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Thailand's white knight shaken by
insurgency
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY - Four years ago, Anand Panyarachun
told Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra just what he
thought of the confident prime minister's mission
to remodel the nation in his own image: "When a
country has a leader who considers himself a white
knight, who can solve every problem, has an answer
to every question and can [single-handedly] make
the nation survive, then there must be great
caution," said Anand, himself a former prime
minister. "In reality, no white knight exists and
the Thai nation has to rely on itself."
Anand, who began the arduous task of
rebuilding Thailand's dented democracy after the
armed forces seized power in 1991 - and returned
as premier the following year, when the generals
were ousted in bloody street protests - knows a
little about white knights.
The respected
former diplomat and businessman formed a dream
team of technocrats and other public figures who
revolutionized Thai society in the space of 18
months, installing a new constitution and
reforming institutions that had been subverted by
the military.
Now, as head of the National
Reconciliation Commission (NRC) probing Islamic
unrest in southern Thailand, he is the key player
in the one issue that could seriously shake
Thaksin's boundless self-belief.
Last
week, Anand released the findings of two
independent reports into the deaths of more than
100 Muslims during separate attacks by militia
last year, reports that condemned the government's reliance
on force, an approach personally endorsed by the
prime minister.
One report said senior military
officers were "guilty of dereliction of duty"
for allowing hundreds of Muslim protesters to be crammed
into army trucks after they attacked a police post at
Tak Bai in Narathiwat province in late October.
At least 78 of the protesters suffocated to death.
The report said police used "excessive force" when
storming the sacred Krue Se mosque in Pattani,
leaving 31 Muslims dead. Although those in the
mosque were armed, little effort was made to
negotiate.
Anand owes his NRC appointment
to Thaksin, even though the elder statesman has
made no secret of his distaste for the hands-on
approach used by the charismatic tycoon, who has
trampled on many of the ideals cherished by the
1991-92 team.
But the central figure is
really Thailand's revered monarch, His Majesty
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who humbled the ambitious
generals and their civilian opponents during the
1992 street protests by forcing a truce and
bringing in Anand.
The king rarely
discusses political issues in public, preferring
instead to speak through Queen Sirikit. In
November, after returning from her own
fact-finding trip to the three southern provinces
most affected by the insurgency, the queen decried
the indiscriminate and senseless killing of
ordinary people. In April, Queen Sirikit pleaded
for all Thais - Muslim and non-Muslim - to "put
their heads together" for a resolution.
It
was four decades ago, when they drove unescorted
into frontier zones in the northeast to build
popular support against communist infiltrations
from Laos, that the king and queen last felt bound
to communicate such a sentiment to a specific
region of the country.
The monarch and his
queen remain the only public figures capable of
achieving the unity of purpose that will be needed
to prevent a mostly localized insurgency from
spreading up-country.
The deep south's
history is one of institutionalized neglect. It
has Thailand's lowest income standards and some of
the country's worst levels of health services and
unemployment, offering a natural breeding ground
for separatists who want it returned to Malaysia.
(The five southern provinces that are home to the
majority of the country's Muslims previously
belonged to the kingdom of Pattani, which was
annexed in 1902 by Siam, as Thailand was then
known.)
A small and splintered movement
that should have faded away years ago has been
kept alive by a mix of government apathy and
cultural ignorance, with politicians mostly
content to leave its policing to over-zealous army
officers who have limited knowledge of the area's
language and customs.
Thaksin,
conscious that the majority of Thais regard the country's
Muslims as outsiders and have little sympathy for
their plight, has probably contributed to the
escalation in violence. More than 600 Muslims have
been killed and 200 are believed to have gone
missing in the past 18 months. As recently as
December, shortly after the queen's visit to the
south, Thaksin was advocating a tougher military
response.
"There is no reason for the
government to reconsider its policy in the south,"
the prime minister said through his official
spokesman, adding that the only mistakes had been
"at an operational level".
Ignoring
warnings from Islamic leaders, Thaksin announced
in February that development aid, often the prime
income source for impoverished southerners, would
be withheld from villages that were known to
support the insurgents (see Thailand hits and misses,
again, February 23).
