.

Thai and Chinese officials on the border think an all-out war between the UWSA and the SPDC could have grave consequences for Thailand and China, pointing to the likelihood of thousands of starving opium farmers flooding their borders.

The SPDC's squeeze has also been placed on the Wa's economic activities.

"Wa investment arms are declining rapidly as the Burmese government gives more and more concessions to Chinese companies," a Thai Army intelligence officer said. "The Burmese don't want to let the Wa get too strong, but at the same time they want their kickback, too." he added.

To make up for the loss, the UWSA has been stepping up production of methamphetamines and heroin. Their markets are not the slums of Bangkok but major cities throughout Europe and Asia, Thai narcotics and military officers say. The gateway to the world's market, said one Army officer, is Thailand's Eastern Seaboard.

It is hoped, however, that stronger Thai-Burmese relations will come at the expense of groups such as the UWSA.

But not all security officials are on the same sheet of music. Some of the field officers on the frontline on the border warn against reaching any premature conclusion. The absence of confrontation does not mean peace, they say. Mistrust between Thailand and Burma is still high. The two sides just haven't been showing it via the barrels of their guns.

Promotion of drug kingpin looms large over wa army's outside relations

Don Pathan
The Nation

Something has got into drug kingpin Wei Hsueh-kang, the notorious opium warlord who controls a sizeable army near Thailand's northern border.

According to Chinese and Thai military sources and others monitoring the notorious Golden Triangle, Commander Wei is hoping he will be selected to the topmost position in the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of Burma's ceasefire groups responsible for flooding Thailand with methamphetamines and the world with pure-white grade four heroin.

If that happens, Wei would replace ailing UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang, who runs the 20,000-strong army out of Panghsang, a small town on the Sino-Burmese border.

The Bao and the Wei families, while part of the UWSA structure, have historically been rivals. But they need each other in order to maintain their bargaining leverage with the Burmese government with whom they entered a cease-fire agreement in 1989.

Wei and his brothers have a firm grip on the Wa troops along the Thai border, an area commonly referred to as the South Wa region, while the Bao siblings control the area along the Chinese border, officially known as Special Region Two.

Since early 2000, Bao has shown signs of being willing to leave the trade, but in exchange for some sort of recognition from the international community, particularly from Thailand.

Bao even ceased opium cultivation in 2005 as a gesture of goodwill. But nobody took him seriously as millions of methamphetamine tablets coming from Wa-controlled areas continued to flood Thailand on a weekly basis. The opium harvest can be monitored by satellite images and quantified accordingly, but that is not the case with the clandestine labs pumping out so-called yaa-baa.

Over the past couple of years, chairman Bao has been in and out of the hospital because of various illnesses. His brother Yu-yee, who used to command a Wa battalion near the Thai border when Wei had a run-in with Burmese Army commander Maung Aye in early 2001, has the potential to replace Bao.

But the extent of his influence in the so-called South Wa region near the Thai border is nothing compared to that of Wei Hsueh-kang and his brothers.

Besides the rivalries between the two families, the UWSA itself is a problem - a global one at that. 

Wei has long been on the list of America's most-wanted criminals ever since an indictment was filed against him in 1993 in the New York Federal Court accusing him of conspiring to distribute heroin to the United States. The US has placed a US$2 million(Bt66.8million) reward on his head. A Thai court sentenced him to death in 1997 on similar charges.

In January of 2005, the year that the UWSA announced it would put an end to its opium cultivation, the US Department of Justice charged seven more Wa leaders - including the three Bao brothers and two of Wei's siblings - with drug trafficking. Thai and Chinese narcotic officials were irked by the move, saying the charges against the Bao brothers really tied their hands.

Prior to the US charges being laid in January 2005, the Thais and the Chinese had been toying with various options in their dealings with the UWSA. While the Chinese saw Bao as someone they could deal with, whether clandestinely or otherwise, the Thai side wanted to pit the two families against one another.

Officials from Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board said they were willing to let bygones be bygones and turn a new leaf in their relations with the UWSA if the organisation quit the drug trade.

This would have been a leap of faith indeed, considering how Wa militias and Thai soldiers have a history of engaging in bloody clashes along the border.

However, Thailand can't compromise on Wei because of legal implications, the officer added. In early 2003, the Thai Army even tried to split the UWSA by negotiating directly with Wei Sai-tang, a Wa commander who, like Hsueh-kang, controls a battalion in the South Wa region near the Thai border.

