South China Morning Post
Stalemate of violence in Thai borderlands
4th January 2008 - Bangkok
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On January 4, 2004, raiders struck a military camp near Thailand's border with Malaysia, killing four soldiers. Since then, the violence and murder of a renewed insurgency have become daily staples of life in Thailand's Malay-majority borderlands, with seemingly little prospect of peace.
Over the past four years, over 9,500 incidents of violence have been recorded, resulting in nearly 2,700 deaths and 6,000 injuries in southern Thailand.
About as many ethnic Thais or Chinese have been killed as Malays, who account for about 90 per cent of the 3 million people in the region. Despite the brutality there is, thankfully, an absence of communal clashes between Buddhists and Muslims, or Thais and Malays. But that may change as relations deteriorate and suspicions deepen.
The junta that seized power in September 2006 promised to get a grip on the south. Nevertheless, security forces - or, for that matter, guerillas - have not been prosecuted for violating human rights, despite ample evidence amassed by Human Rights Watch and other groups.
Hopes were raised in the second half of last year that the junta was beginning to crack the insurgent networks through raids that netted hundreds of suspects, weapons and other equipment. Sophisticated attacks seemed to drop off.
Yet the trend of violent incidents has continued to climb from about 100 a month in early 2004 to more than 250 now, according to the Deep South Watch group.
Marc Askew, an Australian anthropologist working in the borderlands, thinks the situation remains intractable. He notes the insurgents' power to intimidate Malay villagers into providing support, and to win some over. Whether this apparent stalemate continues depends on three things.
The first is a new strategy posting Thailand's four regional army commands to the four operational zones in the borderlands. This new approach may improve co-ordination among security agencies, a perennial problem. It might also undermine links thought to exist between organised crime - suspected of business ties with some insurgents - and a few bad apples in the Fourth Army. Until October, it was in overall command of counter-insurgency operations.
The second factor is the policy of Thailand's new government, expected to take office this month. More astute commanders on the ground see no end to the conflict without a credible political strategy to tackle the Malays' long-standing grievances - such as abuse by state officials - and a coherent, long-term economic development plan.
Finally, there's the question of whether foreign militants, like al-Qaeda, enter the picture in a significant way - raising the prospect of the violence spreading to Bangkok and beyond.
That possibility makes it all the more urgent for the military to get its strategy and tactics right, and for bickering politicians in Bangkok to get serious about policy. Meanwhile, the hapless citizens of the borderlands can but pray.
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