That same
month, a new military command was established with
wider-ranging powers of arrest and detention.
Already numbering as many as 20,000, the security
forces were significantly strengthened; raids were
made on the homes of clergy and teachers suspected
of being sympathizers.
Few were surprised
at the political reaction, especially from the
large Muslim populations in neighboring Indonesia
and Malaysia, and the increasingly tense
relationship with the United States; but the
backlash at a security level was more unexpected.
After functioning for years at a low level
of operation, with occasional bombings and
kidnappings, Thailand's three most active
insurgency groups began to hit further afield,
more frequently and with more impact. Instead of
remote police posts and schools, they have struck
at the region's economic base by raiding an
airport, supermarkets and government offices.
Tourism in the region has almost ceased,
and investors have pulled out. Thousands of
villagers have abandoned their homes and sought
sanctuary in predominantly Buddhist provinces to
the north, creating potential social stresses.
But the most alarming development has been
the offensive's shift of focus from targeting the
public figures who were thought responsible for
biased development policies to killing ordinary
civilians. And most of the new victims have not
been Muslim, but Buddhist.
Undoubtedly,
the specter of a religious war resulted in the
creation of Anand's NRC, which may become the
prime minister's political albatross. Anand has no
authority to sack any of the army officers
identified as being at fault in the two worst
incidents of violence, let alone order a change in
government policies. Although he can recommend
increased development for the deprived region, he
has no funds to ensure this happens.
But
Anand does have one mandate that, ironically,
Thaksin has used so effectively to create his own
power base: popularism. The NRC will get a hearing
because it carries the stamp of a royal palace
that has identified itself with the
underprivileged and the forgotten in almost six
decades of reign by the king. It will be able to
achieve a different mindset because influential
Buddhists see their own interests now being
threatened - and Thaksin, the country's richest
individual, knows better than most the business
risks of an uncontained security threat.
The NRC will probably secure backing for
the localization of government services and a
distinct religious school curriculum that can
reflect the Islamic identity. Security levels will
be reduced and closer border trade ties
established with Malaysia.
Thaksin,
uncharacteristically, has been humiliated by the
reports' findings, especially as he had taken
direct control of the region's security by
handpicking the top armed forces appointments -
they even included a close relative. But don't
expect to see any of the tainted officers in the
dock, as it is not the Thai way to have payback
against public figures. Not even the generals
responsible for the 1991-92 bloodshed suffered
that fate.
The prime minister may still be
able to turn the situation to his advantage by
dropping his discredited assertion that the
insurgents are nothing more than petty criminals
and painting them instead as terrorists, which
would help explain his hardline approach to a
jaded public.
There are no proven
connections between the scattered insurgents and
extremist Middle Eastern fundamentalist Islamic
groups, despite indications that the Thais now
have access to better weapons, training and
strategic planning (see Thai militants turning tech
savvy, April 6).
Equally, there
are no established links between the various
separatist factions, which appear to have widely
varying aims and are believed by Thai military
intelligence to be driven by personalities rather
than ideology. No one is even sure who is in
charge, a complication that will frustrate Anand's
objective of getting all parties to sit down at
the same negotiating table. At least two of the
leaders are believed to be hiding in Malaysia.
Where it could all come unstuck is on the
prickly issue of how far to bend to Muslim demands
for a separate identity, as the concept of a
breakaway region - even a form of limited autonomy
- is alien to Thailand's centralized system of
government administration and unacceptable to the
powerful armed forces.
It is also a no-go
area for the king, who has devoted most of his
reign to strengthening the often tenuous ethnic
bonds between the kingdom's far-flung regions and
cannot risk a political compromise that might
jeopardize the fragile unity.
As Anand takes on the
most unenviable task of a long and distinguished career, this
could be the ultimate stumbling block -
and Thaksin, looking on from the wings, will be
ever ready to capitalize on his performance.
Alan Boyd, now based in Sydney,
has reported on Asia for more than two decades.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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