"Sai-tang was a nationalist and didn't think highly of the 'White Wa' - the Wei brothers. They were called white because they were ethnic Chinese," said a Thai intelligence source who had direct dealings with Sai-tang.

In exchange for parting with the UWSA, the Thai Army would provide Sai-tang's outfit with an economic and military lifeline from Thailand.

In this connection, Sai-tang would cleanse himself of the UWSA's past and effectively become a Thai proxy in the rugged hills of the Golden Triangle, a deadly region where everybody plays for keeps.

But when news got out, Hsueh-kang and Yu-xiang acted quickly. They whisked Sai-tang away from the Thai border and locked him up in Panghsang. He was charged with, among other things, producing illicit

drugs and fake banknotes.

Bao went ahead anyway and tried hard to befriend the international community. He allowed international NGOs to work inside Wa territory and public health and crop substitution projects, and reached out to UN agencies and foreign journalists.

While the Chinese and the Thais were willing to give Bao - not Wei - the benefit of the doubt, Washington didn't care to make the distinction between an opium warlord who wanted to kick the habit and a kingpin who didn't have much to lose.

But with an ailing Bao Yu-xiang's days numbered, the issue of succession has become a hot topic. Thai officials said they could forget about any future talk with the UWSA if Wei takes over. Chinese officials echoed the same sentiment. They said future dealings with the UWSA would be extremely difficult, given the US indictments.

For the time being, all eyes are on Xiao Ming-lien, the deputy chairman of the UWSA. "What's important is that Ming-lien is not on the US Department of  Justice's wanted list," said the Thai military officer. "There would still be some breathing room," he added.

Both sides see Ming-lien as clean. But that, too, could be a problem. Without drugs, Ming-lien has no money. Without money, he has no army.

Promotion of drug kingpin looms large over Wa army's outside relations

Don Pathan
The Nation

Published on July 22, 2008

Something has got into drug kingpin Wei Hsueh-kang, the notorious opium warlord who controls a sizeable army near Thailand's northern border.

According to Chinese and Thai military sources and others monitoring the notorious Golden Triangle, Commander Wei is hoping he will be selected to the topmost position in the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of Burma's ceasefire groups responsible for flooding Thailand with methamphetamines and the world with pure-white grade four heroin.

If that happens, Wei would replace ailing UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang, who runs the 20,000-strong army out of Panghsang, a small town on the Sino-Burmese border.

The Bao and the Wei families, while part of the UWSA structure, have historically been rivals. But they need each other in order to maintain their bargaining leverage with the Burmese government with whom they entered a cease-fire agreement in 1989.

Wei and his brothers have a firm grip on the Wa troops along the Thai border, an area commonly referred to as the South Wa region, while the Bao siblings control the area along the Chinese border, officially known as Special Region Two.

Since early 2000, Bao has shown signs of being willing to leave the trade, but in exchange for some sort of recognition from the international community, particularly from Thailand.

Bao even ceased opium cultivation in 2005 as a gesture of goodwill. But nobody took him seriously as millions of methamphetamine tablets coming from Wa-controlled areas continued to flood Thailand on a weekly basis. The opium harvest can be monitored by satellite images and quantified accordingly, but that is not the case with the clandestine labs pumping out so-called yaa-baa.

Over the past couple of years, chairman Bao has been in and out of hospital because of various illnesses. His brother Yu-yee, who used to command a Wa battalion near the Thai border when Wei had a run-in with Burmese Army commander Maung Aye in early 2001, has the potential to replace Bao.

But the extent of his influence in the so-called South Wa region near the Thai border is nothing compared to that of Wei Hsueh-kang and his brothers.

Besides the rivalries between the two families, the UWSA itself is a problem - a global one at that.

Wei has long been on the list of America's most-wanted criminals ever since an indictment was filed against him in 1993 in the New YorkFederal Court accusing him of conspiring to distribute heroin to the United States. The US has placed a US$2 million(Bt66.8million) reward on his head. A Thai court sentenced him to death in 1997 on similar charges.

In January of 2005, the year that the UWSA announced it would put an end to its opium cultivation, the US Department of Justice charged seven more Wa leaders - including the three Bao brothers and two of Wei's siblings - with drug trafficking.

Thai and Chinese narcotic officials were irked by the move, saying the charges against the Bao brothers really tied their hands.

