Conflicts in Southern Thailand Attacks on Human Rights

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Conflicts in Southern ThailandAttacks on Human
Rights

• Sunai Phasuk
• Human Rights Watch
• Asia Division

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Map of Thailands Southern Border Provinces
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New Face of Insurgent Violence

• Thailands southern border provinces refer to
  Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat (togther with the
  four districts of SongkhlaChana, Thepa, Sabayoi
  and Nathawi) in which the majority of population
  are ethnic Malay-Muslims and speak local dialect
  of Malayu language. This region constituted
  independent Muslim sultanates before being
  annexed by Thailand (then Siam) in 1902.

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• To varying degrees, the southern border provinces
  have been the scene of separatist activity rooted
  in their distinctive religious, ethnic,
  linguistic, cultural and historical traits for
  more than a century.

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• Attempts by Thai authorities to suppress and
  assimilate those differences by various measures,
  as well as indifference towards the standard of
  living, the rule of law and justice in the
  southern border provinces have resulted in a
  general atmosphere of resentment and alienation
  among the ethnic Malay Muslim population.
• This has provided the context for resistance and
  insurgency, based largely on three ideological
  foundationsnamely the belief in traditional
  virtues and the greatness of the Islamic Land of
  Patani (Patani Darussalam), the Malay ethnic
  identity and a religious orientation based on
  Islam.

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• During the past four years, Thailands southern
  border provinces have become the scene of
  unprecedented violence. Since the January 4, 2004
  raid on an army depot in Narathiwat, almost every
  day separatist militants carried out attacks.

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• Unlike the previous generation of separatist
  insurgency, which was characterized by armed
  conflicts between Thai authorities and separatist
  militants, now the daily scene of conflicts is
  right in the places where people live and work.
  People in the southern border provincesBuddhist
  Thais and ethnic Malay Muslimshave been caught
  up in the middle of violence.

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• In addition to attacks on security personnel,
  militant violence has clearly been directed
  against civilians and civilian targetswhich are
  protected under international humanitarian laws
  and customary practices in armed conflicts.

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• Of those 3,071 deaths and nearly 5,000 injuries
  (at the end of June 2008) since January 2004,
  most of the victims were civilians.
• The civilian victims can be divided into two
  categoriesBuddhist Thais and ethnic Malay
  Muslims.

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• 1) Buddhist Thais civilians (including Buddhist
  monks and novices)whom separatist militants see
  as legitimate targets because they represent the
  occupation of Patani Darussalam by kafir
  (infidels). Sometimes, Buddhist Thais were
  targeted in retaliation to abuses of ethnic Malay
  Muslims by Thai officials. In these cases,
  leaflets stating the act of reprisal were often
  left next to the dead bodies. Victims are shot
  (both in indiscriminate drive-by shootings and
  targeted assassinations), hacked with machetes,
  burned to death, or blown up in bomb attacks.
  Their houses are torched, and fruit orchards and
  rubber plantations destroyed.

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• 2) Ethnic Malay Muslims who collaborate with
  Thai authorities, as well as those who oppose
  separatist militants. Separatist militants
  consider those ethnic Malay Muslims to be munafig
  (hypocrites) who have sided with the occupying
  infidels forces, and attacks against them are
  apparently meant as punishment and as a warning
  to others. In addition, these targets are seen as
  committing haram (forbidden sins) and violating
  what separatist militants call Islamic duty
  (wajib) to participate in the armed struggle for
  liberation. Victims are hacked or shot to death.
  Their houses and properties are destroyed.

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Impacts of Violence

• The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on
  civilians and civilian targetssuch as markets,
  commercial banks, restaurants, hotels, karaoke
  bars, gas stationshas particularly become one of
  the main insurgent tactics, with statistics
  showing clearly the intensity and lethality of
  these indiscriminate weapons.

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• Separatist militants also used IEDs, sometimes in
  combination with arson attacks and gun ambushes,
  to disrupt public transportation, communication
  network and power supply. Passenger vans and
  trains were ambushed. Train tracks were bombed or
  derailed. Mobile telephone cell sites were
  torched. Electricity lines and poles were
  destroyed with bombs and fire. Such attacks could
  paralyze the entire districts for days.

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• Separatist militants are also targeting both the
  Thai education system and Islamic education.
  Since January 2004, nearly 300 teachers, staff,
  and students from government schools have been
  murdered and injured in attacks carried out by
  separatist militants. At least 220 government
  schools (from the total 944) have been burned
  down over the past four years. Teachers were
  sometimes held as hostages in exchange for the
  release of separatist militants from government
  custody.

