thailand: a fire this time

Thailand: A Fire This Time 77

REP•RTAGE

Benjamin Pauker is associate editor of World Policy Journal.

Thailand: A Fire This TimeBenjamin Pauker

For nearly two centuries, Thailand has beenthe exception to the Southeast Asian rule.Alone among its Asian neighbors, near andfar, it avoided colonial bondage to a West-ern power—British, French, Dutch, Por-tuguese, or American. Its pragmatic, pre-dominantly Buddhist population of 65 mil-lion has moved with the flow, accommodat-ing to corrupt and sometimes ironhandedrule, weathering pestilence (nowadays AIDS),poverty, tsunamis, and the border conflictsendemic to a difficult region. Thailand hasbecome much more than one of the world’sgreat tourist destinations; it has recoveredstrongly from the recession of the late 1990s and is negotiating a free trade agree-ment with Washington. Through coups and inflation, its essential stability has beena given.

Yet this Asian tiger now has a bleed-ing, potentially disabling wound. In Thai-land’s southern provinces, a visitor encoun-ters scenes more reminiscent of Iraq or Af-ghanistan: car bombs are detonated outsidegovernment buildings, officials are behead-ed, schoolteachers gunned down, soldiersstabbed to death, and families massacred intheir homes. Since January 2004, roughly500 people—most of them Buddhist—have died at the hands of Islamic separatistinsurgents, and nearly 700 Muslims havebeen killed by Thai security forces. Accord-ing to Zachary Abuza, a Simmons Collegepolitical scientist who monitors terrorism in Southeast Asia, only in Iraq were moreMuslims killed in 2004. The Thai govern-ment blames criminals, terrorists, or “ban-

dits,” for the majority of the attacks, but officials candidly acknowledge that the insurgency is being waged by an alphabetsoup of loosely coordinated insurgentgroups, the three most active being theBRN-Coordinate (National RevolutionaryFront), GMIP (Pattani Islamic MujahidinMovement), and PULO (Pattani United Lib-eration Organization).

They are fighting for an autonomousstate in southern Thailand, carrying on adecades-old struggle for independence andrecognition. Since January 2004, however,the violence has exploded and the intensity of the conflict has shocked those familiarwith Southeast Asian politics. Increasingly,the insurgents are using the rhetoric of jihad, recruiting disaffected Muslim youth by the thousands, muddying the line be-tween regional separatism and global Islamic fundamentalism, and turning this quiet corner of Thailand into a powderkeg.

Having previously lived and worked inThailand in calmer years, I revisited Bang-kok last November and made my way southto the C. S. Hotel in Pattani, recommen-ded to me as a safe place to stay. It struckme as a Thai version of Saigon’s Metropoleas described by Michael Herr in Dispatches,only without any foreign journalists and noliquor. In Thailand, known for its activenightlife, the cities and villages of the southgo eerily quiet as evening falls—when themajority of attacks occur. Stores and mar-kets close early, restaurants empty, and thestreets fill with motorcycles and mopeds as

people skittishly make their way home. Inthe dark courtyard of the C. S. Pattani, Thaitelevision reporters broadcast live reviews ofthe day’s events: bombings, assassinations,arrests. For Thailand’s notoriously graphictabloids, there’s more than enough gore tofill a broadsheet.

Three weeks before I arrived, in a smallvillage in Narathiwat province, ten youngmen dressed in T-shirts and sarongs, andarmed with M-16s and machetes, emergedfrom the surrounding jungle and attacked a small, rural Buddhist temple. PramahaAnounchatho, the head monk, was asleep at the time. “I heard them come in, andwatched briefly from the window as theytorched that building,” he says, pointing toa muddy pile of ashes and charred wood,“then I hid.” When he emerged later, hefound the 78-year-old monk Luang Pra-keuw, his head almost entirely severed, andthe bodies of two young novices riddledwith bullet holes. Hence the posting of ahalf-dozen gun-toting Army Rangers incamouflage fatigues to patrol the monas-tery’s courtyard.