Prior to the US charges being laid in January 2005, the Thais and the Chinese had been toying with various options in their dealings with the UWSA. While the Chinese saw Bao as someone they could deal with, whether clandestinely or otherwise, the Thai side wanted to pit the two families against one another.

Officials from Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board said they were willing to let bygones be bygones and turn a new leaf in their relations with the UWSA if the organization quit the drug trade. This would have been a leap of faith indeed, considering how Wa militias and Thai soldiers have a history of engaging in bloody clashes along the border. However, Thailand can't compromise on Wei because of legal implications, the officer added.

In early 2003, the Thai Army even tried to split the UWSA by negotiating directly with Wei Sai-tang, a Wa commander who, like Hsueh-kang, controls a battalion in the South Wa region near the Thai border.

"Sai-tang was a nationalist and didn't think highly of the 'White Wa'- the Wei brothers. They were called white because they were ethnic Chinese," said a Thai intelligence source who had direct dealings with Sai-tang.

In exchange for parting with the UWSA, the Thai Army would provide Sai-tang's outfit with an economic and military lifeline from Thailand.

In this connection, Sai-tang would cleanse himself of the UWSA's past and effectively become a Thai proxy in the rugged hills of the Golden Triangle, a deadly region where everybody plays for keeps.

But when the news got out, Hsueh-kang and Yu-xiang acted quickly. They whisked Sai-tang away from the Thai border and locked him up in Panghsang. He was charged with, among other things, producing illicit drugs and fake banknotes.

Bao went ahead anyway and tried hard to befriend the international community. He allowed international NGOs to work inside Wa territory and public health and crop substitution projects, and reached out to UN agencies and foreign journalists.

While the Chinese and the Thais were willing to give Bao - not Wei - the benefit of the doubt, Washington didn't care to make the distinction between an opium warlord who wants to kick the habit and a kingpin who didn't have much to lose.

But with an ailing Bao Yu-xiang's days numbered, the issue of succession has become a hot topic.

Thai officials said they could forget about any future talk with the UWSA if Wei takes over.

Chinese officials echoed the same sentiment. They said future dealings with the UWSA would be extremely difficult, given the US indictments.

For the time being, all eyes are on Xiao Ming-lien, the deputy chairman of the UWSA.

"What's important is that Ming-lien is not on the US Department of Justice's wanted list," said the Thai military officer. "There would still be some breathing room," he added.

Both sides see Ming-lien as clean. But that, too, could be a problem. Without drugs, Ming-lien has no money. Without money, he has no army.

Ceasefire in south is just too good to be true

No one seems to know what to make of it, but the videotaped statement 
that was aired on Army-run Channel 5 generated a great deal of debate 
as to what the future holds.

By Don Pathan
The Nation

Just about all parties agree the whole thing is just too weird. A
group of men in fake beards and moustaches, one of them donning Blues
Brothers-style dark glasses, announcing an end to 100 years of armed
struggle for the independence of the Malay historical homeland
situated in Thailand's southernmost provinces.

No conditions were made. They just got tired of fighting and wanted to
live in peace. Those who refused the order would be considered a
renegade and subject to elimination, the head honcho said.

Immediately after the release of the videotaped statement, former Army
chief General Chettha Thanajaro, the man who claimed credit for
brokering an end to the violence, became the butt of jokes as attacks
in the deep South continued unabated.

Chettha thought he could conveniently put the onus on the militants
who refused to put down their weapons, simply because their
self-proclaimed leaders, who would not even make known their names or
organisation, said they had to quit.

Naturally, the identity of the three men immediately became an issue.
In order to trust them, one must know how much weight they carry with
the militants on the ground.

Army chief General Anupong Paochinda, while distancing himself from
the failed publicity stunt, identified the "leader" as Malipeng Khan,
a former insurgent commander who was active from 1984-87.

But then again, just about every separatist was active during that
time; it was the height of the insurgency of the previous generation
of militants.

Like Anupong, the foreign-affairs chief of the Patani United
Liberation Organisation, Kasturi Mahkota, immediately distanced
himself from the three men.

Others, speaking on condition of anonymity - one Army officer and an
exiled leader, both of whom have directly dealt with Malipeng -
dismissed Anupong's statement. "It was based on a decades-old photo of
Malipeng. The guy in the video looked like Malipeng, so they simply
assumed it was him," said the officer.

At first glance, it was clear someone with strong Thai nationalist
leanings prepared the script for the man. One exiled Patani-Malay
leader said the whole thing was a bit "insulting". The speaker made no
reference to "Patani", the historical Malay homeland.

