Thai Generals Ask Former Assassin To Be Security Adviser

[TAWP]

blaze, ColPyat>> Non-whitstanding what you seem to dream about, half the problem is that there isn' a group to talk to. There isn't an organisation that accepts responsibility for anything, as just about every other organisation with an agenda has done after a terrorist-attack by their doing, and can be identified.

When there is no-one to talk to, and there won't be even now when they are having a 'soft period' and allowing the 'insurgents' to ran amock, it's clear they aren't doing this with hopes of gaining anything via dialog. They are out to purge every thai-buddist from the south provinces to forcefully establish their own hardcore-rule. No dialog is ever going to change this - even if they ever could find someone to talk to.

[ColPyat]

blaze, ColPyat>> Non-whitstanding what you seem to dream about, half the problem is that there isn' a group to talk to. There isn't an organisation that accepts responsibility for anything, as just about every other organisation with an agenda has done after a terrorist-attack by their doing, and can be identified.

When there is no-one to talk to, and there won't be even now when they are having a 'soft period' and allowing the 'insurgents' to ran amock, it's clear they aren't doing this with hopes of gaining anything via dialog. They are out to purge every thai-buddist from the south provinces to forcefully establish their own hardcore-rule. No dialog is ever going to change this - even if they ever could find someone to talk to.

Sorry, but can you tell me any similar insurgency where escalation of violence has led to anything else than escalation?

I don't know of any - Kashmir, Phillippines, Irak, Afghanisthan, Chechnya, etc.

I know of one though that has been solved through negotiations (after decades of fruitless escalation along the lines you support) - and that is Aceh. If there is an honest will for substantial negotiations - then there will be somebody there to talk to.

But that unfortunately will take much more time before both will realize that escalation of violence will lead nowhere. Right now we seem to be in a chess like game of both sides putting themselves into a better position. Unfortunately that "game" costs many lives.

[A_Traveller]

In terms of ultimately negotiated solutions, Northern Ireland is an obvious answer to the point, but as has been said there does not appear to be 'anyone' to talk to.

Since initially this grew along poverty lines, the relationship between alienation and the societal norms is clear. The disconnect to the old guard is also clear. They are after paying a price for the failure of their policies during the '90, in particular.

This in no way condones the activities, but highlights how in a conducive atmosphere it is possible for the cancer of hatred to take hold.

Regards

[TAWP]

ColPyat>> Name the partner of dialog.

As my first post indicated, when there is no part of dialog, there can be none. If the other part doesn't want one and if their goal is the complete erradication of anything thai in the area, then yes, I say it's time to act with force.

Or we could just sit and wait, don't do anything and hope they get bored of killing people after a few years and perhaps starts to talk? Assuming they haven't already killed off most people and scared away the survivors...

[ColPyat]

ColPyat>> Name the partner of dialog.

As my first post indicated, when there is no part of dialog, there can be none. If the other part doesn't want one and if their goal is the complete erradication of anything thai in the area, then yes, I say it's time to act with force.

Or we could just sit and wait, don't do anything and hope they get bored of killing people after a few years and perhaps starts to talk? Assuming they haven't already killed off most people and scared away the survivors...

As long as the Thai government is not willing to enter dialog, refuses to accept help from countries that have offered to negotiate - don't expect the insurgents to come into the open and ask for negotiations. Especially not when they are having the initiative and lead the conflict, as things are since it began.

[Briggsy]

can anyone say , Tai Bak .........................

Check a map. Tak Bai.

[TAWP]

Not only that, a dialog - from the viewpoint of the insurgents - could only be a hindrence for them if they have total domination as goal. Unless they are looking to buy more time and it doesn't look as they need it. They have the initiative.

[Rhys]

Go just go General. lock and load.

[Canadianvisitor]

Go just go General. lock and load.

I must admit I am a casual reader Thai Visa.

I must also admit the hatred I feel toward the cowards who hide

little bombs and kill innocent non combatants because they cannot

get thier way.

I hate George Bush and everything he stands for and Thailand taught me the true meaning of peace and acceptance and gentle voices.

But if this General needs a mercinary I am all in.

I'de just like to kill the criminals back, bastards.