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• The lack of security has occasionally forced
  government schools in the entire province or
  district to close down. Then Prime Minister
  General Surayud acknowledged on June 18, 2007
  that the government could not guarantee school
  safety everywhere and that some schools might
  have to be closed indefinitely. Just before the
  beginning of new school term this year, more than
  300 teachers in Narathiwat requested emergency
  transfer out of the southern border provinces
  after separatist militants put up banners
  threatening to kill all government teachers in
  the province.

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• On the other hand, moderate owners and teachers
  of Islamic schools have also been pressured to
  agree with the radicalization of Islamic
  education as well. Parents have also been
  pressured (with death threats, assassinations,
  and bomb attacks) to move their children to study
  with religious schools and teachers within the
  umbrella of separatist groups.

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• Medical personnel affiliated with the government
  have also been targeted. At least 10 community
  health officers, and 30 public health volunteers
  have been killed since January 2004, and 12
  public health centers were bombed or set on fire.
  Against the backdrop of increasing violence, more
  and more Buddhist doctors and nurses are
  requesting to be transferred from the region.

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• Many Buddhist monks and novices in Pattani, Yala
  and Narathiwat were shot or hacked to death, or
  injured by roadside bombs, while they were
  collecting morning elms. Separatist militants
  also raided Buddhist temples and set fire on
  them.

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The Actors and Their Motives

• Influenced by the potent combination of ethnic
  Malay nationalism and Islamic extremism,
  BRN-Coordinate (Barisan Revolusi
  Nasional-Koordinas or National Revolutionary
  Front-Coordinate) has emerged as the backbone of
  the new generation of separatist militants in
  Thailands southern border provinces.

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• Over the period of quiet years (from the
  early1990s to the early 2000s) in the lead-up to
  the full-scale resurfacing of separatist violence
  in 2004, BRN-Coordinate has focused on
  strengthening its ideological, political and
  military foundations primarily through the
  network of religious teachers and schools using
  deep-rooted resentment toward abuses,
  exploitation, corruption and injustice of Thai
  officials as at the impetus for recuperating.

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• The resurgence and expansion of BRN-Coordinate
  has been focused on a distinctly Islamist
  nationalist platform to liberate Patani
  Darussalam (Islamic Land of Patani) from the
  occupying forces of Siamese kafir (referring to
  Buddhist Thais by their ancient name as
  infidels).

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• The BRN-Coordinates seven-step plan towards
  the liberation of Patani Darussalamwhich is now
  believed to be in step sixcan be summarized as
  followed
• 1) Creating public awareness in Islam
  (religion), Malay (nationality) and Patani
  homeland, invasion/occupation by the Thai state
  and the struggle for independence

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• 2) Creating mass support through religious
  teaching at various levels, including tadika
  (Koranic elementary schools), ponoh (Islamic
  boarding schools), private Islamic colleges and
  provincial Islamic committees
• 3) Setting up secretive organizational structure
• 4) Recruiting and training of ethnic Malay
  Muslim youth to become militant, aiming to have
  3,000 strong well-trained and well-disciplined
  troops

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• 5) Building nationalist and independence
  struggle ideology among government officials of
  ethnic Malay Muslim origin and ethnic Malay
  Muslims of the southern border provinces who
  went to work in Malaysia
• 6) Launching a new wave of attacks
• 7) Declaring a revolution

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• The new generation of village-based separatist
  militants in the loose cell-like network of
  BRN-Coordinate call themselves as pejuang
  kemerdekaan Patani (Patani Freedom Fighters, or
  pejuang in short) and operate on ethnic and
  religious fault lines. The claim that the
  southern border provinces are not the land of
  Buddhist Thais, but a religious conflict
  territory (darul harbi).

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• In this context, every ethnic Malay Muslim must
  fight liberate their homeland from the occupation
  of infidelscoexistence between ethnic Malay
  Muslims and Buddhist Thais is impossible, and
  will not be tolerated.

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• Thai authorities estimated that BRN-Coordinate is
  active in about two-third of the 1,574 villages
  across the southern border provinces. The Police
  Forward Command in the southern border provinces
  estimated that there were five-men commando units
  of well-trained separatist militants (known by
  the title of their training course in tactics for
  small patrol unit as Runda Kumpulan Kecil or RKK)
  in 500 villages, while there were more than 4,000
  permuda (youth) members across Pattani, Yala,
  Narathiwat, and Songkhla.