There are soldiers wearing bulletproofvests stationed at temples, at schoolhouses,in sandbagged bunkers and checkpointsalong country roads, and in pickup truckswith orders to detain or kill suspected Mus-lim militants or their collaborators.

The security crisis encompasses much of Thailand’s “deep south,” notably theprovinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwatalong the Malaysian border at the bottom of the country’s 800-mile isthmus. Withintwo years, violence has infected a region of rural villages, rubber plantations, androlling jungle hills. The insurgency appearsto be essentially homegrown, with only in-formal links to Jemaah Islamiya, the In-donesian terrorist group responsible for theBali bombings. Only lately has an otherwiseengaged Washington begun to pay atten-tion. In the guarded words of a well-placedState Department official, “A confluence of factors makes the situation in southern

Thailand a volatile recipe, but for now wesee this as a regional problem and an inter-nal issue.”

The Roots of Discontent Though violence in Thailand’s south is rela-tively recent, the region has long had itsgrievances with Bangkok, and the ethnicroots of the insurgency are deeper still. Thesouth was once part of Pattani Darussalam,an independent Muslim sultanate that sur-vived for six centuries and embraced Pat-tani, Yala, and Narathiwat, plus parts ofSongkhla province to the north. As the Thaikingdom, then known as Siam, expanded,its rulers began to covet the Malay Penin-sula. By 1789, the kingdom of Pattani hadbeen conquered and forced to pay tribute toBangkok, but the sultanate retained shariacourts and nominal independence. In 1902,after secret negotiations granted exclusivetrading rights to British colonial officials inMalaysia, the Thai state formally annexedthe Kingdom of Pattani and instituted pro-grams of cultural and ethnic assimilation.Schools and wats (Buddhist temples) werebuilt, and villagers from northern Thailandwere transplanted southward.

But Thai culture never really took root.Ethnically and religiously, over 80 percentof the roughly 2 million people in the threesouthern provinces are Malay and Muslim.Southerners speak Yawi, a Malay dialect,and signs at restaurants and shops are inArabic. Endemic poverty and a tradition ofpoor governance—the southern provincesare viewed in Bangkok as a distant hardshippost for incompetents—only exacerbated the estrangement from the central Thai government.

The 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of thefirst wave of an armed separatist resistance,with the formation of the Pattani UnitedLiberation Organization, the Pattani Na-tional Liberation Front (known by its Malayinitials, BNPP), and the National RevolutionFront (BRN)—the predecessors of the mod-ern militant groups. But violence was lim-

78 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2005/06

ited to a few high-profile incidents, and theinsurgency lost local support as successiveadministrations in Bangkok took a hands-offapproach to the region, establishing civilstructures that allowed greater local self-government. All was quiet until the electionof Thailand’s current prime minister,Thaksin Shin-awatra, who inthe view ofmany is partlyto blame forthe current violence, anunintended effect of my-opic politicaltinkering.

Thaksin, atelecommuni-cations mag-nate and for-mer police offi-cer, rose topower in 2000,at a momentwhen Thailandwas still reel-ing from the1997 SoutheastAsian financial collapse. Bangkok’s skylinewas marked by the empty shells and ex-posed girders of unfinished high-rises, aban-doned as bank loans disappeared and in-vestors fled. Thaksin founded a new party,Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais), and cam-paigned as a populist, promising 1 millionbaht ($25,000) loans to each village, $1doctor visits, and strict law and order overbrazen criminality and rampant drug traf-ficking. Elected by an overwhelming mar-gin, he quickly began consolidating powerin a country otherwise known for frequentcoups and backroom plots. He installed hisbrother as army chief, bought out or threat-ened critical independent media, somehowmanaged to avoid charges of money launder-ing in the country’s highest court, and cru-

cially, began to dismantle the local politicalstructure of Thailand’s south—a region thathad voted strongly in favor of the oppositionDemocrat Party.

