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Softly-softly in
Thailand
By Marwaan
Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As the Thai
government mulls its next move to counter violence
in the country's troubled south, it faces calls
from diverse quarters to broaden its recently
unveiled conciliatory policies as the best hope
for peace in that region.
Most significant
for Bangkok is the nod of approval it received on
Thursday from a prominent member of the country's
Malay-Muslim minority - who form the largest
number of people in the southern provinces of the
predominantly Buddhist country.
Wan Kadir
Che Man, a leader of a Malay-Muslim separatist
organization, has "welcomed the government's
policy shift towards a softer approach in dealing
with violence in the Malay-speaking deep south and
urged local residents to work towards peace," the
English-language daily The Nation reported.
Wan Kadir singled out the creation of the
National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) by the
government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
and the shift away from military solutions to
legal remedies as positive steps, the paper noted.
"Unlike the past battles carried out
between government security forces and separatist
groups, this most recent wave of violence has
driven a wedge between Muslim and non-Muslim
communities in the region," Wan Kadir told The
Nation during an interview conducted in Sweden,
where he lives in exile.
Earlier in the
week, Bangkok was warned that a shift away from
its conciliatory policies for a more heavy-handed
military approach to quell the violence in the
south would play into the hands of insurgents
active in that region.
"The groups
responsible for the bombings and killings have an
interest in an excessive government response,
precisely so that the separatist sentiment is
fueled," the International Crisis Group (ICG), a
Brussels-based think-tank, said in a report on the
escalating violence in southern Thailand.
"It is up to the Thaksin government to
break the cycle of violence by pursuing a measured
response that addresses the security threats but
also acknowledges the accumulated political
grievances," said the report, "Southern Thailand:
Insurgency not Jihad". The government "should hold
intensive consultations with local community
leaders in an effort to open a genuine dialogue",
it added.
ICG analyst Francesca Law-Davies
backed Bangkok's decision to set up the NRC,
headed by respected former prime minister and
diplomat Anand Panyarachun, in March. "The
establishment of the National Reconciliation
Commission in March was the first step in the
right direction, and the commission has made some
useful recommendations," she said. "But unless it
acts more quickly and more boldly, it may be too
little, too late to have a meaningful impact on
government policy."
According to the ICG,
the troubles in southern Thailand since January
2004 still have the hallmarks of a local
insurgency fueled by domestic tensions and not, as
suspected in some quarters, a jihad that has
attracted militant Muslims from abroad.
It
is a view that Anand, the NRC chief, also echoes.
"This is a local issue and can be managed by local
resources. The worst thing is for it to be
internationalized," he told a packed audience at
Bangkok's Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand
on Wednesday night. "There is a separatist
movement but it has to be dealt with by our
government."
What is more, he dismissed
the prevailing view that all acts of violence in
the south were rooted in politics. "My own
estimates are that no less than 50% of the
incidents were criminal activities linked to
narcotics, smuggling and gambling," he said.
"It is an open secret that certain
elements in the military and the police have been
engaged in illegal business activities in the
area," said Anand. "I would not be surprised if
some killings [are] linked to these illegal
business activity."
Thaksin's shift away
from the tough stance he had pursued since January
last year came soon after his political party was
re-elected to power with a thumping majority at
the general elections in February. He set this new
tone by endorsing the need for compromise during a
historic debate involving Thailand's parliament
and senate.
According to media reports,
close to 700 people have died in the south since
assailants stormed a military camp in January
2004. The attacks by suspected separatist groups,
none of whom have claimed responsibility for the
violence, have largely occurred in the provinces
of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.
The
victims of the suspected insurgents have included
soldiers, policemen, government officials,
Buddhist monks, village headmen and Buddhist and
Muslim civilians.
The Malay-Muslims who
have lost their lives at the hands of government
troops include more than 100 who died during a
bloody clash with the military in April last year
and 78 boys and men who died due to suffocation
while in military custody last October.
This latest violent outburst comes after a
lull that followed the end of separatist violence
in the southern provinces during the 1970s and
1980s. The Malay-Muslim militants in the vanguard
of that phase wanted to carve out a region that
had belonged to the kingdom of Pattani a century
ago, before it was annexed in 1902 by Siam, as
Thailand was then known.
The Malay-Muslims
who make up about 2.3 million of Thailand's 64
million people speak a different language than the
Thai of the majority and have a different cultural
heritage and history from the dominant
Thai-Buddhist culture.
Their complaints of
discrimination have not been limited to their
ethnic identity; most say they have been victims
of economic deprivation due to government polices.
Narathiwat province, in fact, has almost a third
of its population living below the poverty line.
The grievances are valid, said the NRC's
Anand. "Past government policies did not respect
the people of different cultures and there was a
lack of awareness of the history of the area."
To heal these wounds, he said, the Thaksin
administration's softer approach should also
include a review of the martial law currently in
force in the south. "We are urging the government
to withdraw martial law," said Anand.
(Inter Press Service) |
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