For the second Chairman’s Circle of the 2012 year, HDFF focused on the actual situation on Southern Thailand Situation Analysis. The guest speakers for this second edition were Mr. Chumsak Nararatwong and Gen (Ret) Bunchon Chawasin. They both offered different perspectives of the situation in the southern provinces. Mr. Chumsak was offering a civilian perspective while Gen. Bunchon was speaking from a military point of view.
HDFF Executive Director Dr. Wilfried A. Herrmann delivered the opening remarks welcoming all participants to the half-day event and offered a critical observation of the situation with a particular emphasis on the Pattani state and its relations with the Thai government. The major highlight of this discussion revolved around the particular divergence of opinions from each side, as discussed this day: the Muslim population of the southern provinces sees this ‘’conflict’’ as one of ethnic and cultural survival while, in the same time, the government in Bangkok considers it as a separatist threat and movement. This divergence summarizes why the region is still a major source of conflict and violence in Thailand nowadays.
Shortly after that, a brief introduction of an interactive map created by HDFF, which shows all incidents that occurred in the 3 provinces of the South (Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala) was made by a fellow researcher from Belgium, Julien Van Damme. This HDFF Southern Thailand Incident Map will be updated latest every third day and is free of charge available under: http://goo.gl/maps/Nqeb.
Subsequently, Dr. Herrmann introduced the speakers, and Mr. Chumsak was the first one to present. He used his presentation to give insight into the recurrent conflict in the South. The presentation was separated into 2 parts; the first one was focused on the history of the conflict and then second part was a recall of the incidents from 2004 to 2012. Mr. Chumsak emphasized the fact that most of the conflict is based on a lack of knowledge and understanding about each other. Aside from the ethnic problems already underlined previously, there are a lot of issues and questions left unanswered in the South that need to be answered in order to obtain a stable and peaceful environment. Since 2004, more than 5,000 people died and more than 8,000 were injured in attacks and security related incidents. The main problem comes from the fact that people in the South tend to not trust the government at all. Consequently, this conflict burns the bridges between the people from the Malay ethnicity and the government, as well as the Buddhist majority in the country. The government provides big budgets for the provinces to improve life and education but it seems that the money tends to disappear very quickly without sufficient results. Mr. Chumsak clearly underlined the fact that the justice needs to be reinforced and more transparency is needed in the provinces in order to cut corruption. Some of those who joined the insurgents are not even aware of the meaning of that movement. Promoting understanding about race, nationality, and religions, is fundamental across the three provinces in order to build a climate of peace. Mr. Chumsak insisted also on the fact the administrative entities badly need to conform to local needs and match the needs of the South. Giving more autonomy to local actors and switching to a less centralized state power could be an option.
After Mr. Chumsak ended his presentation, it was Gen. (ret) Bunchon Chawansin’s turn to take the floor. He briefly spoke about his experience as a former general in the Royal Thai Armed Forces, with most of his service done in the South of the country. Gen. Bunchon told the audience that he particularly wanted to express himself about this subject because he felt it was the biggest issue in the country at the moment. During his service in the army, he committed himself to making peace especially in areas where it seems not high on the agenda. Referring to his experience in fighting and then making peace with the Communist Party of Thailand he compared the actual situation in the country as relatively new. He was used to fights in jungle at the time; no terror in the cities happened. Actually it only happened once in Surat Thani only. But now, as he describes, the situation as moving towards urban warfare, which is something Thailand has not really been prepared for.
He said during that time they were reliant on the strategy which basically consisted of what he called ‘’Find them, fix them, finish them’’. This kind of strategy nowadays cannot be used anymore; a master plan should be drafted for the South.
The government must work hard to restore a feeling of faith and unity into the populations in the southern provinces. They villagers are all aware of what is going on, who is a terrorist, etc, but they are too afraid to speak, as they are unsure that the government will be able to protect them.
Actually, the terrorists in the southern part of Thailand cannot separate the country as they don’t have the proper structure or an army capable of doing it. But they can make the situation unstable — like what happened in Timor Leste — and this is what they are looking for. The military should decrease its role in the provinces now, but the big question remains: Are the government or the politicians strong or clever enough to set up a policy to solve the situation? Only time will tell.
The actual situation is much more complicated than it seems. Even in their own country, the people in the South are called ‘’foreigners’’ by the vast majority of the Buddhist population. The feeling amongst those people is, that they are not really ‘’Thai’’. This is due to a lack of knowledge of the history. Many people still don’t know or learn about the history of the Thai people, and this lack of understanding is a source of conflicts.
He stated that at the moment the solutions to solve these major issues remain unclear and it will take a lot of time and measures, but we must act now in order to envisage a climate of peace in the near future.
The Q&A session after the presentation focused on two major issues. The first one was the question that could this conflict be part of a global jihad or it was still a local conflict?
One participant stated that at the moment there is not much evidence to link this conflict with the global jihad going on. The way the terrorists are fighting is not the way the jihadist usually does. This conflict is mostly ethnic before being a religious conflict. Even after all the incidents in the South, the general relationship between the different religious groups is still in reasonably good shape. There is only a small group of people trying to instigate anger amongst the communities. He also stated that he doesn’t believe that suicide bombers will be a trend in Thailand. One of the reasons could be that Royal Projects initiated by the King are having a positive effect at bringing groups together in the South.
Another question asked was if there was any possibility for the terrorist to expand the bombings elsewhere (eg. Bangkok or Chiang Mai)?
Participants clearly stated that as far as they know, the terrorists are fighting for the provinces, for Pattani, and they don’t see any point of going beyond that at the moment.
The event was held under the Chatham House Rules which means that information gained during this event may be used. However, the person sharing the information must not be named.
HDFF’s next Chairman’s Circle will most likely take place in July or August with the developments in Myanmar envisioned as topic. We hope to see you there! For any further questions please contact herrmann@hdff.org or gassner@hdff.org
Comments are closed