“For petty political gain, he has system-atically dismantled the institutions thatheld these provinces together,” says Duncan

McCargo, a professor at Leeds Universitynow teaching in southern Thailand andcoauthor of a book critical of the primeminister. “He summarily shut down the awbaw taw,” he said, referring to the districtadministrative organizations that broughttogether military, civil, police, and religiousleaders to govern the southern provinces,“and installed his own cronies.” U.S. offi-cials discreetly echo these criticisms, thoughthey are loath to snipe openly at the head of a state recently designated a major non-NATO ally.

The prime minister’s moves stoked local anger. “For generations, we toleratedthe government imposing Thai ways uponus,” said a resident of Yala sipping tea at alocal café. “Their schools, pictures of the


Monks collecting alms in Pattani at daybreak are protected by soldiers with M-16s. Benjamin Pauker

king and queen everywhere, corrupt Bud-dhist police, but this was too much. Peopleare angry.” Bangkok was entirely unpre-pared for what followed.

The Insurgency Ignites On the outskirts of Narathiwat, a small city of 40,000 in Thailand’s southernmostprovince, about 30 miles from the Malay-sian border, sits the home of NajmuddinUmar. By local standards it is palatial. Anornate black-and-gold iron gate opens to re-veal a large two-storied house. Peacocksprowl a well-manicured lawn, and a servantbrings afternoon tea and cake to where wesit under a generous portico.

With his round face and ready smile, Najmuddin does not look much like the ter-rorist mastermind the Thai government ac-cuses him of being. This former electedmember of parliament is currently on trialin the capital, accused of crimes rangingfrom treason to gangsterism. Principally, heis charged with coordinating a series of at-tacks on January 4, 2004, when a hundredarmed Muslims torched twenty govern-ment-run schools in Narathiwat provinceand attacked a nearby Thai army camp,killing four soldiers and seizing some threehundred automatic rifles, rocket-propelledgrenades, and machine guns. That samenight, in neighboring Pattani and Yalaprovinces, militants detonated two bombsand raided a police post.

As his three young children return from school in matching blue-and-whiteuniforms, Najmuddin follows them into hisliving room, where a photograph of him andthe prime minister in full parliamentary re-galia is on display. “This is where the gov-ernment accuses me of meeting to planthese attacks,” he says, “but on that day Iwas in up north in Chang Mai, taking myson to school.”

The Thai government’s response to theattacks was swift, if less than effective.Thaksin imposed martial law on the threesouthern provinces and deployed thousands

of additional troops to quell the unrest.Martial law was recently extended to Song-khla province to the north, and supersededin Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat with anemergency decree that allows for summarydetentions and grants troops immunity fromprosecution for crimes committed in theline of duty.

Young soldiers sit in the hot sun, man-ning checkpoints or cooking lunch at make-shift canteens. “You’ve got 20,000 troopsdown there who are poorly trained for sucha conflict,” says Anthony Davis, a respectedBangkok-based security analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Review. “It’s a real problem.”Though ostensibly deployed to prevent at-tacks, their presence is as much an irritantto the community as it is a target for the insurgents.

Imam Ali ben Mohamed, the religiousleader of Abu Bakr Sidiq mosque in Med-ing, agrees to meet me in his home, a smallconcrete building that looks more like agarage than a house. He has a thin beardand wears a sarong, like many in the south.We sit on thin reed mats, and his wifebrings cookies and orange soda, then disap-pears into a back room. He explains that hewanted to meet in the privacy of his home,rather than at the mosque, for fear that in-formants might say something to the police.“I don’t go out at night anymore, no onedoes,” he says. “We are afraid of the policeand the army.”

Imam Ali tells me of a series of nightlyraids in 2002–03, when unarmed “ninjas”dressed in black, their heads shaved andfaces smeared with black paint—hence theycame to be called “oilmen”—terrorized vil-lagers with brazen thefts of money and orna-ments. He says some were caught by vil-lagers and turned over to the police. “All ofthem were Buddhist, government agents,meant to make us afraid,” he says, “and allwere released.” (Well-informed sources confirmed that these nighttime raids had indeed taken place, but were more likelytraining and fundraising efforts by insur-


gents.) Nevertheless, rumors of governmentdeceit abound in the deep south.

