Fighting for peace in
Thailand By Marwaan
Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Prospects for peace
in Thailand's troubled south have dimmed due to
escalating incidents of violence by shadowy,
Muslim-Malay insurgent groups on the one hand and
calls for tougher measures by Buddhist monks on
the other.
Caught between the spiraling
violence by the insurgent groups and the angry
monks is the one hope for a peaceful resolution of
the two-year-old ethnic conflict - the National
Reconciliation Commission (NRC).
Just how
daunting a task the NRC faces was brought home
over the past two weeks by a string of violent
incidents in the predominantly Malay-Muslim
southern provinces, including an attack Saturday
by suspected insurgents on a Buddhist monastery in
Pattani. Shots were fired and a monk's living
quarters as well as cars at
the Takienthong temple were set on fire. No
injuries were reported.
It was the second
recent arson attack against a monastery in
Pattani. Suspected militants broke a taboo by
attacking a Buddhist temple on October 16, killing
a 76-year-old monk and two teenage temple boys,
damaging temple property and desecrating a statue
of the Buddha.
Last week's temple arson
came on the heels of a train being derailed by
bombs placed on the tracks. Only one passenger of
about 100 on board was reported injured in the
explosion, which occurred soon after the train
left Sungai Kolok station near the Thai-Malaysia
border.
But the attack was the worst of
its kind since the region, which includes the
border provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat,
adjacent to Malaysia, was first struck by violence
in January 2004. Authorities said though
explosives have been placed on tracks previously,
it was the first time a moving train had been
targeted.
That attack came a day after
militants mounted a well-coordinated attack on 63
communities in the three provinces, which included
raids on security outposts that were robbed of 90
weapons.
Meanwhile, in response to the
murder and desecration of Promprasith temple in
the Panare district, more than 100 monks from
Pattani mounted fierce criticism of the NRC and
called on the government of Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra to disband the body formed seven months
ago.
The monks' wrath reflected growing
sentiment among people in this predominantly
Buddhist country against suspected insurgents who
have gone after Thai-Buddhist civilians and
government officials and even beheaded monks in
the streets over the past 21 months.
"This
anger can be understood, since the government
looks powerless to stop the violence, so how
helpful can the NRC be for them?" asked Chaiwat
Satha-Anand, a Thai-Muslim academic who is a
member of the NRC. "The divisions are indeed
deepening between the Buddhists and the Muslims
due to the taboos being violated and the
escalating violence."
Yet the NRC, which
has among its ranks distinguished statesmen,
academics, parliamentarians, human rights
activists and government officials, is far from
conceding defeat, he said during an interview with
IPS.
"Our agenda is long term, to begin
building bridges between the two communities
before the violence ends," he said. "There are
many pockets of hope in the area, where the
communities are living together, that we could
strengthen."
But the rapid escalation of
violence places such pockets of hope in peril.
During the first six months of this year, there
have been more than 700 incidents and the attacks
by the militants are becoming much more "lethal",
said Panitan Wattanayagorn, a national security
expert at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
"There is clearly a sign of sophistication
in the bombs that have gone off this year," he
said. "Three of them were over 50 kilograms. It is
a spike from attacks with knives, pistols and
guns."
At the current level of violence,
he expected this year to be far bloodier and more
volatile than 2004. "During all of last year there
were nearly 900 incidents, and that number has
almost been reached in only the first six months
of this year."
The spate of attacks is in
marked contrast to the decade that preceded it,
where conflict between suspected Malay-Muslim
militants and government troops was of very low
intensity, with an annual average of 30 to 35
incidents. In the year 2000, one of the quietest
periods, there were only eight incidents,
resulting in 10 deaths, according to Panitan.
The death toll in the current cycle of
violence has topped 1,000, most of them victims of
attacks by the suspected militants. They include
teachers, community leaders, rubber tappers,
soldiers and policemen - from both the Buddhist
and Muslim communities. Security had to be
beefed up in the three provinces when schools
reopened after the October break. More than 1,000
teachers have transferred out of the region for
fear of their lives. More than 80 teachers have
been killed since January last year.
Government forces in the region, which
number some 15,000 soldiers and 18,000 policemen,
have been responsible for brutalities too. The
worst of these were the deaths from suffocation
while in custody of 78 Muslim boys and men rounded
up after a protest in the southern town of Tak Bai
in October 2004. Human rights groups have also
expressed concern about increasing cases of
"disappearances" of Malay-Muslim boys and reports
of torture of some while in police custody.
Behind this escalating violence is a
history that places the heavily centralized Thai
state at odds with the south's Malay-Muslim
minority, which accounts for about 2.3 million of
the Southeast Asian nation's 64 million people.
The Muslims have complained of cultural
and economic discrimination ever since the former
Muslim kingdom of Pattani, which the provinces of
Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani were part of, was
annexed in 1902 by Siam, as Thailand was then
known.
The 1970s saw a burst of violence
in the south after Malay-Muslim separatist groups
launched attacks in a bid to reclaim the lost
kingdom of Pattani.
"The time for
reconciliation is so urgent now and the NRC is our
best hope of resolving the differences from the
past and overcoming the problem of today," said
Chiranuch Premchaiporn of PrachaThai, an online
publication that has been focusing on the southern
violence in its coverage.
"We have already
written editorials criticizing those who have
attacked the NRC," she said. "If the NRC was not
around, the violence could be worse."