Moreover, he was speaking standard Malay, not the local Patani
dialect. The flag was just as mysterious.

"Why would anyone listen to them? They don't even know them. This was
just bad drama," the exiled leader said.

There is concern among various quarters the incident could damage a
secret dialogue between the Army and exiled leaders of long-standing
separatist groups.

This "pre-talk" stage is delicate and could be politically costly if
the process is not treated with care. Moreover, given how Thailand's
top brass and others reacted to Thursday's announcement, it is clear
that Thailand's security architects have yet to come to a consensus on
the very idea of talking to the insurgents.

There is no indication this unofficial pretalk stage will evolve into
formal peace talks anytime soon.

Then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont, during a May 2007 visit to
Yala, told a press conference he had received "positive feedback" from
an ongoing "dialogue" with separatist groups.

But what Chettha did was try to take a short cut to the solution
instead of telling the people that reconciling with the Patani Malays
would come with a price. He will have to ask them if they can live
with the fact that not all of the people embrace the values and
principles that define Thailand's nation-state.

The fact that Chettha jumped the gun shows that the former Army chief
has little understanding or gives little consideration to the
sensitivity of this issue that for much of the past century has pitted
the Malay-speaking community against the Thai state.

Desperately seeking a drug-smuggling warlord

Don Pathan
The Nation

For some weeks now Interior Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung has been talking about his connection with Ai Joe, a mysterious figure who supposedly handles Wei Hsueh-kang's drug money.

Wei is a top commander in the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), dubbed the world's largest armed drug- trafficking army by the US government. His battalion controls a sizeable chunk of land adjacent to the northern Thai border with Burma, where he churns out millions of methamphetamine pills on a weekly basis, not to mention some of the world's finest grade-four heroin.

No one outside the Wa territory knows who Ai Joe really is or what he looks like. The only thing we know about Ai Joe, if Chalerm is to be trusted, is that he is an acquaintance of Duang, the Interior chief's son. Chalerm said Duang and Ai Joe had, over the past five years, established enough rapport to serve as the basis for possible negotiations.

Chalerm's idea is to send his son to seek a possible way out for Wei, with the hope that this could pave the way for the beginning of the end of illicit drugs coming into Thailand from the Burmese side of the border.

The idea is to get Wei to kick the habit in exchange for some sort of economic assistance from Thailand. For Chalerm, the idea has a noble ring to it: by helping them, we help ourselves.

Burma watchers, especially those keeping a close watch on the opium trade and the rebel insurgency in the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle, are scratching their heads as to what to make of Chalerm's proposal. It's not so much a question of Chalerm's credibility. The doubt tends to centre on the merit of the proposal itself.

First of all, Chalerm doesn't seem to mind the fact that Wei is one of America's most wanted persons, with a reward tag of US$2 million(Bt67,500,000). He jumped bail in Thailand in 1987 on heroin trafficking charges and was later sentenced to death in absentia by a Thai court.

A UWSA senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "Commander Wei's movements and whereabouts are highly secret out of concern that he could be nabbed at any given moment."

And in spite of being under the UWSA banner, Wei's business empire, which stretches to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok, not to mention Rangoon, leads up to, and is controlled by him and him alone.

A Chinese officer monitoring the UWSA's  activities described the organisation as experiencing a dumbbell effect, with Wei and his brothers controlling the Wa area along the Thai border, while UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang and his brothers control areas along the Sino-Burma border.

Chairman Bao has shown willingness to enter into negotiations with the West, including the US and Thailand. He even tried giving up opium cultivation for two seasons to win favours. But no one welcomed his gesture. In fact, the US responded unfavourably. The US Department of Justice in January 2005 indicted seven Wa leaders on drug trafficking charges.

Wei, being one of the world's most notorious criminals, can't afford to play at diplomacy.

"Wei's men do push-ups every day. They are always on high alert for whatever threat may come their way," the Chinese official said.

The proposal from Chalerm is nothing new. Thailand, during the Thaksin Shinawatra administration, went down this well-trodden road before, and the end result was a great deal of embarrassment.

Thaksin was duped by the then security tsar of Burma, General Khin Nyunt, into whitewashing the UWSA by initiating a joint crop-substitution/development project in UWSA-controlled areas near the Thai border.

Seed money of Bt20 million from the Thai government helped build a school. But no students attended classes until Chinese-speaking teachers were hired.