A recent International Crisis Group(ICG) report (Thailand’s Emergency Decree: NoSolution, November 18, 2005) notes “abreakdown of trust between the securityforces and the Malay Muslim communities,”and highlights the military’s alleged role in“extra-judicial killings” and the roundup ofsuspects on police “blacklists.” Villagers inthe south talk of government death squadsroaming the jungles and executing Muslimschoolteachers and suspected ringleaders.Meanwhile, the military blames the killingson insurgents, drug smugglers, and bandits.Most of the victims, however, are Muslim,and their deaths appear to be at the govern-ment’s hand.

“On the twentieth of June, three youngMuslim religious teachers in Pattani wereshot dead in a house while saying afternoonprayers,” a respected security analyst inBangkok who closely monitors the conflictand refused to be identified tells me. “Si-lencers were used...and insurgents don’t usesilencers.” The ICG report examines a similarincident that occurred last August, whenImam Satopa Yusoh of Narathiwat’s SungaiPadi district was gunned down at duskwhile returning to his home by motorcycleafter leading the fifth daily prayer. Police officials immediately blamed insurgents for executing a civilian who, they claimedsympathized with the government cause,while noting that the killing was probablyplanned to look as if it was the work ofarmy soldiers (with the intention of turn-ing the villagers against the government).Waves of disinformation obscure the truthof the matter. In the end, distrustful localsformed a human barricade to prevent offi-cials from entering the crime scene andburied the body before forensic work couldbe completed.

The Thai police and military are reluc-tant to seriously investigate most of thesecrimes; a prominent independent forensicspecialist, Khunying Porntip Rojansunan,

has been stymied in her efforts to exhumeand investigate bodies for signs of torture orballistic evidence that might incriminategovernment forces. Thai officials seem hard-wired to blame virtually every killing ontroublemakers or the insurgents. “This islargely the work of criminals,” said Col.Samkuan Saengpataranet at the SouthernForces Peace Building Command headquar-ters, situated on a hill overlooking the cityof Yala. “Bad people give amphetamines andnarcotics to young boys and make them at-tack the people. Such a shame.”

Later, I meet the colonel at the BanangSatar police station in Narathiwat province,where local television news cameras arefilming a triumphant press conference. Ziplock bags of bullet shells and knives are laid out on a table, behind which sit several high-ranking police and army offi-cials. The previous evening, the police sta-tion had been raided by around 50 armedmen who fired M-16s, lobbed Molotovcocktails, and fired mortars. Two insurgentswere killed, including one with a millionbaht bounty on his head. As flashbulbspopped, the general handed a reward checkto a smiling police captain. As the crowdfilters out of the small room, the officers al-low me to sift through the spent shells andto touch the bloodied clothing of the dead assailant, then proudly mention that 18 suspected militants were arrested followingthe attacks and have already admitted theirguilt. It smells of a made-for-media charade,and the locals are not taken in. But what really feeds popular distrust of Thai militaryand security forces is the massacre at TakBai, which occurred just over a year ago but still inflames the disaffected Muslimpopulation.

What Happened at Tak Bai Mohammed Saelek waits in the narrow second-floor hallway of the Narathiwatcourthouse, where he faces trial. Dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops, he looksyounger than his 24 years. He was among



those who gathered before the police stationat the village of Tak Bai on October 25,2004, to protest the detention of six fellowvillagers. “There were so many people,” hesays, “I just went to see what was going on.” It was a hot day during Ramadan, theholy month when Muslims fast from day-break to sunset, and eventually the protes-tors grew agitated. (Thai officials blame in-surgents or bandits for rousing the crowd to a frenzy.) Soon rocks were thrown and jittery Thai forces fired into the crowd. Seven people were killed, but the worst wasyet to come.

As many as 1,300 men were arrested atgunpoint, forced to lie down on their stom-achs, and bunched and tied together by thedozens. Many were kicked and beaten, ac-cording to credible witnesses, before beingpiled six-deep in waiting trucks. The trucksheaded to Pattani, but the usual 90-minutejourney took five hours. Seventy-eight de-tainees died of asphyxiation or suffocation.“I was on the second level,” says Moham-med. “There were many men on top of me.Eleven people died in my truck.” He wasimprisoned for two weeks, then chargedwith destroying public property, protesting,and possessing a gun.

