Jakarta/Brussels, 15 March 2007: Six months after the coup which overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawata, Thailand still faces a serious security threat in the Muslim South and a real risk of communal violence.

Southern Thailand: The Impact of the Coup,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, explains that the dilemma now is how to respond to the threat in a way that includes but goes beyond law enforcement and leads to political negotiations.

The report examines the interim government’s efforts to ease tensions in the Muslim South amid an insurgency that, as the massacre of nine passengers on a minibus on 14 March showed, is becoming increasingly brutal. Prime Minister Surayud’s conciliatory gestures are a welcome change from the heavy-handedness of the Thaksin government but are unpopular outside the South, while insurgents have increased their violence in an attempt to weaken the peace efforts.

“The government has to balance the need for stepped-up security measures with protection of human rights and efforts to address Malay Muslim grievances”, says Crisis Group Analyst Francesca Lawe-Davies. “With only six months to go before elections, there are clear limits to what this government can achieve, but it should use its remaining time to lay the groundwork for a serious political effort to bring peace to the region”.

Coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and Surayud have acknowledged the importance of dialogue but have not been able to identify the insurgency’s real leaders. Even if they could do so, they would still have to face the Thai public’s hostility to negotiations. Ultimately, only a government with a democratic mandate will be able to take meaningful steps toward talks.

Despite its limited mandate, the interim government should take a number of steps to undercut militant claims the government is trying to destroy Malay culture and Islam, by reforming the education system and allowing the local dialect to be used as the language of instruction.

Without engaging in the kind of indiscriminate crackdowns favoured by Thaksin, the government must also reinforce security by patrolling the areas controlled by militants. It should not give in to popular pressure to release suspects accused of violent crimes before they face trial. But it must also begin to rebuild trust with southerners by providing justice for past abuses.

“The government needs to continue its efforts to establish dialogue with the rebel leaders who control the insurgency”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group's South East Asia Project Director. “At the same time it has to open a debate in Thai society to explain the need for negotiations, so an agreement can be reached in the future”.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The September 2006 coup in Thailand, despite its damage to democratic development, opened the way for improved management of the conflict in the Muslim South. Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont’s interim government has overhauled some of its predecessor’s worst policies and signalled willingness to address longstanding grievances. But verbal commitments in Bangkok have been difficult to translate into changes on the ground, and relations between security forces and local communities continue to be strained while violence mounts. Thais outside the South have exerted pressure for a return to heavy-handed crackdowns on suspected militants. The government must respond to the escalating attacks, but with care – widespread arbitrary arrests and civilian casualties would only increase support for insurgents.

Barely a month in office, Surayud made an historic apology to southern Muslims for past abuses, announced an end to blacklisting of suspected insurgents leading to a significant decrease in arbitrary arrests, and revived key conflict management institutions disbanded by Thaksin Shinawatra in May 2002.

These steps, together with the acquittal of 56 Muslims detained for over two years on trivial charges, and the granting of bail in several conflict-related cases, were welcomed in the South. However, some of the justice measures designed to assuage Muslim grievances have alienated the local Buddhist population, raising communal tensions and frustrating police. The restructuring of the security forces, designed to improve interagency cooperation, also appears in some cases to be exacerbating rather than easing tensions.

Efforts to accommodate Malay Muslim identity, particularly in the education system, may help undercut militant claims the government is trying to destroy or dilute Malay culture and Islam. However, attempts to introduce the Patani Malay dialect as an additional language in state primary schools and to promote its use in government offices have fallen flat in the absence of high-level political support.

Insurgent groups have responded to the government’s new approach by stepping up violence and propaganda aimed at undermining conciliation efforts. There are also strong indications they have contrived a rash of protests demanding the release of separatist suspects and the withdrawal of security forces from some areas. The insurgents’ village-level political organisation has improved significantly in the last eighteen months but it is not clear how much this reflects an increase in local support. Many villagers fear both the insurgents and the security forces and are caught between the two.

Daily killings of civilians and security forces by well-armed insurgents clearly necessitate a military response but the clandestine nature of the groups and their tendency to shelter among civilian populations mean a purely military strategy is bound to fail. The government needs to balance providing security with protecting human rights.

Martial law is still in force, alongside an unpopular Emergency Decree granting police and military officers immunity from prosecution. The interim government has made almost no progress on providing justice for past abuses, and credible reports of torture and extrajudicial killings persist. Arming civilians to defend themselves in village defence volunteer programs is no solution either, as the arms are as likely to fall into the hands of insurgents and increase the possibility of violence.

On the other hand, anything seen as appeasement would be politically suicidal for Thai leaders dependent for support on voters outside the South, most of whom had no problem with Thaksin’s get-tough approach.

Coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and Prime Minister Surayud have taken the critical step of backing negotiations as the ultimate solution to the conflict but acknowledge that meaningful talks with insurgent leaders are a long way off. Preliminary discussions with exiled separatists faltered in 2006 when it became clear they had little influence on the ground. Ultimately, some form of negotiated autonomy may be the only answer, but the conditions that would make dialogue possible are not in place:

• The government has been unable to identify the leadership of the insurgency. Indeed, it is not clear that there even exists an overall leadership capable of controlling the various groups committing the violence.
• The Thai public is largely hostile to the idea of negotiations, and the embattled interim government does not have a lot of political capital to spare.
• Meaningful negotiations require a government with a democratic mandate.

The Surayud government’s ability to focus on the conflict has been limited by competing priorities in Bangkok, and pressure is mounting to deliver on the core issues used to justify the coup: restoring stability, getting the economy back on track and prosecuting former Prime Minister Thaksin for alleged corruption and lèse majesté. The combined impact of bombings in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve, a series of economic blunders and divisions within the government and the coup group has undermined public confidence and pushed the South further down the agenda.

With only six months remaining before democratic elections are scheduled to be held, there are obvious limits on what the interim government can achieve. But it can and should still initiate a number of measures to set the course for its successor.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Thai Government:

On dialogue and negotiations

1.  Continue to identify possible dialogue partners among insurgent groups.

2.  Lay the groundwork through the national media for public acceptance of negotiations with insurgent leaders.

On justice and security

3.  Re-establish a security presence with active patrols in all “red zones” – areas dominated by rebels.

4.  Address rising communal tensions by deploying mixed Buddhist-Muslim security teams to work with communities in religiously divided areas so as to curb the perception that security forces are deployed to protect Buddhist residents from Muslims.

5.  Avoid releasing suspects accused of violent crimes under pressure from protesters.

6.  Amend the Emergency Decree to permit accountability of the security forces, ideally by repealing Sections 16 and 17.

7.  Empower the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre’s justice maintenance centre (Soon Damrong Tham) to make decisions on complaints against officials without seeking approval from the Internal Security Operations Command.

On education

8.  Redesign the Malay language curriculum for primary schools, using the local Patani Malay dialect instead of standard Malay.

9.  Address the segregation of Buddhist and Muslim youth by establishing joint science and language labs for students of private Islamic and state-run schools.

10.  Tackle the alienation of religious studies graduates by:

(a)  allowing students who attain zanawiyah (high school) level to enrol for Islamic studies degrees at Thai government universities; and

(b)  offering bridging courses to enable them to enter secular degree programs.

11.  Introduce bridging courses and equivalency certificates to enable local graduates of foreign universities to enter their chosen professions.

Jakarta/Brussels, 15 March 2007