The opening ceremony saw the then Thai Third Army Region commander Lt-Gen Picharnmate Muangmanee singing and dancing with Chairman Bao. Strange bedfellows, indeed, considering the fact that just a year ago Wa and Thai soldiers were slugging it out along the common border.

Perhaps Chalerm has something up his sleeve. But if the turbulent history of Burma tells us anything at all, it is that drugs and insurgency are two sides of the same coin.

Chalerm can't possibility solve the drug problem without taking the political dimension into consideration. And until an adequate political settlement can be reached between the Burmese junta and all the armed ethnic armies, one can forget about seeing these drug armies kicking the habit.

No one will ever climb a mountain to buy cabbages. They will, however, do so to buy opium and methamphetamines.

Note: For more information from the US Department of Justice's indictment on the eight UWSA leaders, click http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel

Army's abuses come home to roost in South

Anupong, who was in the deep South the following day on an official visit, said he would set up a committee to investigate the imam Yapa Kaseng's death. Bangkok-based diplomats and human-rights advocates initially supported Anupong's response. 

By DON PATHAN
The Nation

There were high hopes among observers of Thailand's southern conflict that the justice system would prevail when Army Chief General Anupong Paochinda vowed to get to the bottom of the death of a Narathiwat imam who was killed while in military custody last March.

It was reported that he died from internal bleeding. His ribs were cracked, apparently from being kicked repeatedly while soldiers interrogated him.

Authorities tried but failed to reach an out-of-court settlement with the family who are demanding answers in the death of their family head.

News of his death spread like wildfire, seriously undermining the already fragile relationship between Thai security forces and the Muslim Malay community in the restive region.

Anupong, who was in the deep South the following day on an official visit, said he would set up a committee to investigate the imam's death. Bangkok-based diplomats and human-rights advocates initially supported Anupong's response.

 But today, two months later, there is a growing concern that Yapa's case would go down the road to oblivion. Yapa's daughter has filed a formal complaint with the police, putting her last hopes with the country's legal system.

But like other controversial cases against state security agencies operating in the region, attempting to reach an out-of-court settlement or sitting on the case long enough for it to be forgotten, appears to be the preferred mode of operation.

According to the Muslim Attorney Centre's Kitcha Ali-ishoh, who handles hundreds of cases in the deep South where violence has claimed more than 3,000 lives, most of them Malay Muslims, Yapa 's case has yet to move beyond the police station.

Army spokesman Colonel Acra Thiproch said the case is in the legal pipeline but couldn't say when the system will render its verdict.

Kitcha said the system as it stands is stacked against defendants.

"Hundreds of cases have been handed to the attorney general. Not one has been rejected in spite of the fact that, as past cases have shown, most of these allegations have no merit," Kitcha said.

In other words, young men are locked up for months, and at times for years, until their cases are brought to court. Most are eventually set free as the evidence against them is lacking. The waiting period, which offers virtually no opportunity for bail, has become a bargaining chip in itself, Kitcha said.

From a bird's eye view, law enforcement is acting on what they believe, but not on what they can prove in a court of law.

Intelligence work over the years has not only failed to curb the violence in the South, but has made little headway in getting into the heart of the network of insurgents. Information leading to the arrest or detention of suspects is mainly based on secondary sources and often solicited through torture.

While torture has long been suspected to be part of interrogations, recent years have seen a growing number of people coming forward to accuse authorities of torturing them while under detention.

Information about suspects usually comes from secondary sources, instead of solid evidence that could hold up in court, Kitcha said.

These suspects are "invited for questioning" by authorities who have the power under martial law to hold them incommunicado for seven days and if needed, to extend that period by 30 days.

From June to November of last year, thousands of young men were detained following a series of blind sweeps through villages in highly contested areas.

The courts intervened in the Army project that saw hundreds of young men sent against their will to military camps in the upper South for what was supposed to be "job training". The court, however, ruled that the scheme was unconstitutional and ordered it to stop.

A current public-relations campaign by the Internal Security Operation Command capitalised on the fact that the overall number of attacks, especially on soft targets, has gone down in recent months. But according to Human Rights Watch's Sunai Phasuk, the number of attacks may have decreased, but recent attacks have become much more accurate and deadly.

While newer recruits continue to carry out regular disturbances, the more experienced commandos take out security convoys and military installations, he said.

