The deadly conflict unfolding in Thailand’s
south may not always make headlines. But terrorists in the region are showing a
troubling ruthlessness.
Security
on the main streets of Hat Yai, Thailand, is heavy. Here, soldiers patrol in
pairs, checking for the suspicious, chatting with local shopkeepers and hoping
for a quiet day.
It’s a
scene that is familiar across Southern Thailand, particularly
in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat where an insurgency blamed on
local Malay Muslims has again flared.
Massive
car bombings here and in Yala at the end of March, and further attacks in April,
claimed 84 lives and injured hundreds more, while strikes that include
assassinations and suicide bombings on a smaller scale are now part and parcel
of life in the south. Indeed, attacks are so routine that they may not even
make the national newspapers.
Four local government
officials were assassinated in early May while travelling by car in Pattani
when gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire with AK-47 and M16 assault
rifles. Another
17 people, including 10 female paramilitary troops, were injured in a mid-May
roadside bombing while on their way back from guard duties at an annual fair in
Pattani. Few seemed to notice.
The
death toll has continued to mount, with more than 5,000 lives lost since
the insurgency erupted in January 2004. The prognosis isn’t good, and
differs radically from insurgencies spearheaded by Islamic militants elsewhere
in the world, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, strikes
on New York and Washington DC by al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden has been dead for more than a year, while the trial for
the last of the Bali bombers, Umar Patek of the now defunct Jemaah Islamiyah
(JI) outfit, is all but finished with a verdict due out shortly, marking the
final end of a bloody era of Islamic militancy in Southeast Asian history. Yet
the problems in southern Thailand persist.
“There’s
clearly a strong commitment at grassroots level within the southern provinces
to end the domination of the area by the Thais, with their very different
ethnic, linguistic and religious roots,” says Keith Loveard, a regional
security analyst with Jakarta-based Concord Consulting. “Until such time as
Bangkok recognizes that it has to provide some degree of realistic autonomy,
there’s no reason why the violence will abate.”
A victory by Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu
Thai Party at last year’s general elections had raised the prospect
that meaningful talks on separatist issues in the south might gain some
traction despite a long standing contempt for her brother and former leader
Thaksin Shinawatra among the local population.
From
the onset of the rebellion, Thaksin – ousted from power in September 2006 by a military coup
– had retaliated with a harsh but ham-fisted crackdown after an initial raid in
Narathiwat in early 2004 in which gunmen made off with a cache of stolen
weapons.
The
violence quickly escalated.
Hundreds
of incidents have followed, but two, also in 2004, took local hatred of
Buddhist Bangkok to an unsurpassed level. In April of that year, 32
gunmen retreated into the 425-year-old Krue Se Mosque in Pattani after
staging a series of attacks on police outposts across the south. After a
seven-hour stand-off,Gen. Panlop
Pinmanee disobeyed orders and launched an all-out assault on the
mosque, the holiest in Pattani. All were killed.
Six
months later, 78
men died of suffocation following a demonstration and tensions have
simmered ever since.
The
rebellion had taken a lead from the rise of Islamic militancy and terror
attacks across the world that followed 9/11 and the October 12, 2002, Bali
bombings by JI. But the Thai rebellion was largely classified as a local
separatist insurgency.
On June
15, 2006, during the 60th anniversary celebrations for the accession of King
Bhumibol Adulyadej to the throne, some 40 government buildings were bombed,
resulting in two deaths. The bombs were many and the death toll surprisingly
low. The bombs reportedly contained just a small amount of explosives,
prompting analysts to suggest that they were designed more to send a message to
authorities than to cause widespread carnage.
Then in
November 2006 – two months after Thaksin was ousted – Wan Kadir Che Wan leader
of Bersatu, an umbrella organization for a myriad of southern separatist
groups, announced that JI was helping local insurgents stage attacks in
Thailand.
That
declaration took the fight in the south to another level, which went largely
ignored in Bangkok by successive governments as political convulsions bought on
by clashes between the largely rural-based Red
Shirts and Yellow
Shirts of the mainly urban middle classes monopolized national attention.
Gavin
Greenwood, a risk assessment analyst with Hong Kong-based Allan &
Associates, says Thai authorities have ignored the south at their peril, and
the end of March bombings targeting Thai and ethnic Chinese business interests
signaled another new phase in the southern insurgency.
“The
attacks demonstrated capacity and ruthlessness,” he says, adding that Thai
security forces and government agencies are divided by a multitude of differing
loyalties, animosities and agendas and have been “exceptionally inept in their
efforts” to manage or contain the insurgency – let alone bring the insurgency
under control.
“This
failure to either exert leverage on the insurgents through the use of force or
the Thai government’s seeming inability to negotiate a settlement may well have
led the separatists to conclude that they must step up pressure if they are to
even begin the process of gaining a degree of autonomy.”
His
sentiments are supported by Loveard, who adds that only Bangkok has the power
to find a solution that will require some form of regional autonomy for the
southern provinces, considered an anathema by many forces in the capital, in
particular the military.
Like
the bombs detonated during the monarch’s anniversary in 2006, the March attacks
could signal a change in strategy and a shift from Thai school teachers,
Chinese business interest and poorly equipped rangers who have borne the brunt
of the strikes since 2004 alongside local Muslims, whose deaths are seen more
as collateral damage by the shadowy insurgents.
The
southern way of life has changed remarkably since January 2004 as is evident on
the streets of Hat Yai, a provincial town of about 160,000 people where
security is tight, queues form and delays are inevitable as security guards
check suspicious cars. Parts of town are fenced off by intimidating soldiers;
the streets are quiet at night.
The
scene is reminiscent of Belfast in the early 1980s.
“What
may come next is a direct attack on key economic targets close to the southern
Muslim majority provinces,” Greenwood says. “It would take very little effort
to extend the present campaign into such tourist-dependent regions as the area
around Phuket.”
“Foreign,
Western or East Asian casualties, would instantly internationalize the
insurgency, cause an immediate fall in tourist revenue and profoundly embarrass
the government,” he adds.
“This
has presumably long remained the
‘nuclear option’ for the insurgents and
the Yala attacks – which by early-June hadn’t been repeated – may well have
served a reminder of what such a attack could look like at a busy beach resort
at the height of the tourist season.”
If such
a tragic scenario unfolds then the era of terrorism in Southeast Asia as
defined by the first decade of the 21st century may not be over as many,
including this author, would like to think. Instead, it would simply have
shifted – and in places like Hat Yai – that’s not what anybody wants to hear.
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