A DVD recording of the massacre cir-culates widely across the three southernprovinces, though its possession is illegal.The footage—shot from behind policelines—shows the edges of a restless crowd,then sporadic gunfire as police commanderscasually stand about. The arrestees arebound and loaded onto trucks. The videothen cuts to a mass funeral in a large field,where religious leaders pray over dozens ofbodies, bound in sheets. The commander ofthe Narathiwat Marine task force, TraikwanKraireuk, reportedly remarked, “I used thevelvet glove. If I’d used the iron fist, theywould all be dead.” Prime Minister Thaksinhinted that so many had died because theywere weak from fasting. To date, he has re-fused to publicly apologize for the govern-ment’s role in the massacre.

“Tak Bai was organized by bandits andtroublemakers,” says the governor of Pattaniprovince, Panu Uthairat, in the elaborate re-ceiving room of the province’s civil head-quarters. “I think the people understandthis.” His statement suggests the enormousgulf between official pronouncements andthe word on the street. “The situation hasimproved over the past six months,” he as-sures me. “Whenever the government wantsto investigate these misguided people, weinvite them to come to the police station.But arrest them? Never.” One has the sensethat extravagant statements on all sides feedon each other.

Nevertheless, the governor struck ahopeful note. “We must win the hearts and minds of the people. Right now, educa-tion is the problem,” he adds, defining what he sees as a central issue. “We need tobe involved in the curriculum to make surethat they are not preaching against the government.”

The School as Battlefield The subject of education is a minefield. InYala, I visited the Ministry of Educationbuilding where, an hour before, a car bombhad savaged the parking lot. The acrid smellof charred rubber lingered. There were nocasualties, but again, militants had targetedgovernment educators as agents of Thai cul-tural imperialism. Twenty-five Buddhistteachers have been killed since January2004, most of them gunned down in motor-cycle drive-by shootings. The governmenthas retaliated, assassinating dozens of ustaz(Muslim teachers) whom they blame for in-citing violence and recruiting young mili-tants. “There’s no doubt that the basis forthis new insurgency are the ustaz,” the com-mander of the Army’s Southern Fourth Di-vision Gen. Pisarn Wattanawongkeeree re-marked to Time magazine in October 2004.

Muslim schools in the south have beenhotbeds of antigovernment rhetoric and arecruiting center for militants. Sapaeng Basoe, the former ulama (headmaster) of


Thammawittaya school in Yala, is said to be head of BRN-Coordinate, commonly re-garded as the biggest insurgent group, esti-mated at two- or three-thousand strong. Hisface, with its scraggly white beard anddeep-set eyes, occupies the center positionin “wanted” posters across the south. Ac-cording to well-researched reports by the In-ternational Crisis Group and scholars likeZachary Abuza, radical clerics and ustaztrained in the Middle East have leadershippositions in all the major insurgent groups.Though government forces are wise to keepan eye on educators who espouse hatred ofthe Thai state, Muslim civic leaders areadamant that the government has no busi-ness interfering in the classroom.

Near the end of a wide gravel road inNarathiwat province sits the home of AbdulRahman Abdul Samad, the head of theNarathiwat Islamic Council. He is a smallman with an intense gaze, solemn and se-vere. I instantly recognize him from the TakBai DVD where he is pictured leading theprayers over the victims’ bodies. His houseis flanked by a two-story wooden buildingand a concrete mosque painted lime green.“This is my pondok (madrassa),” he boasts,pointing at the wooden building, “and thatis where the students live.” He nods in thedirection of a row of dilapidated shacksbuilt from palm fronds, spare wood, andcorrugated tin siding at the edge of the jun-gle. “And here,” he says, gesturing toward alarge clearing, “is where I will build mynew pondok for a thousand students.”