"Having more men and more guns does not guarantee success," said Sunai. "Widespread abuse and impunity in counterinsurgency operations have made the ground fertile for recruitment and radicalisation, making it likely for the insurgency to continue for generations."

Part of the difficulty in breaking the back of the insurgents is that they have ample recruits on the ground. The  fact that this generation of militants is so organic and decentralised makes any comprehensive, across the board strategy irrelevant.

Moreover, it is premature and misleading for Thai authorities to congratulate themselves on the declining number of attacks without taking serious action on the root causes of the conflict - which they have created. The conduct of the security forces, as seen in Yapa 's case, as well as controversial policies, are driving young Malay Muslim men into the arms of the insurgents.

The military justifies its controversial actions on the ground by saying that it is trying to weed out bad apples.But for local Malay Muslims, with their historic mistrust of the state apparatus and government agencies, these controversial efforts reinforce the notion that the Thai authorities are colonial masters.

In the South, the media, too, must think outside the box

Don Pathan
Pattani

Just recently a couple of dozen reporters based in the three southernmost provinces came together in Pattani, along with senior members of the Thai Journalists' Association, to brainstorm on the ongoing violence in the restive region and how to better cover it.

Top security officials were invited to make their case, particularly over how they perceived the media's coverage of the conflict in the region. Naturally, they asked that their side of the story be heard and that the media be more sympathetic to the challenges confronting them. According to these officials, the media has a role to play in reconciling the differences between the people of the Malay-speaking, Muslim-majority South and the rest of the country. The reporters agreed.

What they couldn't agree on was who, if anybody, should have a monopoly on defining what constitutes reconciliation - or in this case, reconciliatory news stories.

Like any government, the current administration and its bureaucratic machines claim that they have the facts. And because they have the monopoly on these facts, they are the ones who, supposedly, know what's best for the country. And so they issue official lines to the media to be presented to the public. What bothered many journalists was how these facts have been presented. They made it clear that the authorities must share the burden, but essentially agreed that it was part of their responsibility to present accurate and well-rounded stories.

But still, the question remains: should anybody have a monopoly on shaping the context of the story? For too long, the way the deep South was understood had been shaped by the state. For the officials, the answer is clear-cut and simple: the country is facing a new generation of Malay-Muslim militants who embrace a false teaching of Islam and are taught a wrong version of history - the version that says the Malay-speaking South has always been a part of Thailand, even before the world came up with this relatively new notion called the "nation-state".

Moreover, one should not deviate from this notion because, in doing so, one would be accused of adding to the problem instead of being part of the solution. What the state didn't say was that a new can of worms would be opened and they would be left to clean up the mess.

Reporters at the workshop admitted that being too close to the official line had taken its toll on them and they were concerned about their safety. Many said they had alienated their audience, particularly the Malay Muslims, who make up about 80 per cent of the people in the three southernmost provinces. Some even experienced verbal abuse from Muslims, who see them as a government mouthpiece.

It would be different, of course, if the Malay-Muslim public trusted the state. For years, the question of the legitimacy of the Thai state in the historical Malay-speaking homeland has loomed over the region. Since this wave of violence erupted in January 2004, more than 3,000 people have been killed.

According to the journalists, one way to get around this - to not be perceived as a mouthpiece of the state - is to call a spade a spade. Specifically, they asked that editors in Bangkok do less in terms of "sexing up" their stories and instead permit more human-interest stories. For most problems, acknowledging shortcomings is the first step toward a solution. Whether Thai journalists can think outside the box and withstand the wrath of state officials, on the other hand, remains to be seen.

Unlike conflicts elsewhere, there is no message from the insurgents. While the region is not short of critics, all agree that news reporting on the South would be elevated to a higher plane if the opposing forces designated their own spokesmen. But this won't happen anytime soon. Southern Thailand is not Aceh at its worst or Mindanao in its current predicament. One can't just pick up the phone and get the "other side of the story".

Because of the ongoing violence, Thailand's South is the most studied region in the country. For the most part, narratives on the region are presented essentially as sub-narratives of Thailand as a whole. The Thai media have been reluctant to acknowledge that a disturbing portion of the southern population have not come to terms with the country's notion of nation-state - because in doing so, they risk being seen as sympathetic to the people who, in the words of the state, have been misled by the false teaching of history and who embrace the wrong brand of Islam.

The challenge, it seems, is not just for the state to come up with a more realistic explanation as to why generation after generation question the legitimacy of the Thai state in the deep South. The media, too, must learn to think outside the box.