PATTANI - For the past eight years,
Thailand's Malay Muslim minority region has been
embroiled in unprecedented levels of violence,
much of it involving Malay Muslim separatists who
desire independence from the predominantly
Buddhist country.
Local academics and
activists have urged successive Thai governments
to introduce some form of autonomous rule to
defuse the violence in the historically restive
region. They have argued for a political
compromise that falls short of independence but
still gives regional actors substantial autonomy
in the predominantly Malay-speaking region which
includes the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala
and Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla
province.
While there have been several
models of reformed governance recommended in
recent years, all have lacked the political
traction to induce any Thai government to back
them. The most
well-known model has been
former prime minister and army commander Chavalit
Yongchaiyudh's "Nakorn Pattani" concept.
The proposed model would entail the
dissolution of the Southern Border Provinces
Administrative Center (SBPAC), whose head has
always been a Thai Buddhist appointed by the
central government, and the establishment of a new
political unit with a single elected governor for
the region. The winner of Thailand's national
election last July, the now ruling Peua Thai
Party, had campaigned in the far south on the
Nakorn Pattani model until Chavalit abruptly
resigned from his senior advisory role with the
party in April 2011.
In 2005, a team of
researchers led by Prince of Songkhla University's
Srisompob Jitpiromsri devised another model in
which a new government ministry responsible for
the south would be established. The proposed new
ministry's head would in theory be appointed by
the central government from among the region's
elected members of parliament. The model was
adopted and campaigned on by the small Matuphum
party, which won only one constituency seat in the
region at last year's general election.
Since 2009, a network of 23 organizations
including the Bangkok-based King Prajadhipok
Institute (KPI), the Prince of Songkhla
University's Deep South Watch and the Center for
the Study of Conflict and Cultural Diversity
(CSCD), has worked on the Pattani Mahanakorn
model.
It shares similarities with
Chavalit's Nakorn Pattani - renamed Mahanakorn
Pattani by Chavalit after his departure from the
Peua Thai party - in that it would include an
elected governor for the region. However, the
model differs in that it would dissolve several
decentralized political bodies, including
subdistrict administrative organizations,
provincial administrative organizations and
municipalities.
The Pattani Mahanakorn
model was developed in part because it became
apparent that the Srisompob-led team's earlier
model did not provide enough decentralized power.
Srisompob, who works at both Deep South Watch and
CSCD, has been a key figure in the design of both
models.
"At the time we began developing
the ministry model, we didn't know if the violence
would escalate or if the state would be able to
successfully end it," the Pattani-based political
scientist told Asia Times Online. "But after eight
years of protracted violence it has become
increasingly clear that the state cannot defeat
the insurgency through its counter-insurgency
operations. The situation thus would seem to
warrant an even more decentralized body such as
Pattani Mahanakorn."
The network plans to
hold 200 public forums across the predominantly
Muslim region to gain grassroots input on
political reform models. The activists plan to
present the public with the three aforementioned
models as well as three others which include
structures that would establish elected governors
for each province rather than a single governor
for the entire region and either keep in place or
dissolve current decentralized bodies.
It
is also possible that current governance
structures could be kept in tact but the SBPAC's
head would be elected. Current SBPAC head Tawee
Sodsong, a close ally of former premier and de
facto leader of the incumbent Peua Thai-led
government Thaksin Shinawatra, recently told a
public seminar held in Yala that he could possibly
be the last appointed SBPAC head.
Debatable support On the face
of it, there would appear to be overwhelming
support for decentralization or autonomy among the
Malay-speaking population, which makes up roughly
85% of the population in Pattani, Yala and
Narathiwat. Conflict between the region and
Thailand's center has been ongoing for centuries
and Malay Muslims have long complained of
discrimination over the course of Bangkok-led
nation-state building.
However, the
Democrat Party won nine out of 11 constituency
seats and some 55% of the party list vote in the
violence-torn provinces at last July's general
elections. Ironically, the conservative Democrats
not only had a history of lackluster support among
Malay Muslims but the party has also openly
opposed decentralizing political power for the
region. Parties that supported reformed governance
for the south, including the Puea Thai Party,
largely failed at the polls.
Those results
in part reflect the substantial resources
mobilized by the Democrats, which historically
hold electoral sway over ethnic Thai majority
southern provinces. There were widespread reports
that the Democrats offered voters more money than
other parties and that some of the Ministry of
Interior's local officials even intimidated some
locals into voting for Democrat candidates.
