Multiple bombings rock Thai peace
plan By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - A spate of bomb attacks
in Thailand's southernmost Muslim-majority provinces
on Thursday marked a dangerous escalation of the
grinding conflict and served up the first of many
hurdles to a new blueprint for peace in the
troubled region.
More than 40 simultaneous
explosions hitting police stations, government
offices, road checkpoints and even tea shops
killed at least two people and wounded 16 others.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in
a grisly cycle of violence that erupted in January
2004 in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, provinces
close to the Malaysian border.
Interior
Minister Air Chief Marshal Kongsak Wanthana blamed
"insurgents" for acts he
characterized as "sabotage to create disturbances
in the region", the state-run Thai News Agency
reported on Thursday. It is a line Bangkok has
used before, blaming a suspected movement of
Malay-Muslim militants with which it has largely
failed to come to grips.
According to
the Arabic news group Al-Jazeera, though,
an Indonesian has been detained in association
with the explosions. Police identified the man as
Sabri bin Emaeruding, 37, from Sumatra, who was
caught in possession of 1 kilogram of urea
fertilizer and 2kg of nails - commonly used in
making bombs - and was charged with entering the
country illegally.
The explosions
coincided with the opening of government debate on
the report by the National Reconciliation
Commission (NRC) - a 48-member body of respected
statesmen, parliamentarians, activists and
academics - charged with making recommendations
towards a long-term solution to the escalating
violence in this predominantly Buddhist country.
The commission's recommendations, which
have been made publicly available, have already
stirred a lively debate. The NRC "implies that
so far too much emphasis has been placed on state
security and the safety of the state personnel,
and not enough attention has been focused on the
security of people", Surin Pitsuwan, a former Thai
foreign minister and a member of country's Muslim
minority, wrote in the Bangkok Post newspaper.
"It is time to shift gears, otherwise the
south will continue to burn."
The 132-page
report, which went through nine drafts, was the
culmination of an initiative to study the root
causes of violence in a region dominated by fear
and distrust. The NRC was set up in February last
year by the government of Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra, currently heading a caretaker
administration, and given the license to pursue
its task independently.
The NRC's report
called for the creation of an unarmed "peace
force" led by the army, which would include police
officials and civilians among its ranks, and
stress dialogue between the government and
suspected Malay-Muslim insurgents.
The
proposals notably pulled up short of recommending
full-blown autonomy for the three Malay provinces,
but rather called for a new administrative center
and a development council that would aim to
address southern communities' pressing concerns,
such as how to best manage natural resources.
The
NRC, however, did not sidestep the sensitive
question of religious and cultural identity,
which arguably has been at the heart of the
on-again off-again regional conflict. The region’s
Malay Muslims - who speak a Malay dialect
known as Yawi rather than the Thai language - have
long complained of discrimination due to Bangkok's
forced assimilation and the assignment of Buddhist
rather than local Muslim officials to local
government positions.
The NRC has also
proposed to make Yawi an official working
language, permit the introduction of sharia laws
in the region and promote respect and diversity of
the area's unique culture.
"This is an
important step to deal with the south. There has
always been concern about a nationalist backlash
and it has been avoided," said Chris Baker, a
British academic who has written many books on
Thai politics. "The multicultural debate cannot
be ignored."
Muslims make up more than 80% of
the population in the three southernmost
provinces, which were once part of the Muslim
Kingdom of Pattani that was annexed by Thailand,
then known as Siam, in 1902.
Beginning in
the 1940s, Thailand's Muslims have mounted
resistance against the Thai state, which by the
1960s had escalated into armed separatist groups,
including the Pattani Unity Liberation
Organization (PULO), which is still active today
among other armed groups.
Thai officials
have insisted that foreign terror organizations
are not involved in the escalating violence, an
assessment the US government has validated. PULO,
however, is known to have representatives linked
to extremist Islamic groups in the Middle East.
After the NRC's report was released
last week, a leading Muslim member on the
commission told reporters that the violence - where
more than 3,000 attacks on civilians and property were
recorded in all of 2004 and 2005 - was leading to
sharp divisions in formerly close local Muslim and
Buddhist communities.
The May 1
attack on Jooling Pankamnoon, a
24-year-old Thai-Buddhist schoolteacher, who was beaten into a coma
by Muslim villagers angered by recent arrests
of Muslim men, was a disturbing example of this
emerging ethnic divide, according to Chaiwat
Satha-Anand, the NRC's research director and an
academic in peace studies at Bangkok's Thammasat
University.
"Apart from a failed state,
you are looking at failed communities," said
Chaiwat. "This erosion of relationship between the
Buddhists and the Muslims is serious."
