POLITICAL WILL LACKING TO DEAL WITH SOUTH PROBLEM

Don Pathan
The Nation

Kuala Lumpur

For the past three decades, old man Fadel has met and talked with Thai
security officials about what seems to be a never ending dispute
between the Malay historical homeland of Patani and the Thai state.

Not much has changed over the years. If anything, the situation seems
to be getting worse if one takes into consideration the level of
violence in the southernmost border provinces where more than 3,200
have died since January 2004.

Fadel (not his real name) is a key leader from one of the longstanding
separatist groups that emerged in the late 1960s to carve out a
separate homeland for Malays in Thailand's southernmost border
provinces. Like many Patani exiles, Fadel lives a quiet life in
Malaysia under the watchful eyes of the state security and
intelligence agencies.

Kuala Lumpur has been working quietly with
Bangkok to facilitate some of these meetings that Fadel said hasn't
made much progress. He blamed the lack of sincerity and the absence of
mandate on his Thai counterparts.

Since his last interview to The Nation, early last year, Fadel has
lost a tooth and his hair has greyed more. But his stance remains
unchanged.

Like other leaders of long standing groups – Patani United Liberation
Organisation, Barisan Revolusi Nasional, Gerekan Mujahidin
Islam Patani (GMIP), Barisan Islam Pembangunan Patani (BIPP) – Fadel
has dropped the demand for an independent Patani.

Echoing other old guards from these long standing groups, Fadel
maintained that before true and lasting peace can be achieved,
Thailand must first recognise the historical fact that the
Malay-speaking region was once an independent sultanate. Moreover, the
use of Malay must be permitted as a "working language" alongside the
"official" Thai.

"This is not about separating Patani from Thailand. It's about the
dignity of the Malays of Patani," explained Fadel.

Thai security officials have said rewriting history and having all
sides come to terms with the past will not go well with conservative
elements who see the current nationstate boundary as something next to
divine revelation. But the demands from the old guards can be met as
long as the will is there from the political leaders, they said.

Like everything else, it seems, the devil is in the details.

In recent months, Fadel has been watching with some discomfort the
various initiatives by key Thai political and regional leaders to
broker a peace deal with groups who claimed to be representing the
people of Patani.

These key Thai political leaders include Chavalit Yongchaiyudh,
Chettha Thanajaro, Surayud Chulanont and last but not the least,
Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla. Malaysian opposition leader
Anwar Ibrahim has also expressed concern and interest in working
towards peace as well.

But good intentions are not necessarily good policy. Many stakeholders
have questioned the true intention of these socalled mediators and the
merit of their action. In fact, some of these recent initiatives were
billed as, at best, bad planning, and at worst, a hoax.

Two months ago Chavalit publicly said an everlasting peace would be
achieved by December 5 this year. He has less than two weeks left.
Before that Chettha announced an end to the century-old resistance.
Kalla, on the other hand, was left high and dry when the Thai
government said it was not aware of his initiative.

While these dialogue tracks continue to attract the attention of the
exiled leaders, there is a growing consensus among concerned parties
that in spite of these talks, Thailand and Patani separatist groups
are as far apart as ever.

"I have got to the point that these discussions, dialogue or
negotiations have become pointless. This is because the Thai side has
always sent men, usually soldiers, who have no real mandate," said
another exiled leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Malaysian officials who helped facilitate some of these meetings
echoed the same sentiment, saying there is no continuity from the Thai
side and the participants see these meetings as an intelligence
gathering exercise rather than as part of an effort to come up with a
sound policy.

This is not to say that the Thai government has never been in
constructive dialogue before. In December 2007, then prime minister
Surayud met secretly with a top PULO official during a stopover in
Bahrain.

But the foundation that Surayud laid was not built on. "Everything at
the official level is more or less at a standstill at the moment,"
said the Malaysian officer.

Well, not exactly. Surayud's effort was replaced by individual
initiatives from various camps, namely Kalla, Chetta and Chavalit. All
reached out to the old guards but so far, nothing meaningful has come
out of their efforts.

While no one doubted the historical role of these old guards, the
biggest question that is eating up the Thai side is what kind of
influence the exiled leaders have over the new generation of militants
operating on the ground.

Old guards said they have regular dialogue with the new generation and
maintain that they can bring them to the negotiating table if and when
a formal negotiation is kicked off.

Others in the exiled community are quietly singling out the Barisan
Revolusi Nasional – Coordinate as the one long standing group that has
any real influence on the new generation operating on the ground.
Locally, the new generation of militants is referred to as the juwae,
which means fighter in local Malay dialect.

For the time being, Bangkok's official position is to deny any
involvement with these "private initiatives" in spite of financing
some of them. The Thai government is also keeping the international
community away from what they have consistently billed as a domestic
issue.