Some observers in the region believe that
these alleged efforts to manipulate the vote
resulted from a broader state interest in
deterring the political movements now seeking
autonomy concessions. In fact, some opponents to
political reforms, including many army figures and
Thai Buddhist officials, now point to the election
results in the region as democratic proof that
most Malay Muslims do not want decentralization or
greater autonomy. However, data collected
specifically on attitudes towards decentralization
or autonomy challenge that rationale. In 2006,
Srisompob's research team surveyed 874 respondents
where 54% of Malay Muslims surveyed supported some
form of regional governance. The Asia Foundation,
meanwhile, found in a 2010 survey that 54% of
Malay Muslim respondents believed that
decentralization or autonomy would help to solve
the region's conflict.
To be sure, many
Malay Muslims are wary of questionnaires
circulated by outsiders and fearful that
expressions of support for autonomy could be
construed as a desire for full-blown independence.
Several local researchers recently explained the
apparent only moderate support for political
change by noting that sections of the uneducated
population lack an understanding of
decentralization or autonomy.
A referendum
would be a more revealing barometer of local
attitudes. However, civil society groups believe
such a democratic exercise would not be acceptable
to the Bangkok-based government. To demonstrate
that a majority supports the Pattani Mahanakorn
model, the network in the south seeks to get
10,000 signatures from local citizens to present
as a proposed bill to Parliament.
Nationwide pitch A bigger
obstacle hinges on whether the political reform
pitch can be sold to the rest of Thailand, which
is predominantly Thai-speaking and Buddhist. A
Suan Dusit poll conducted in 2009 revealed that
72% opposed Chavalit's autonomy-granting Nakorn
Pattani proposal.
Most Thais, including
Muslims from outside of the restive region, appear
to have little sympathy for the plight of Malay
Muslims in the far south. Malay Muslim insurgents
have not only killed many of Thailand's security
forces but also many of the far south's minority
Thai Buddhist population, including around 100
state school teachers. Many Thai Buddhists have as
a result fled the region in fear.
The
Ministry of Interior, military and police have
long been opponents to decentralization, no matter
the region. Except for Bangkok, Thailand's other
76 provinces are governed by centrally-appointed
governors. The locally elected decentralized
bodies, including subdistrict and provincial
administrative organizations and municipalities,
that have been given greater authority since the
progressive 1997 constitution was promulgated are
widely viewed as weak.
At the same time,
Thailand's general population does not appear to
support the current system of centralized
administrative rule. The Asia Foundation's survey
noted that 69% of its national respondents and 75%
of Malay Muslims in the far south supported
decentralization and direct elections of
provincial governors.
This is perhaps the
most optimistic indicator yet for those pushing
for decentralization reforms in the far south. It
also helps to explain the mutual interests among
nationwide activists who are increasingly
coordinating together on the issue.
Individuals and organizations based in the
far south now coordinate with others from not only
Bangkok but also Chiang Mai in the country's north
and Khon Kaen in the northeast. In Chiang Mai,
civil society activists have already developed a
model for more autonomous provincial governance
known as Chiang Mai Mahanakorn.
Whether
for the north, northeast or far south,
decentralization reform models will ultimately
need the backing of parliament to become law. Some
observers believe that if provincial politicians
can win decentralization for their own
constituencies they may be more likely to support
similar reforms for the far south.
That
support appears to be lacking among senators, as
more than half of them are appointed by
conservative interests and tend to back the status
quo for political structures. Such opponents to
decentralization have long claimed that ceding
central authority would be a first step towards
the disintegration of the Thai nation and that the
largely undereducated population is not ready for
more self-rule.
In recent years some
senior bureaucrats, Democrat party politicians and
high-ranking military officials have lambasted the
Puea Thai party and its affiliated United Front
for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) Red Shirt
movement for allegedly seeking to establish a
republican state. Both have consistently denied
the politically charged claims.
With UDD
protests recently crippling Bangkok, ongoing
violence in the far south and a historic royal
succession in the apparent near future, Thailand's
current governance structures are arguably no
longer sustainable. And efforts to curb Bangkok's
bureaucratic authority over the provinces,
especially in the Malay-Muslim far south, will
surely intensify in the years ahead.
Jason Johnson is an independent
researcher and consultant covering southernmost
Thailand. He is currently based in Pattani
province, southern Thailand, and may be reached
at jrj.johnson@gmail.com
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