No doubt if it were an eye for an eye the whole world would be blind,

but it seems quiet diplomacy and apology and gentle persuasion failed.

As I said, these cowards are nothing more than low life murdering scum.

They are not at war, they have no courage, they kill women and children and school teachers.

Enough is enough.

Sorry if I offended anyone there is something about bombing innocent

people because you want your own country that doesn't cut the mustard with me.

The Quebecois want the same thing here in Canada,

but they just try to do it through the rules.

[lukamar]

The Quebecois want the same thing here in Canada,

but they just try to do it through the rules.

Do you remember the FLQ bombings, the October Crisis leading to the War Measures Act (Martial Law) or the murder of Pierre Laporte in the 70's? Anything but "through the rules". This also led to the rest of the country having an instant second language, French, and other things that were meant to appease the good people of PQ like dual language packaging, TV and Radio across the country. Nothing worked they still want autonomy they are just more peaceful now. We even let them have referendums to leave Canada, but the rest of us non PQ people are not allowed to vote on if we want them to stay.

I can see the same happening in Thailand. First they will get language rights, then special Muslim courts, then entrenchment religious benefits and special schools the list could go on and on all pressed o9n the rest of the country without their acceptance. Nothing will appease them in the end they will still want to be part of Malaysia or whatever.

Don't get me wrong i have nothing against Muslims but I have seen how it happened in Canada and can see how it will happen in Thailand.

[tettyan]

The Quebecois want the same thing here in Canada,

but they just try to do it through the rules.

Do you remember the FLQ bombings, the October Crisis leading to the War Measures Act (Martial Law) or the murder of Pierre Laporte in the 70's? Anything but "through the rules". This also led to the rest of the country having an instant second language, French, and other things that were meant to appease the good people of PQ like dual language packaging, TV and Radio across the country. Nothing worked they still want autonomy they are just more peaceful now. We even let them have referendums to leave Canada, but the rest of us non PQ people are not allowed to vote on if we want them to stay.

I can see the same happening in Thailand. First they will get language rights, then special Muslim courts, then entrenchment religious benefits and special schools the list could go on and on all pressed o9n the rest of the country without their acceptance. Nothing will appease them in the end they will still want to be part of Malaysia or whatever.

Don't get me wrong i have nothing against Muslims but I have seen how it happened in Canada and can see how it will happen in Thailand.

C'mon... the FLQ did not cause anywhere near the level of damage the southern insurgents have, nor did they ever enjoy as much sympathy among the local population as the insurgents do now. They were a left-wing fringe group, not unlike the Red Brigades in Germany or the Japan Red Army, all of which operated in the 1970s.

The key to solving these things is always get the "silent majority" on your side. If English Canada had simply adopted the Meech Lake Accord (giving constitutional recognition to Quebec as a "distinct society"), you guys wouldn't have had the whole mess you had over the past 20 years. Lucien Bouchard (and the other former "soft nationalists") would still be a federalist, the Bloq Quebecois wouldn't exist (indeed, it never would've been founded), there would not have been that nail-biter of a referendum in 1995, and the PQ might as well be out of business. You never would've had adscam either.

You forget that the Official Languages Act was in the works long before the October Crisis.

As for southern Thailand, I don't think the silent majority supports the aims of the insurgents - but they're also afraid to support the central gov't if the gov't is completely incapable of protecting them. A political solution is ultimately necessary, but the biggest obstacle now is the sheer incompetance of the Thai police and army.

Edited June 2, 2007 by tettyan

[ColPyat]

As for southern Thailand, I don't think the silent majority supports the aims of the insurgents - but they're also afraid to support the central gov't if the gov't is completely incapable of protecting them. A political solution is ultimately necessary, but the biggest obstacle now is the sheer incompetance of the Thai police and army.

I am not sure about that.

Police and Army has learned since Tak Bai, but they are fighting an enemy against whose tactics there seems to be no successful military strategy, unless sinking down to similar levels of attrition. Which then might easily result in losing the Muslim population to the other side.

There are many local commanders on the ground with extensive knowledge and understanding of the problems.

I believe the problems are more political in the nature and sit in the decision making ranks whose nationalism blocks any possibility for political solutions, and to at least try to win the trust of the local population (such as the dismissal of the recommendations of the NRC by Prem).