An amalgam of government-funded,government-supported, and independentschools educate the youth in the south. TheThai Buddhist schools are government-run,and their students are largely the children ofthe 300,000 Buddhists who remain in thesouthern provinces. Then there are the nom-inally state-supported Islamic schools, likeThammawittaya, which are in fact essential-ly private institutions, with little oversight.There are also Islamic private schools andpondoks, neither of which receive state fund-

ing. “I’ve been waiting for money from thegovernment for 20 years,” says Rahman. “Iasked Thaksin, he is my friend. He used tocome here before the violence. He promisesmoney but it never comes. So now, I havegone abroad to get the money. I have ac-cepted a generous offer from Kuwait.” Thisis a common refrain from Muslim educatorsin the south. Islamic schools, mosques, andpondoks receive funding from abroad and,concomitantly, foreign ideas on religion,culture, and latterly, guerrilla warfare.

Middle Eastern influence pervadessouthern Thailand. Last year, roughly11,000 southern Thais made hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that must be under-taken once in a lifetime by devout Muslims,and many more study or work in places likeDamascus, Cairo, or Karachi. Saudi moneyfunds the construction of schools, mosques,and civic centers. Residents in the deepsouth are increasingly connected to thewider Arab world. With the growth of Thaisatellite television, southerners are now ableto pull in Malaysian and Indonesian chan-nels that broadcast a steady stream of newsfrom Afghanistan and Iraq.

As Rahman and I finish our tour, a convoy of two minivans and several pickuptrucks approaches. A middle-aged Thai socialite bounds from one of the minivans,accompanied by a coterie of assistants andphotographers. A squad of heavily armed,flak-jacketed Army Rangers serves as a lookout. Rahman gives her an abbreviatedtour of his school before they sit down forsmall talk and to share some southern Thaidesserts in his large waiting room. Hisguest, Thanpuying Viraya Javakul, is a well-connected member of Thailand’s elitewho serves on the board of various majorcharities. She has come, she tells me, to lay the cornerstone for a new electronics factory in Narathiwat that she convinced afriend to build. It will be one of the few industrial concerns in a province that de-rives most of its revenue from rubber andfishing. As Rahman steps outside to take a


phone call, I ask her what she thinks of the pondok that will soon be constructed be-hind his house with Kuwaiti funds. “It’s ter-rible,” she says. “These children need a bet-ter education, not just Islamic schooling.But this factory we are building is good because you can use your hands,” she says,pantomiming something vaguely resem-bling assembly work, and thus “you don’tneed to think.”

The episode is emblematic of the gulfbetween Bangkok and the south, betweenan honest desire to help and the inability tounderstand that central to the mentality ofan aggrieved colonized population is a sim-ple desire to be left alone.

Bangkok Reacts Though Prime Minister Thaksin has dealtwith the insurgency largely as a security is-sue, he responded to pressure from opposi-tion politicians and set up a National Rec-onciliation Commission (NRC), a multi-ethnic panel of politicians, academics, andreligious and civic leaders tasked with sur-veying the unrest in the south and suggest-ing remedies. In the courtyard of the C. S. Pattani Hotel, I sat with Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand, a member of the commission andprofessor at Thammasat University inBangkok, on the eve of a conference atwhich the NRC would be reviewing and debating its recommendations. A Thai Muslim, though not from the south, he isregarded as the intellectual heavyweight on the commission and the lead drafter ofits soon-to-be-delivered judgments. “TheNRC is unique in history, an experiment inwhether it is possible to convene a com-mission without a cessation of violence.Though we are missing something thatmakes the job difficult—unlike SouthAfrica’s Truth and Reconciliation Commis-sion or Rwanda’s Unity and ReconciliationCommission we are lacking a ‘what,’ agoal.” Chaiwat sees the root problems aspoverty and injustice, with religion provid-ing a justification for violence. “But we are

quickly losing ground and the measure iswhether a population is willing to trust thegovernment.”