Observers and frustrated officials on the ground say Thai security
agencies have too much to hide – the torture, a culture of impunity,
corruption and the use of government death squad. Certainly, they can
do without the headache from the international community, much less
the debate on the legitimacy of the Thai state in the Malays'
historical homeland.

Unless there is political will from Bangkok to push for real change in
the deep South, said old man Fadel, violence will continue unabated.

"We don't mind being part of Thailand," Fadel said. "But it has to be
on our own terms."

Unofficial talks may fan the flames of insurgency

Don Pathan

SOMETHING is seriously out of tune in diplomatic ties between Bangkok and Jakarta, and the ongoing insurgency in the deep South of Thailand is to blame.

The Thai government was quick to distance itself from so-called secret talks in Bogor between a group of ageing Patani Malay exiles and Thai delegates led by Kwanchart Klaharn, a senior security adviser to the People Power Party.

Indonesian State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said Indonesia was considered an experienced mediator and that the gathering was a "wish that their efforts would end the conflict".

The Bogor meeting was facilitated by Indonesia's Vice President Yussuf Kalla, known to some in diplomatic circles as "Mr Let's Make a Deal".

It appears that the meeting was supposed to be secret in nature. But once the Indonesian media broke the story over the weekend, the people in Kalla's camp wasted no time in milking the situation. Photographs appeared of a majestic-looking Kalla sat between the two warring parties. The man was in his element, indeed. No one seems to care what this will do to Thai-Indonesian relations.

Over the past two years, there have been a number of meetings between self-proclaimed Patani Malay leaders and so-called representative from Thailand, official and semi-official. Most, if not all, of these meetings were secret in nature but some details were leaked to the media, only to be played down by the Thai government.

Because of the absence of a unified position on either the Thai or the exiled separatists' sides, these talks were ad hoc in nature, having no effect on policy change. If anything, the meetings have become intelligence-gathering exercises for the participants. This is not to mention the per diems and free trips abroad.

One only has to look at the fiasco in July when former Army chief General Chetta Thanajaro claimed to have succeeded in getting an unnamed underground separatist group to announce an end to the century-old insurgency.

The public didn't even give the former chief the benefit of the doubt by waiting to see if the violence ended as he stated it would. People immediately called it a hoax. And the violence continues unabated.

Just last weekend, former premier Chavalit Yongchaiyudh also made a similar claim - that the level of violence will begin a sharp decline starting on October 13, and by December 5 it will come to a complete stop.

As with Chetta, no one has given a hoot about this announcement.

But this is not to say that all of the encounters between separatist leaders and Thai authorities have been fruitless.

The Thai government has been in constructive dialogue with leaders of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) and Barian Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate over the past two years, and in December 2007 then prime minister Surayud Chulanont met with the two groups in Bahrain.

But this fledging process needs stronger political backing.

Ethnic Malay participants at the Bogor talks called themselves the Consultative Council of the Patani Malay People. The delegates were made up of former members of the now-defunct Bersatu, whose former leader Wan Kadir Che Man is said to have declined an offer to take part in Kalla's dialogue process.

Pulo's foreign affairs chief Kasturi Mahkota said his group had pulled out of Kalla's process, saying it didn't have anything new to offer. "It wasn't serious," Kasturi said.

But given the option between talking and not talking, one would think that a dialogue is better than no dialogue at all," said a Bangkok-based diplomat.

But then again, these dialogues - especially those that organisers tend to milk for public relations purposes - could prove to be damaging.

If anything, they could derail the more meaningful processes, such as the one pushed through by Surayud.

But instead of picking up where Surayud left off, the previous government of Samak Sundaravej didn't want to be bothered at all with the conflict in the deep South - in spite of the fact that more than 3,300 people have been killed since January 2004.

In March this year, Samak delegated his authority as the director of the Internal Security Operation Command to Anupong, effectively making Anupong the security tsar overseeing military and civilian affairs in the restive region. But like others before him, Anupong knows that it is too costly politically to push through any bold initiative, even the one that Surayud had started.

Deep-seated issues such as Patani Malay cultural space and the sticky issue of identity are being discussed in seminars, but that's about it.

It is very unlikely that the outcome from these talks will be a win-win scenario for the two opposing parties as has been suggested by some mediators and facilitators. The bottom line is what kind of concessions the Patani Malays and the Thai state are willing to make.

Is Chavalit fostering false hope in the deep South?

Published on September 23, 2008
By Don Pathan

IN keeping with his character, former prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh is being just as ambiguous as ever. But then again, he has his reason for not coming clean. Over the weekend, Chavalit was reported as saying that an end to the ongoing insurgency in the Malay-speaking South is within sight. Starting on October 13, there will be a rapid decline in insurgent attacks in the deep South, and by December 5 violence will come to a complete stop.