I fear that we have already passed the point of no return, and escalation of the conflict is inevitable. Things are much worse there than is generally reported, several districts have already been lost completely, and there is no telling what is going to happen next, other than things will happen.

The government is also under intense pressure by the rest of the population here to find quick solutions for where there are no quick solutions.

I fear that this conflict is now there to stay with us for a very long time, and that before the end of the year things might turn very ugly there.

[pyrolover2000]

Thai generals ask former assassin to be security adviser

BANGKOK: -- Frustrated by their inability to pacify a Muslim insurgency and concerned about rising impatience toward their rule, Thailand's generals have named a former commando and self-described assassin as their top security adviser.

The appointment this month of Pallop Pinmanee, a retired general notorious for his harsh tactics but admired for his survival instincts, appears to be an acknowledgement that the military-backed government's conciliatory approach toward Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand has failed.

"The way to solve the problem in the south is to get the people on your side," Pallop said in an interview this week. But if the violence continues, he said, the military should carry out "search and destroy" missions against the insurgents. "If we cannot make them surrender, then we have no choice - we have to destroy them."

Pallop's appointment also seems to signal that the generals who overthrew the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September, and who have trodden lightly against their political opponents so far, are contemplating harsher and more repressive actions toward dissent.

Pallop said Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the general who led the September coup, asked him to serve as an adviser during a round of golf in March. The two men once served together in a special warfare unit.

Pallop, a retired general who turned 71 on Friday, speaks about his days as an army-appointed assassin in a casual, matter-of-fact tone and offers little to dispel his tough-guy reputation. He was the leader of what he called the "killer team," a secret seven-man unit of the army in 1970 that carried out extrajudicial killings. "The assignment was to kill the leaders of communist groups all over Thailand," Pallop said.

Pallop also served as a guerrilla mercenary for the CIA along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the 1960s.

But he is perhaps best known for his decision to raid the Krue Se mosque in southern Thailand in 2004, a controversial move that left 32 insurgents dead. The raid helped reignite the centuries-old conflict between Thai Buddhists and ethnic Malay Muslims.

"Diplomacy is not his strong point," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, said of Pallop. "His expertise is to kill people and deal with things by force."

It is too early to tell how influential Pallop will be in the government. But amid rumors of countercoups and maneuvering by Thaksin's allies, the generals seem to have calculated that they needed the skills of a master tactician. Pallop has been involved in three military coups and is alleged to have once plotted an assassination against an army commander.

"When things get hairy, you get Pallop on your side," Thitinan said. "He knows how to fight back."

Pallop began his new job on May 3 at the Internal Security Operations Command, a military agency created under another name in the 1960s as a tool to fight communists in the country. Returning to ISOC, as the agency is known, was a rehabilitation for Pallop, who until last August was the deputy director of the agency but was fired when Thaksin accused him of plotting to assassinate him.

Pallop ridiculed the idea at the time, saying, "If I had done it, I guarantee that the prime minister would not have survived."

Pallop says he is using ISOC's network of 700,000 volunteers around the country to gather intelligence on opponents to the generals' rule.

"They are our eyes around the country," he said.

On Tuesday, he plans to meet with one of the critics of the junta, Veera Musikapong, who has led demonstrations and is sympathetic to Thaksin.

"To get the tiger cub you have to go to the tiger's cave," Pallop said, adding that he would warn Veera that protesting against the junta risked destabilizing Thailand further.

If this approach does not work, the junta will have to consider emergency rule to stop what he calls "mobs" from protesting, Pallop said.

"We are trying to avoid this because it would mean a lot of violence and fighting," he said of emergency rule.

The Thai constitutional court is scheduled to decide on Wednesday whether Thaksin's party and the leading opposition party should be disbanded for fraud, a ruling that could further unsettle a country yearning for a return to normalcy.

Opposition to the ruling generals has mounted in recent months as discussions on a new constitution have dragged on and the situation in the south has deteriorated.

After seizing power in September, the junta vowed to take a soft approach toward the southern insurgency in contrast to Thaksin's hard-line stance. Last November, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont issued a far-reaching public apology on behalf of the Thai state for what he called flawed government policies toward local Malay Muslims.

But this and other olive branches failed to stem the daily killings of civilians - rubber tappers, municipal workers and teachers chief among them.

Pallop says he can beat insurgents at their own game because it's a game he has played himself - in 1966 and 1967, when he led guerrilla units in attacks against North Vietnamese traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. "The strategy of hit and run I know very well," Pallop said.

Pallop declined to reveal exactly how many suspected communists he and his six fellow assassins killed in 1970 - "many, many," he said - but he lamented one particular rebel who got away: Payom Chulanont, the father of the current military-appointed prime minister, Surayud.

"We almost got him," Pallop said dryly.

He did not want to name the people he assassinated because it would upset too many relatives still alive today, he said.

Pallop appeared relaxed in the interview and said he had stayed alive this long because he was a careful person. His colleagues seem more concerned. Aides carried into his office a birthday present from a fellow general in the Thai Army: a bulletproof vest.

-- IHT 2007-05-26

Good reading for those who doubted me and took jabs at my post. Do you believe that he was really hired just to take care of the problems in the south? LOL......

Edited June 2, 2007 by pyrolover2000

[highdiver]

there is no way out of this situation using talks and negotiations.

the other side is extreme line fundementlist Muslims who belive that they have the right to kill bomb destroy anyone who is not muslim.

this should not be confused with the muslim religion. it has nothing to do with it.

this extreme muslim movement powered by al quida and jama islamia are seeking to impose a state of terror and you can fight them using traditional methods of talking.

democratic western mentality countries can not do anything but talk as they are bound by rules of engaement and laws reagding hurting civilians. the terrosist on the other hand do not care if inocent on both side are killed as it serves the cause. they use civiliens and civil life as a shield and the army can not hurt them as doing so will injure civiliens.

they are not afraid of being cought as then they will be under the law brought to justice and from with in the walls of jail continue the flaming. so they are not scared.

you can not fight terrorists with talking.

so what can be done.

the only way to fight back is by perosnally hurting those who stand at the head of the insurgency. those who are sending those bombs should be accountable by death. no trial or lawyers or long due process. shoot to kill.

civiliens must understand that as long as they are harboring those terrorists they stand to loose as well.

when the leaders of the terror who are now hiding behind civiliens relise that they are facing death and they are the target not only of the goverment but of the locals as well . insurgency will go down

[blaze]

there is no way out of this situation using talks and negotiations.

the other side is extreme line fundementlist Muslims who belive that they have the right to kill bomb destroy anyone who is not muslim.

this should not be confused with the muslim religion. it has nothing to do with it.

this extreme muslim movement powered by al quida and jama islamia are seeking to impose a state of terror and you can fight them using traditional methods of talking.

democratic western mentality countries can not do anything but talk as they are bound by rules of engaement and laws reagding hurting civilians. the terrosist on the other hand do not care if inocent on both side are killed as it serves the cause. they use civiliens and civil life as a shield and the army can not hurt them as doing so will injure civiliens.

they are not afraid of being cought as then they will be under the law brought to justice and from with in the walls of jail continue the flaming. so they are not scared.

you can not fight terrorists with talking.

so what can be done.

the only way to fight back is by perosnally hurting those who stand at the head of the insurgency. those who are sending those bombs should be accountable by death. no trial or lawyers or long due process. shoot to kill.

civiliens must understand that as long as they are harboring those terrorists they stand to loose as well.

when the leaders of the terror who are now hiding behind civiliens relise that they are facing death and they are the target not only of the goverment but of the locals as well . insurgency will go down

Many posters seem to think that Pallop has been invited in to solve the southern problems. Maybe. But remember that since Sept the real threat to peace and stability, according to the junta- has been the 'undercurrents' and according to rumor- a 'second coup'.

The author doesn't do much to disguise his suspicions as to why Pallop has been invited in:

"It is too early to tell how influential Pallop will be in the government. But amid rumors of countercoups and maneuvering by Thaksin's allies, the generals seem to have calculated that they needed the skills of a master tactician. Pallop has been involved in three military coups and is alleged to have once plotted an assassination against an army commander."

Guys like him are best kept inside the fold- not wandering around the perimeters.

Edited June 2, 2007 by blaze