At a nearby table is NRC chairman andformer prime minister Anand Panyarachun.His long, black Volvo limousine, garlandedwith flowers, waits at the hotel entrance; ithas the telltale thick windows of an armoredvehicle. “There has been mismanagementand a lack of sincerity toward Muslims inthe south,” he says, pausing to relight a cigar, “but Muslims in the south make uponly 1.5 million out of 4.5 million Muslimsin Thailand, so it’s an ethnic issue as well.”Asked whether he could envision a kind ofautonomy for the restive provinces, he hesi-tated, “I have told the NRC members not touse the term ‘autonomy,’ but rather ‘self-governing rule’ or ‘special zone’ when talk-ing of such matters. But I believe the Thaiconstitution is flexible enough to allowsomething like this.” As for Thaksin?“Eventually, he’ll have to come around.”

Many experts differ, and view the southas Thaksin’s Achilles heel. If he is perceivedas too soft, they say, his foes will combine todestroy him. Rumors abound that Thaksin’senemies now number key figures in theelite, including the inner circle of the KingBhumibol Adulyadej’s Privy Council. Theking, 78, is revered in Thailand, and hisrare intercessions into democratic gover-nance throughout his 60-year reign havehighlighted his recent public chastising ofthe prime minister. There are signs thatThaksin’s popularity has sagged. A promi-nent opposition figure, Sondhi Limthong-kul, has been holding Friday evening ralliesin downtown Bangkok’s Lumpini Park thatdraw tens of thousands; such civil unrest haspreceded recent Thai coups. For a man whorose to power on a law-and-order platform,persistent violence in the south is especiallywounding.

Thaksin has benefited from the insur-gency’s distance from the capital and hiscontrol of newspapers and television. In-deed, many with whom I spoke in Bangkok

did not appear to know what was actuallygoing on in the south. A bomb in Bangkokor the tourist island of Phuket, however,would immediately bring the insurgency tothe fore. Security analysts agree that it isunlikely that the current insurgent groupswill escalate their violence beyond the re-gional level. But should Indonesia’s JemaahIslamiya, or al-Qaeda, view southern Thai-land as a recruiting camp for global jihad,they might promote such provocations. For this very reason, Washington seems determined to stay as far from the conflict aspossible.

The Stakes for WashingtonIn the southern Philippines and in Indone-sia, U.S. Special Forces and Army Rangershave helped local intelligence agencies andmilitaries to isolate and attack terroristgroups like Abu Sayyef and Jemaah Is-lamiya. Not so in southern Thailand, whereU.S. officials fear any involvement, howeverpassive, would be immediately misunder-stood by the local Muslim population. Inthe south, many already see the hand of theCIA at work. Villagers speak of “Blackhawkhelicopters” that have flown low over theirhomes, discharging soldiers in the gloom ofnight. More than once, local residents as-sured me that the shadowy “oilmen” theyhave spotted were U.S. agents. For therecord, the United States no longer main-tains a consulate in the south and, due tothe violence, Fulbright scholars studying inPattani were removed to Hat Yai, a majorcity two hours to the north.

Alone as the sole Westerner for most ofmy short stay in the south, I scanned thehotel’s register for potential intervieweeseach night. One evening I was surprised tosee two rooms assigned to U.S. embassy per-sonnel. I sought out Bussabonglahwan Pat-taro, a Thai national working as an informa-tion specialist at the embassy in Bangkok.She was there as part of a two-person ad-vance team planning a press conference atwhich the embassy’s deputy head of mission

and head of public affairs were to presentseveral dozen sewing machines to local Mus-lim women. Neither officer spent the night.This is the extent of U.S. diplomacy in theregion and, according to the National Rec-onciliation Commission chairman Anand, somuch the better: “Tell them to stay the hellout of here,” he told me.

In Thailand, as elsewhere, the ongoingwar in Iraq has affected public opinion. Inthe south, Washington is widely viewedwith cynicism and outright anger. At theembassy in Bangkok, it was suggested that Ishould not disclose my citizenship. “Maybesay that you’re Canadian,” a friend theresuggested. It would be unfair to say thatIraq has in any way been a cause of the re-gion’s violence, but Washington’s eagernessto tie its sail to Thaksin’s mast has had a decidedly negative effect. The United Stateshas turned a blind eye to Thaksin’s authori-tarian tendencies, administrative corruption,judicial intimidation, curbs on independentmedia, and shady business dealings.

Before his election, Thaksin’s company,Shin Corp., had become the sole provider ofsatellite and cellular communications inMyanmar. As prime minister, Thaksin hasproven unwilling to reprimand Myanmar’sgoverning junta for it myriad human rightsviolations, even going so far as to defend theimprisonment of dissident activist AungSang Suu Kyi. He also closed the decades-old camps along Thailand’s eastern borderwith Myanmar to new refugees. The latterwas a popular, if not a principled, decision.When Thaksin assumed office, the countrywas still mired in recession and high unem-ployment, and Thailand had long struggledto accommodate immigrants from its lessstable neighbors. But Thaksin’s policieswith respect to Myanmar have only solidi-fied the impression in the south that theprime minister—and Washington, as hissupporter—is no great defender of humanrights.

Thailand’s underreported drug war of2002–03 claimed, officially, some 2,500



lives. In declaring open season on traffickers,Thaksin unleashed the police and army onthe country’s opiate and methamphetaminetrade. To the delight of Thailand’s gorytabloids, police gunned down users anddealers alike on the streets of Bangkok andin rural villages under shoot-to-kill orders.Human Rights Watch issued numerous re-ports detailing detentions and disappear-ances. Washington said little in protest ofthese abuses, so long as they were perceivedas effective. But now, the same tactics arebeing employed in the southern provinces,where extrajudicial killings have become thenorm. In one well-publicized incident lastyear, prominent Muslim human-rightslawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, who had ac-cused police of torturing clients to extractconfessions, was kidnapped and likely mur-dered while in police custody. Six officersare now on trial for his disappearance.

Though Washington is not responsiblefor Bangkok’s security excesses, its tacit ap-proval of Thaksin’s heavy-handed gover-nance has undermined its right of com-plaint. Apart from the creation of the Na-tional Reconciliation Commission, thereseems little to commend in the Thai gov-ernment’s response to the insurgency.Should the separatist’s jihadist rhetoricgrow, a new front in the war on terror couldresult. “I am sure within Washington corri-dors there is a quiet concern that things inthe Thai south seem to be getting worse,”said Karen Brooks, former National SecurityCouncil director for Asian Affairs at theWhite House, to Agence France Press. Butthere remains a wishful air about U.S. pro-nouncements. “As a strong economic part-ner and major non-NATO ally, of course weare concerned about the violence in southernThailand,” says a high-ranking State De-

partment official, “but as for a tangible U.S.role, we are lending moral support and hop-ing for a resolution.”

There seems little chance of that. Theinsurgency is increasingly well-organized:on the first anniversary of the Tak Bai mas-sacre last fall, there were 66 separate but co-ordinated attacks across the three provinces.“These were obviously a dry run for a muchbigger event,” says Anthony Davis. Mili-tants are also more adept at playing thediplomatic game: on August 30, 131 Mus-lim Thais crossed into Malaysia seeking asy-lum and refugee status. It is likely theywere encouraged to do so by an insurgentgroup seeking to chill relations betweenKuala Lumpur and Bangkok. As of thiswriting, they remain in custody in Kelan-tan, Malaysia, and diplomatic efforts torepatriate the 131 have failed. Complicatingmatters, Thaksin has extended the emer-gency decree that gives near immunity tothe army and police, doing so without ask-ing the advice of—or even notifying—theNational Reconciliation Commission. EvenChairman Anand evinces a weary fatalism:“The NRC is not going to change anything,but maybe we can be a catalyst for change.”

In the Narathiwat provincial court-house, Mohammed Saelek is even less opti-mistic about a quick end to this conflict. “Ilike the National Reconciliation Commis-sion,” he says. “They have asked that mycase be thrown out. But they have no powerat all. If the government says ‘no,’ they cando nothing.” At a break in the courtroomproceedings, he vented his frustration. “I amangry, burning inside. But it’s impossible tospeak out now against the government. If Ihad a weapon, I would shoot. If insurgentsasked me to fight, I would go,” he said,“but only for justice.”•

thailand: a fire this time

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