No Easy Way To Start A Peace Process In The Deep South: Thai Opinion

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No easy way to start a peace process in the deep South

Don Pathan

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- With the backing of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the premier's older brother Thaksin, the secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC), Thawee Sodsong, thinks he is on a roll.

Over the past few months, Thawee has been working hard to kick-start a peace process in the three southernmost provinces, where the ongoing insurgency has claimed more than 5,000 lives since January 2004.

Thawee has been sending representatives to neighbouring countries to ask for their assistance in facilitating secret talks with leaders of long-standing separatist movements in southern Thailand.

One of the things Thawee will be offering is that the future SBPAC chief be locally elected. The ruling Pheu Thai Party is also exploring, again, the idea of granting the Muslim-majority South special administrative status.

On the surface, Thawee's idea of permitting the future SBPAC chief to be locally elected may sound like a good idea, as the Malay Muslims - who constitute over 80 per cent of the residents in the deep South - would be given an opportunity to elect one of their own people to a top post. But some exiled separatist leaders, as well as members of the Barisan Revolusi National-Coordinate (BRN-C), think Thawee and the Thaksin camp are trying to wash their hands of the deep South. Autonomy and decentralisation could mean political and administrative power in the deep South falling into the hands of the few Malay elites, who could very well be Bangkok's lackeys, they say.

And while a locally elected SBPAC chief would take the heat for things that go wrong, the locally hired paramilitary Rangers would inevitably become the target for insurgents' bullets and bombs, as the regular Army command pulled soldiers back to their respective regions.

Many observers warn that without a meaningful decentralisation process in place, or structural reform in such a way that would give the SBPAC real power over administrative and security matters, a locally appointed secretary-general would amount to a paper tiger.

Nevertheless, Thawee is going ahead with his plan and is preparing to take this message of peace and reconciliation to the leaders of the long-standing separatist movements living in exile.

However, a number of Thai officials who have observed the conflict for years, as well as the exiled separatist leaders, think Thawee's textbook-like approach will not work because there are too many factors that he has yet to overcome.

"Thawee thinks he can bring exiled separatist leaders to the table and cut a deal to end this conflict once and for all. It won't work because the grievances are deep-rooted in the hearts and minds of just about every single Malay Muslim of Patani," said a BRN Coordinate cadre.

Even if Thawee succeeded in getting the current crop of separatists to come on board, a new generation of militants will eventually surface to continue the armed struggle, as this past eight years have shown.

Another problem for Thawee, said another exiled leader, is that there is no unity among leaders of these separatist groups he plans to meet. Personal rivalries aside, the views of these leaders vary from wanting complete independence to willingness to settle for some form of autonomy.

Perhaps the most important factor that would hamper Thawee's peace process is the fact that none of these groups seem to have adequate control over the new generation of insurgents, locally known as juwae, operating on the ground.

Members of the BRN Coordinate, who are said to have the best working relationship with the juwae, admit that the chain of command is too fluid, and more time will be needed to consolidate command-and-control with the juwae. And without the ability to effectively influence the juwae or curb the ongoing violence, Thawee negotiating with the old guard could prove meaningless.

One of the biggest concerns for the BRN, said one of its cadre, is that some of the juwae, or young men who call themselves juwae, have been selling their services to crime syndicates and smugglers. This has made consolidation much more difficult.

For the time being, there is a truce between the Army and the Thaksin camp. No one is certain how long this truce will last, but Thawee's quest for a quick peace deal has rubbed many of the country's top brass up the wrong way. The Army chief is against autonomy, and the top brass does not like the idea of talking to the enemy unless they are the ones doing the talking.

And in spite of the fact that the Army sent one of its generals to observe the nearly defunct National Security Council's secret peace talks two years ago, the idea of backing another government agency's peace initiative is not something the top brass is willing to entertain in any meaningful way.

But with support from Thaksin and Yingluck, Thawee thinks there is nothing that is going to stop him. Separatist leaders, on the other hand, see things differently. There are just too many unresolved issues that Thawee will have to overcome, they say.

Besides the fact that Thawee is surrounded by people they don't really trust, exiled Patani Malay leaders say he is still haunted by his past deeds. Indeed, many locals still recall how, back in 2004, Thawee hunted down suspected insurgents and Islamic teachers, including a Malay-Muslim spiritual leader, Sapae-ing Basor. Thaksin had accused Sapaeing of wanting to be president of a liberated Patani.

Today, many Thai government officials are quietly saying what the local Malays have believed all along - that the charges against Sapae-ing were fabricated. Incidentally, many of the peace-brokers are looking for the man, hoping that he could help bridge the trust gap between the state and the Malays of Patani.

The talk of autonomy or permitting a locally elected SBPAC chief may appeal to some local Malay elites but certainly not the vast majority of the voters, who, at the last general election, did not grant even one parliamentary seat to the Pheu Thai Party, which was promising special status for the region. Locals say policy-makers should concern themselves with issues like justice, equality and social mobility for the Malays, not structural reforms aimed at changing an agency's head but not much else.

Assuming that Thawee and Thaksin's camp can cut a deal with the separatist movements, there is no guarantee that the Patani Malay's historical narrative will just disappear. The emergence of a new generation of insurgents after a relatively quiet decade in the deep South is a testimony to this very point.

Police insiders say Thawee has asked Malaysia to facilitate talks with the separatist leaders. It is not the first time that top Thai officials have tried to arrange talks with the separatist leaders in a collective manner. In 2005, former Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir Mohammed facilitated a series of talks between top Thai security officials, and the outcome did not have any real impact on the conflict or Thai policy in the deep South. Separatist leaders who took part in the Langkawi peace talks say they didn't like the fact that they were being dictated to, and warn that future dealings with Thawee could very well be repetition of the so-called Langawi initiative - a peace process that didn't get anywhere.

"You can't just impose peace. Thailand has to work for it in a meaningful way," said one exiled leader.

For more reading on the insurgency in southern Thailand please visit: http://seasiaconflict.com/

-- The Nation 2012-03-15

[Unkomoncents]

"Thawee has been sending representatives to neighbouring countries to ask for their assistance in facilitating secret talks with leaders of long-standing separatist movements in southern Thailand."

Malaysia has wisely avoided this political quagmire. The idea that Thaksin would broker peace in a conflict he seriously exacerbated is rather hilarious as well. You can be sure that at least some of these people remember when Thaksin placed the Royal Thai Police (the only thing royal about these folks is the level of corruption) in a major enforcement role. This was equivalent to what would happen if you hired the Ku Klux Klan to manage FBI affairs.