New hopes in Thailand's restive south
International Herald Tribune
OCTOBER 23, 2006
Thomas Fuller

YALA, Thailand After two and a half years of ceaseless violence and more than 1,700 people killed, the wary residents of the southernmost provinces of Thailand are expressing measured optimism that the government installed by the military will help ease one of the most intractable conflicts in Asia.

Although daily killings by insurgents continue here, just a few hundred kilometers from the country's tourist- filled beaches, the new government is showing a softer touch, agreeing to peace talks with Muslim insurgents and working to revive a system that allowed local politicians and religious leaders to take part in setting policies.

Thailand also appears to be encouraging a rapprochement with neighboring Malaysia on the issue of the insurgency, which at times has divided the two countries. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will visit Kuala Lumpur, where government officials have said they are willing to serve as mediators.

"The attitude of the new government is certainly much more positive toward dealing with the south, not through the use of force but through having a dialogue, a discussion," said Mahathir bin Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister who was frequently critical of the previous government's handling of the insurgency.

Muslim leaders in Thailand are debating proposals that would give them a special status in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Nimu Makaje, a Muslim scholar in this violence-racked southern city, enthusiastically tells a visitor that the time has come to implement an Islamic legal system in southern Thailand.

"What we want is to include everything," Nimu said. Muslims will have marital disputes, inheritance and crimes such as murder and robbery adjudicated in Sharia courts, he said. Nimu added that "the good thing about the Sharia court is that you don't need three levels, no appeals court, no supreme court. There's just one."

Not long ago, such ideas would have been immediately derided and dismissed in Thailand, which is more than 90 percent Buddhist. Courts throughout Thailand operate on secular principles, although family courts in the south often consult informally with Muslim leaders before issuing judgments.

While experts remain skeptical that the country will ever fully embrace Sharia law in its troubled southern provinces, the open discussion of it signals greater level of confidence and recognition among the southern Muslim minority.

Southern Muslims say they are now being given a voice that they never had under the administration of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted in the Sept. 19 coup.

Many saw Thaksin's CEO-style governing style as one of the sparks that reignited the centuries of animosity between Bangkok and its Muslim-Malay provinces, some 1,200 kilometers, or 745 miles, south of the capital.

The coup leader, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, a Muslim who has extensive experience in the south, has been instrumental in steering Thailand in its U- turn from Thaksin's iron-fisted, Bangkok-knows-best policies.

Muslims have been given key positions in the new administration. One, Aree Wong-araya, is the interior minister and a proponent of the Sharia system, Wan Mahadee, was selected to serve in the country's new National Legislative Assembly, the de facto Parliament.

The new government says it plans to re-establish a modified version of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center, the system that gave local leaders more input into policy making. Thaksin, who famously said he would not give a "square inch" in the fight against Thailand's insurgency, dismantled the center soon after he came to power in 2001.

Sonthi said earlier this month that he would begin negotiations with insurgent leaders, another shift from Thaksin's policy, who shunned official talks, although he tolerated secret negotiations held in Malaysia sponsored by Mahathir.

The notion that Muslims in southern Thailand are being showered with more attention as a consequence of terrorist bombings and killings leaves some analysts worried that the insurgents' violent campaign is being rewarded.

The insurgents were one of the main winners of the coup in September, said Srisompob Jitpiromsri, a political science professor and associate dean at Prince Songkla University in the southern city of Pattani.

"They showed they can remove a government," he said, referring to Thaksin, who is now in political exile in London.

But for the people who live in the five southern provinces, this is an abstract point. There were nearly 49 violent incidents, including 22 killings, in the two weeks after the coup, double the number in the same period a month earlier, according to Panitan Wattanayagorn, associate professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, who chaired a government committee on the southern problems during the 1990s.

"Obviously, changing the government will not stop them," Panitan said. Insurgents, he said, are now using more heavy weaponry in addition to the pistols used by motorcycle assassins, a favorite tactic of local insurgents.

Panitan points to the increase this year in remotely detonated roadside bombs used to kill soldiers in military convoys, which he calls a copycat tactic from another insurgency.

"There's been a technology transfer from Iraq," he said.

On Monday alone nine people were killed in the south, including a local government official killed by assailants who reportedly wielded AK-47 military assault weapons.

The constant threat of violence translates to raw fear. Pian Pholsinual, the deputy headman of Baan Chang Hai Awk, a small Buddhist village of rubber tappers and rice farmers in Pattani province, said the 500 or so residents of his village had stopped traveling outside of the community at night. "We would definitely get shot," Pian said.

The insurgents have shown little selectivity in choosing victims. The main goal seems to be spreading panic and terror. They have killed rubber tappers, teachers, police, soldiers, Buddhist monks, motorcycle mechanics and restaurant patrons. The victims are evenly divided between Buddhists and Muslims.

A few kilometers away, Suriyan Kortae, the headman of a Muslim village called Baan Som, constantly scans the road as he talks with a visitor and then apologizes for being distracted. "I only started doing this in recent years," he said. "I'm afraid."

"During the daytime it's quite peaceful," Suriyan said. "Even so, nobody dares to come here, not even government officers."

A few years ago, Suriyan cannot remember exactly when, nine villagers were killed when they tried to attack a police station. "They were misled by insurgents," he said.

"Insurgents" is a blanket term used to describe the people who carry out the killings and bombings. But unlike similar conflicts in other parts of the world, no one claims responsibility for the attacks.

In years past the explanation was lingering historical bitterness toward Bangkok. The Malay-speaking Muslim region, which was once a grouping of proud and cosmopolitan sultanates with only lose ties to Bangkok, has been ruled by aloof and insensitive bureaucrats who have no understanding of Islam or Malay culture, southern Muslims say.

Among the groups calling for more autonomy are Bersatu and the Pattani United Liberation Organization. Both were present at peace talks last year hosted by Mahathir.

Yet local leaders say the insurgents now include a much broader range of forces.

"In the past the insurgents didn't kill people who were walking out of mosques, or women or children," said Suriyan said. "Now I don't know what they want."

The central question today for the new Thai government is which insurgent group, if any, has the power to stop the violence.

"There is not one single very disciplined force that can be told, 'Look, no more violence, surrender your arms,'" Mahathir said Tuesday after meeting with Thai religious leaders on the Malaysian island of Langkawi. "I don't see this thing as being settled where you just sign and everything is over," he said.

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune