Thai editorial: An inconvenient truth in the deep South

[webfact]

EDITORIAL
An inconvenient truth in the deep South
The Nation

The Thai state's propaganda machine cannot win the battle for hearts and minds

BANGKOK: -- Citizens and activists who take a more critical view of the government's policy and actions in the Malay-speaking South have not only been subjected to harassment by the authorities but also nasty propaganda, often referred to as "IO", or information operations.

The idea of IO is to discredit those perceived by the authorities to be obstructing the effort to win hearts and minds among the local residents, about 90 per cent of whom are Muslims of Malay ethnicity.

The authorities believe that if they can win over the locals, they can quell the armed separatist movements by denying them support and legitimacy.

One group now bearing the brunt of the government's IO machine is the Federation of Patanian Students and Youth, or PerMAS, a network of university and high-school students.

Though the group's stronghold in the deep South, PerMAS membership stretches throughout Thailand and even into neighbouring countries.

Because of their outspoken stance against the culture of impunity among government security officials, PerMAS has been consistently accused of collaborating with separatist organisations, particularly the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), believed by Thai officials to control vast majority of the insurgents on the ground. Thailand's IO paints PerMAS as the "political wing" of the BRN, a label that members strongly reject.

Though 11 years have passed since the current wave of insurgency first emerged, regular and cordial dialogue between Thai security officials and PerMAS has not resolved the differences.

Undermining the efforts is the government's semi-secret IO machine, which continues to churn out propaganda attacking and harassing these activists.

Whether a deliberate strategy or not, this double-faced approach only makes the authorities look bad. If anything, it illustrates a lack of unity of purpose and strategy on the government side.

Intelligence and security officials need to ask themselves whether such propaganda tactics against groups like PerMAS are even necessary. And if they continue to insist that IO is a legitimate approach, they should be more truthful about the information they dish out.

Rallies organised by PerMAS and associated groups like Lempar, Nusantara, Perwani and Wartani draw upwards of 10,000 people. The criticism voiced at such large public events is no doubt uncomfortable for the authorities.

But attacking these groups with distorted information won't help the situation. For many locals, it only enforces a longstanding lack of trust in state officials.

Positive change won't be achieved by the state reaching out to them with an olive branch in one hand while holding a whip in the other.

There are far more productive ways to engage these activists.

First, actions speak louder than words. Acting to end the culture of impunity among security forces by clamping down on dubious tactics such as torture and extrajudicial killing would be a crucial step in the

right direction. The best way to show local residents that the state cares deeply about their concerns would be to take up their grievances and look into them with an open mind.

The authorities must ask themselves why local residents have diverted their hope and trust towards these youth activists. Is it perhaps that they have good reason to believe no one else will stand up for their rights?

Like it or not, an "us versus them" mentality still prevails in the deep South, where the "Siamese" are more often than not seen as outsiders.

The authorities need to grasp this inconvenient truth. It may not fit neatly into their official explanation of the situation, but if we are to get to the bottom of this longstanding and deadly conflict, we must stop fooling ourselves with our own propaganda.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/An-inconvenient-truth-in-the-deep-South-30271893.html


-- The Nation 2015-10-30

[dhream]

Didn't this territory belong to a Sultanate 100 years ago? So hand it back, its not worth the aggro and expense. (Not holding my breath).

A bit brave of the Nation to post this critical op ed, I'm surprised!

[Farang99]

Didn't this territory belong to a Sultanate 100 years ago? So hand it back, its not worth the aggro and expense. (Not holding my breath).

A bit brave of the Nation to post this critical op ed, I'm surprised!

An agreement between UK and Thailand carved up the border region - which got screwed again when the Japanese generously handed over a few more of the northern peninsula states to Thailand in return for letting their troops come through to conquer Malaya and SIngapore - not that the Thai army could have done anything to stop the Japanese, but it might have left a better impression on the rest of the world if they had tried.

[chainarong]

The inconvenient truth has been written on the wall for decades , unfortunately successive Thai Administrations keep thinking they are dealing with some cowboy's, at best they can be described as low life that kill innocent women and children and old men , however Thailand on their own won't defeat them , they require the help of Malaysia and the UN , Malaysia has been nothing short of evasive and non committal in this dispute because it concerns their religion, they are very reluctant to act or help, that only leaves the UN who are more trained and up to date on this style of warfare than Thailand, whilst the Muslim terrorists demand secular autonomous government for the region, Thailand is going to be caught with its pants down every time, the shame of it all is Thailand's commanders have not learnt very much over the last 2 decades , Thaksin Shinawatra's massacre and hard line didn't help , since then terrorists have stepped up their efforts after being instructed in bomb tec from Indonesian terrorists, the inconvenient truth is Thailand has made a mess of the whole shebang

[Srikcir]

Prayut had asked the media to "present news in a way that would help promote confidence in the government’s ability to solve this problem." 2014-10-17

The separatists response: "Prayut cares more about his image than about the root cause of the conflict." The Nation 2014-12-05

Another inconvenient truth?

[gandalf12]

Question for the Moderators. Why can we post links to the Nation but not the Bangkok Post? I am very intrested to know why as I am sure there would be some discrepancy between this article by the Nation and that of the Bangkok Post

Edited October 30, 2015 by gandalf12

[skildpadden]

A surprisingly bold editorial from The Nation and I do agree with them. Cut the propaganda BS and instead figure out what the insurgents actually want.

Full autonomy is probably not likely, but perhaps something in between could be accepted by both parties, e.g. where the region has rights to education in own language, some independent fiscal policy, a local parliament and special reserved seats in the Thai parliament, but they would still share monarchy, police, army and foreign policies with Thailand.

[Acharn]

Didn't this territory belong to a Sultanate 100 years ago? So hand it back, its not worth the aggro and expense. (Not holding my breath).

A bit brave of the Nation to post this critical op ed, I'm surprised!

An agreement between UK and Thailand carved up the border region - which got screwed again when the Japanese generously handed over a few more of the northern peninsula states to Thailand in return for letting their troops come through to conquer Malaya and SIngapore - not that the Thai army could have done anything to stop the Japanese, but it might have left a better impression on the rest of the world if they had tried.

Some units of the Border Patrol Police did try, but Prime Minister Field Marshal Phibulsongkram ordered them to cease resistance, because they would only have gotten themselves killed uselessly. I don't recall now why the Armed Forces weren't involved. Maybe because their camps were too far from the points where the Japanese forces entered and they were unprepared. The government at that time was in the hands of people who were very sympathetic to the Axis Powers, extremely ultra-nationalistic and racist. They were quite happy to ally themselves with the Japanese. Later they discovered the Japanese were racist in a way different from themselves.

[dhream]

Here's how it happened.... with maps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Thailand

Interestingly, Japan shared a philosophy at the time similar to IS 'world domination' ordained by the ancient seers. Actually not quite, but then I could not say...

Come back Enola Gay, all is forgiven!

Edited October 30, 2015 by dhream

[simple1]

A surprisingly bold editorial from The Nation and I do agree with them. Cut the propaganda BS and instead figure out what the insurgents actually want.

Full autonomy is probably not likely, but perhaps something in between could be accepted by both parties, e.g. where the region has rights to education in own language, some independent fiscal policy, a local parliament and special reserved seats in the Thai parliament, but they would still share monarchy, police, army and foreign policies with Thailand.

While the Thai Armed Services have a strangle hold on the political system it will not happen. Remember the armed forces are sworn to uphold Thai national values of "Nation - Religion - King"

[digibum]

Didn't this territory belong to a Sultanate 100 years ago? So hand it back, its not worth the aggro and expense. (Not holding my breath).

A bit brave of the Nation to post this critical op ed, I'm surprised!

An agreement between UK and Thailand carved up the border region - which got screwed again when the Japanese generously handed over a few more of the northern peninsula states to Thailand in return for letting their troops come through to conquer Malaya and SIngapore - not that the Thai army could have done anything to stop the Japanese, but it might have left a better impression on the rest of the world if they had tried.

