Little To Show For Huge Work In Far South: Thai Opinion

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BURNING ISSUE

Little to show for huge work in far South

Avudh Panananda

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The authorities need to try and distinguish between working hard and getting results, if the country is to have a fighting chance to quell the southern insurgency.

Terror attacks have persisted for more than eight years despite Bt160 billion in government spending in the strife-torn region. The country's all-out effort on counter-insurgency operations seems to have made little headway.

Security forces, local administrators, police and civilian officials are undoubtedly paying utmost attention to doing their job but the question is why have they not been successful?

In the wake of car-bomb attacks in Hat Yai and Yala on March 31, the ruling Pheu Thai Party and the opposition Democrats have been playing a blame game. This seems to have caused confusion rather than shed light on the insurgency.

The pro- and anti-Thaksin camps have further muddied the issue by bickering over whether the fugitive former prime minister unwittingly triggered the escalation of violence by taking part in failed talks with an insurgent group.

Thaksin rigorously denied his involvement in the talks. But several reliable news sources from Thailand and Malaysia claimed Thaksin met with a PULO leader in Kuala Lumpur.

Regardless of whether Thaksin held talks, terror attacks remain a major security issue threatening to break the country into pieces.

Based on official statistics reported by the Isara News Agency, there have been 28 blasts involving car bombs in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat since 2004.

The first two months of this year saw an escalation of car-bomb attacks and the security forces were already in the process of mapping out plans to cope with such attacks. But no one suspected the spread of such attacks to Hat Yai.

Terror attacks in the commercial hub of the South are not common. Past bomb dramas in Hat Yai were often staged like terror attacks in order to mislead police investigators but had nothing to do with the insurgency.

However, the March 31 attacks in Hat Yai coincided with car bombs in Yala, hence speculation about the links to insurgents.

Aside from speculative remarks by police and anonymous security sources, the authorities have yet to uncover hard evidence to link the Hat Yai and Yala attacks.

The three suspects involved in the Yala incidents may be connected with an insurgency cell. However, it is unclear whether the two suspects sought for the Hat Yai attack were insurgents.

Provincial Police Region 9 commissioner Lt General Chakthip Chaichinda said one of the two Hat Yai suspects - Seri Waemamu - was sought for 12 outstanding warrants for his arrest, aside from charges related to the car-bomb attack.

In another recent crime, Seri was named as a suspect in the killing of a policeman in Songkhla's Thepha district in 2010.

The fact that Seri can manage to elude the law for more than two years before resurfacing to stage an attack in Hat Yai speaks volumes about the efficiency of police work.

Although police and security forces appear clueless before terror attacks, they can surprisingly rattle off the names of suspects, the insurgent cells involved and the crime re-enactment within hours following each incident.

But the gap between talking and actual job performance is the reason the insurgency persists.

In the past four years, police tried to solve some 8,200 insurgency-related cases. Less than 40 per cent reached the prosecution stage.

Last year, the conviction rate was about 18 per cent of 214 cases tried in court. Each trial lasts from two to five years, but the process alienates the community and fuels the insurgency with a desire to "pay back" injustice. Thousands of suspects have to endure long spells in remand before walking free.

-- The Nation 2012-04-10