Justice deficit in southern Thailand
By Brian McCartan
BANGKOK - The surrender of a former soldier suspected of involvement in a
massacre at a mosque last year in Thailand's insurgency-hit southernmost
provinces underlines the complicated nature of violence in the restive region
and raises questions about the government's seemingly conflicted policies to
end the spiraling conflict.
On June 8 last year, six gunmen surrounded al-Furqan mosque in Ai Pa Yay
village, southern Narathiwat province, during evening prayers and opened fire.
Of the 24 Muslim worshippers in the
mosque, 10 were killed and eleven wounded. After the shooting, the attackers
fled, unidentified, into nearby rubber plantations.
The attack sparked outrage in the region, fueled by some officials blaming
Muslim insurgents for the murders. Muslims, including Ai Pa Yay villagers who
spoke with this reporter, expressed disbelief at the government's claims.
The government was quick to deny the possibility of official involvement in the
shooting. Immediately after the incident, deputy prime minister in charge of
security affairs Suthep Thaugsuban claimed that although they were not sure who
carried out the attack, it was definitely not the work of Thailand's security
forces.
But as early as July, security forces in Narathiwat were saying quietly that
those responsible were former members of the thahan phran, or uniformed
paramilitary rangers, and government-supported defense volunteers. Security
analysts and human-rights workers speculated at the time that the attacks were
likely carried out by Buddhists from a neighboring village. Buddhists are a
minority in the three southern provinces and monks and temples have been
targeted in the conflict.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva claimed during an address to foreign
correspondents on January 14 that there was a "clear change" and "clear
progress" in how his government had handled the situation in the south,
including the allocation of a "massive budget" to improve local residents'
economic livelihoods. He pointed to legislative efforts underway to integrate
the work of all government agencies dealing with the situation under a new
ministerial position.
Abhisit said that, under his year-old administration, the rate of violent
incidents had been reduced and cooperation with locals had improved. He
reiterated his desire to lift martial law and replace it with the Internal
Security Act, which would provide a clearer record of who is responsible when
special powers are invoked. To date, the military has pushed back against
lifting emergency rule and shifting to a regime that would make its troops more
accountable.
That lack of accountability has given rise to a culture of impunity that
arguably emboldened the perpetrators of the mosque massacre. The day before the
shooting, a Buddhist from a neighboring village was killed while working in a
rubber plantation about a kilometer away from the mosque. Tensions were already
running high as militants had carried out a wave of brutal attacks in apparent
response to a court ruling in May that absolved security forces of
responsibility for the deaths by suffocation of 78 Muslim protestors at Tak Bai
in October 2004.
Sutthirak Kongsuwan is the 34-year-old Buddhist male who stands accused by the
government of leading the attack on the mosque. He turned himself over to Crime
Suppression Division authorities on January 14, but has denied any involvement
in the mosque killings. Four other alleged accomplices remain at large.
Army officers acknowledge that Sutthirak was a former thahan phran stationed
in Narathiwat province. They say he was dismissed because of alleged
involvement in narcotics. According to other Thai authorities, he is also
wanted on arrest warrants for the murders of civilians Kueluesong Latae and
Abdultolae Sayo in Narathiwat in November 2008.
Yet questions have been raised about the terms of his apparent surrender.
Rumors had circulated in the region that the gunmen were earlier being held in
a police-run safe house. Many observers believe that either the police or
military had held the gunmen in secret custody long before Sutthirak's arrest.
It's unclear to the same observers as to why the authorities apparently staged
his arrest at this juncture.
The origins of the violence in Thailand's southernmost provinces, where over
3,800 have now died since the conflict flared in 2004, is often murky. While
the insurgency is blamed for the majority of the killings, there is a
coincident high level of criminality. There is also a broad gray area wherein
militants moonlight as gunmen for criminal gangs involved in everything from
the smuggling of rice to narcotics.
State-backed hit squads
Rumors circulate among local residents of government hit squads and disgruntled
Buddhists and Muslims that rove as heavily armed vigilante groups - sometimes
with tacit backing from local security forces. To complicate matters further,
criminal gangs often stage violent acts to appear as militant attacks in order
to mislead investigating authorities. The family members of victims of violence
also often pressure authorities to attribute their deaths as insurgency-related
so that they can receive government compensation.