Some units of the Border Patrol Police did try, but Prime Minister Field Marshal Phibulsongkram ordered them to cease resistance, because they would only have gotten themselves killed uselessly. I don't recall now why the Armed Forces weren't involved. Maybe because their camps were too far from the points where the Japanese forces entered and they were unprepared. The government at that time was in the hands of people who were very sympathetic to the Axis Powers, extremely ultra-nationalistic and racist. They were quite happy to ally themselves with the Japanese. Later they discovered the Japanese were racist in a way different from themselves.

Was just reading an article about the origins of Pad Thai and PM Phibun is quite prominent in the article. During his time as head of the state he was infatuated with the idea that Siam must not be colonized. According to the article he was the one who initiated the change in name from Siam to Thailand, formalized the Thai language, and presented Pad Thai to the Thai people as the national dish (the article said that getting Thais to adopt Pad Thai was his pet project and something he spent considerable effort on - despite it being a knock-off of a Chinese dish).

His thinking was that everyone else in the region had been colonized because they had been too uncivilized. That was always the colonizer's explanation for colonizing. So he set about on a path to give the appearance that Thailand was a completely civilized society with a rich culture and thus did not need to be colonized.

He seemed to be one of those "Master Architect" type of guys who had laws and rules about every facet of life from how long people should sleep each day to how often they should contact their relatives.

The article suggests that not just Thailand but other countries in East Asia like Burma were mesmerized by fascism at the time due to the strong military leader who saves the country type images being portrayed by Hitler and Mussolini. They fancied themselves as being this type of figure and thus it wasn't hard for them to sympathize with the Axis powers.

Not clear on the timelines but it does mention Phibun stripping some rights away from the Muslim population during his time in power. May have been before Thailand's involvement in WWII or after but it seems to fit with his overall philosophy of uniting the Thai people under one common umbrella whether that was what the people wanted or not.

[Bluespunk]

Every time a truth is revealed about the South the word inconvenient precedes it in the news headlines. Funny that...

Edit: I used the word convenient in my original post, that word of course applies to propaganda truths.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Bluespunk

[Bluespunk]

Here's how it happened.... with maps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Thailand

Interestingly, Japan shared a philosophy at the time similar to IS 'world domination' ordained by the ancient seers. Actually not quite, but then I could not say...

Come back Enola Gay, all is forgiven!

The unforgivable can never be forgiven.

Justified and explained, maybe.

Forgiven, never.

Alongside those who see humour in the appalling suffering nuclear bombs inflict upon a civilian population.

[DeepInTheForest]

Most of us have only the sketchiest knowledge of the history of the southern conflict. That includes myself, but I am working on it.

The disbanding of two crucial crisis-management institutions during the Thaksin years was a critical turning point. One was the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, which employed local leaders and trained others in Malay languages in their efforts to cool things off. People had a way to express grievances down to the village level. The military/intelligence partner in this was CPM 43, a military group responsible for providing security.

But both of these groups were created in 1981 during the premiership of Prem Tinsulanonda, who was born in Songkhla. The Democrats were strong in the South-- they carried those provinces, not the PTP-- and Thaksin's motivation in disbanding the groups may have been politically motivated, both as a way of dislodging the influence of Prem, and in rewarding his police friends by assigning responsibilities to them. He may also have simply felt that the insurgency was not political, but simply related to criminal organizations. Whatever the reason for Thaksin's ending of the successful program, the consequences have been tragic.

Anand was later appointed by Thaksin to address the issue and came up with recommendations in 2005-2006 that included the acknowledgment of Pattani-Malay as a working language in the region. (Assumedly this would have meant that the native language could be used in schools, which was a long-time sore point.) However, the recommendations were vigorously opposed by Prem, who said that Thai people should all speak Thai, etc. Again, it seems his possible, if not likely, that his opposition was based on political reasons, since he himself had previously implemented a soft-hands policy. Anand's plan went nowhere. http://www.mkenology.com/2012/05/history-of-patani.html

This piece, written by Francesca Lawe-Davies in 2005, was prescient. Her seven criticisms go far beyond what I mention here, and include use of excessive force, failure to display sensitivity or attempt justice, and failure to acknowledge failure.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-east-asia/thailand/op-eds/thaksins-timebomb.aspx

Edited October 30, 2015 by DeepInTheForest