He insisted this is not a joke and even took a jab at former Army chief General Chetta Thanajaro, who made similar claims that were quickly dismissed as a hoax. Chetta provided video footage of three unidentified ethnic Malays announcing an end to the insurgency in the restive region. They claimed to be spokesmen for 11 unnamed "underground" separatist groups.

The three men wore fake beards and moustaches and spoke under a flag that is unfamiliar to long-standing Patani-Malay separatist groups. Patani Malay exiles, including groups such as the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), were quick to distance themselves from the video. Chetta quickly became a laughing stock. And, as expected, the violence continued unabated with no end in sight.

No one really knows what Chavalit has got up his sleeve this time, but the former premier is known for having strong political connections in the deep South, and he maintains that his effort is no joke.
His announcement came on the same weekend that Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla was meeting with Patani Malay exiles, namely former members of Bersatu. Representing the Thai side was the defence adviser to the People Power Party, Kwanchart Klaharn, who is tipped to be the next defence minister.

The meeting in Indonesia was Kalla's personal initiative to come up with a solution for the southern problem. Indonesian and Malaysian sources said Kuala Lumpur has had nothing to do with Kalla's initiative. But the fact that most, if not all, of the Patani Malay participants are residents of Malaysia will definitely be a source of irritation to Kuala Lumpur.

Meetings between Thai officials and armed southern separatists have been taking place for decades. The problem is that these meetings have never had any real impact on policy change. They were mostly carried out by senior Army intelligence staff and treated as information-collecting exercises. Agreements reached between the Thai side and the separatists were secret in nature and neither side has had the capacity or willingness to see things through.

Today, these long-standing separatist groups have slipped out of the picture in the deep South and been replaced by younger, meaner militants on the ground. Local residents called them "juwae", which basically means "fighter" in the local Malay dialect. According to Patani Malay exiled leaders, only a handful of people from the long-standing separatist groups have any dialogue with the juwae.
"Perhaps the most meaningful dialogue with the juwae is carried out by members of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional- Coordinate (BRN-C), which is also an underground organisation like the juwae. I seriously doubt if any of the long-standing groups have any real influence on the juwae," one exiled leader said.

Others see the juwae and BRN-C as gradually coming together. Their secretive nature makes them natural partners. Besides, it was the grassroots activities of the BRN that helped ensure the spirit of Malay independence remained in the hearts and minds of local residents in the 1990s when violence disappeared from the region.

The Thai state, on the other hand, mistakenly thought the absence of violence meant permanent peace. What it didn't see was that a new generation of militants was being groomed under its nose.
Pulo, the only long-standing group with a limited public face, said it can help bring the BRN-C to the dialogue process but that Thais will have to be serious about the process. So far, judging from the various uncoordinated meetings between so-called Thai representatives and exiled groups, Bangkok isn't at all serious about talking to the old guard.

Chavalit, over the weekend, claimed to have the support and assurance of authorities in Malaysia, and added that their credibility was on the line. He didn't say which, if any, of the Malaysian government or non-government agencies had assisted him.

As expected, Chavalit's initiative did not get off to a good start. Pulo's foreign affairs chief Kasturi Mahkota wasted no time in criticising Chavalit's initiative. "On behalf of Pulo, I strongly deny our involvement in this dirty process," said Kasturi in a statement to The Nation.

A senior Army intelligence officer in the deep South said Chavalit has been relying on outdated information and his old connections in the region and in Malaysia to put this together. Thai officials on the ground and Patani Malay exiles think Chavalit's initiative will not amount to anything much except a public relations stunt for the political veteran who has been looking to make a comeback.
Moreover, the said government source in Kuala Lumpur said southern Thailand is off the Kuala Lumpur radar screen because of the current political crisis in Malaysia. However, it will quickly become the centre of attention, especially if Anwar Ibhrahim, the leading opposition figure, becomes the next prime minister.

Speaking at a recent press conference, Anwar outlined his top-10 priorities. Nine of the items were domestic matters, but the one and only foreign affairs matter was the conflict in southern Thailand. According to one of his close associates, Anwar would seek input and assistance from governments in the region, as well as leading figures with knowledge about the historical dispute with the Thai state.

But coming up with a deal to end the bloodshed in southern Thailand once and for all will not be easy. With or without the current domestic political mess, Bangkok has not shown any interest in meaningful dialogue or any fundamental change in its relations with the Malay-speaking region.
No one knows how long the political crisis in Bangkok will last. And even if stability returns, few think the Thai state will make any real concession to a region that contests its rule and questions its legitimacy.

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.