Lieutenant General Pichet Wisaijorn, the commander of security forces in the
South, told Asia Times Online in November that 74% of the violence in the
region is related to criminal activity. This assessment is disputed by many
independent observers, who estimate loosely that the percentage is likely
closer to 50%. Whatever the percentage, it is clear that the insurgency is
being used as a cover for criminal violence.
The case of Sutthirak, a former ranger with several years experience in the
armed forces, and his alleged accomplices points to the intersection between
the insurgency and criminal gangs. One of his alleged accomplices, a Muslim
from Narathiwat, was identified by the insurgents as an undercover intelligence
agent. Several, if not all, of the other men are believed to be current or
former village defense volunteers. (One of the gunmen has since committed
suicide out of a possible fear of retribution.)
All of the men allegedly involved had received some military training and were
civilians at the time of the incident. After his dismissal from the armed
forces, Sutthirak was allegedly involved in two other murders. Police
Lieutenant General Peera Phumpichet, head of police operations in the lower
South, told reporters on January 15 that Sutthirak had become a hired gun after
leaving the rangers. Sutthirak has denied all the charges.
Human-rights monitors, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch and the
Thailand-situated Working Group on Justice for Peace, have accused the
government of using civilian village defense volunteers and other local
militias with less formal ties to the government to carry out missions that the
military and police would rather not be accountable for. These missions, they
claim, have included the assassination of villagers believed to be militants or
their supporters.
The military has been criticized for its increased reliance on loosely
controlled militias to combat the insurgency. Critics say these groups have
used their government-provided weapons in vigilante-style attacks in the past
and their tactics have further inflamed violence in the region. There is now a
growing fear that the weapons are also being used in violent criminal attacks
related to drug trafficking and turf wars between local politicians in the
region.
The long span between the mosque massacre and the January 14 arrest was in
sharp contrast to the sweeps that occur after insurgency-related incidents,
when Muslim suspects are "invited" to military camps for questioning. By powers
vested in the Emergency Decree in effect in the region, suspects may be held
for up to 37 days without charge. According Colonel Parinya Chaidilok, the
Internal Security Operations Command's spokesman in the south, the long period
of detention is necessary to build cases against insurgent suspects.
While authorities tarried in the aftermath of the mosque massacre, militants
had determined who they believed were responsible for the killings and created
their own "wanted" posters, which were distributed throughout the region, based
on information from the alleged perpetrators' national identity cards. The
perceived double standard has fed into a general feeling of injustice that was
already acute in the wake of previous perceived government cover-ups.
It's also apparently undermined behind-the-scenes dialogue between the
government and insurgents - a mediation effort that Abhisit and army
commander-in-chief Anupong Paochinda denies exists. Although the talks have not
been entirely derailed, progress towards confidence building in the
government's sincerity has been hurt by the slow response to the massacre.
Opinions differ as to how much control past insurgent groups such as the Patani
United Liberation Organization (PULO) or the Barisan Revolusi
Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) actually have over the fighters on the ground, but
the appearance of government inaction is believed to have motivated more
militant attacks.
The military was largely cleared of any wrongdoing in the murder of 32 Muslim
militants during an armed assault on Krue Se mosque in April 2004, an incident
which activists claim involved excessive use of force. That was followed by the
deaths of 78 Muslim protestors who suffocated while being transported in an
army vehicle following a protest in Tak Bai, Narathiwat province. In that
incident, the victims were loaded into vans horizontally, stacked on top of
each other and driven for several hours to a detention facility. In May last
year, a court again absolved the security forces of any culpability.
In the case of the al-Furqan mosque massacre, the military has said it was not
involved, and indications so far are that there was no direct official
involvement in the incident. Abhisit said during his recent address that
Sutthirak's arrest was an indication that justice would be served in violent
incidents and that his government would not reflexively blame insurgents for
violence in the region. But the association of the accused with ranger and
militia units, the length of time it took to secure an initial arrest, and
rumors that the other suspects have spent the past seven months in a secret
government safe house suggests to some the makings of another official
cover-up.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist.
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