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• However, the resurgence and expansion of
  BRN-Coordinate in the southern border provinces
  are not taking place without opposition from the
  ethnic Malay Muslim community or other separatist
  groups. Resistance and disagreement to the
  recruitment and other operations of
  BRN-Coordinate often resulted in persecution,
  including execution by shooting or hacking.

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Failed Reconciliatory Attempts and Escalating
Violence

• Then Prime Minister General Surayud acknowledged
  the insurgency as a pressing national crisis in
  his inaugural speech and noted that this problem
  is rooted primarily in injustice and inequality
  in the society.

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• However, the underlying ideology of the Thai
  state based on territorial integrity and the
  supremacy of Buddhism making the discussion of
  autonomy and the rights to self-determination for
  ethnic Malay Muslims in southern border provinces
  impossible even within the constitutional context.

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• The question of state-sanctioned abuses and
  impunityas evident in the Krue Se and Tak Bai
  incidents, as well as numerous allegations of
  arbitrary arrests, tortures, disappearances and
  extrajudicial killingshas depleted Thai
  authorities credibility to the point that it
  seems impossible for them to embark on any
  meaningful reconciliatory efforts.

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• More troops from both regular and volunteer
  forces are being deployed to face the growing
  challenge posed by separatist militants. But
  these troops are poorly supervised and
  disciplined, while being immune (by the Emergency
  Decree) to legal and disciplinary accountability.
  

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• Ethnic Malay Muslims have come to believe that
  the change of government does not lead to an
  opportunity for new policies. The bottom line is
  that ethnic Malay Muslims still have no access to
  justice amidst ongoing abuses and impunitya
  perception which has been reinforced by the
  governments decision to extend the enforcement
  of the Emergency Decree which gives the security
  forces blanket immunity from being held
  accountable to their misconducts and abusive
  behaviors.

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• The common scenes in the southern border
  provinces after each report of arrests or murders
  of ethnic Malay Muslims are that of angry
  villagers blocking the roads or gathering in
  front of a police station to demand for the
  release of suspects or the withdrawal of security
  units accused of being responsible for the
  killings. Separatist militants have sometimes
  left messages next to the bodies of Buddhist Thai
  victims shot, hacked or burned to death in
  revenge for the killings of ethnic Malay Muslims.

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• For almost three years, the army has been known
  for seeking to establish dialogues with various
  separatist militants with an aim to negotiate a
  political. However, this series of meetings could
  only engage leaders of GMP, PULO, BRN-Congress
  and Bersatu. All of them came from the previous
  generation of separatist militants, not the one
  responsible for the current violence.

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• Unsurprisingly, participants from those
  separatist groups were not able to answer to
  Thailands demands that they implemented a
  cease-fire as a show of good will and sign of
  command and control.

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• On the other hand, members of BRN-Coordinate are
  confident in their campaign of violence. They are
  not interested in the dialogue and could not
  accept the armys demands that separatist groups
  dropped their armed struggle for an independent
  Islamic state of Patani before entering to the
  dialogue.

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• BRN-Coordinate also warns that anyone in its
  ranks and files who may have expressed their
  willingness to settle for limited autonomy or
  special administrative arrangements under the
  Thai constitution will be treated as traitors and
  can be subject to severe punishment.  

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• Not only that they strongly rejected the dialogue
  proposal, separatist militants have stepped up
  the attacks targeting specifically on Buddhist
  Thaisboth civilians and government officials.
  These attacks have provoked anger from Buddhist
  Thais living in the southern border provinces and
  elsewhere in Thailand.

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• The bomb attacks at CS Pattani Hotel on March 15,
  2008 was more than a blunt message that that
  separatist militants were still capable of
  fighting back after suffering significant losses
  from counterinsurgency sweeps. They also wanted
  to show that no one and nowhere would be safe in
  this conflictnot even a neutral ground and a
  symbol of reconciliation like CS Pattani Hotel.

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• The recent surge of violence is a direct message
  rejecting of the televised end of insurgency
  announcement made by a group called Thailand
  United Southern Underground (TUSU)which claims
  to have 11 militant groups under its umbrella.
  Not only that TUSU does not exist in reality and
  its so-called leaders have fallen out from key
  positions in the separatist network for more than
  20 years, the end of insurgency is a serious
  violation of what BRN-Coordinate holds as its
  non-negotiable obligationthe armed struggle for
  liberation of the southern border provinces.

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• Thai security forces have responded to this trend
  in full force committing serious and widespread
  abuses against suspected militants and their
  supporters. Despite of the change of governments
  and many promises of justice, impunity for
  government abuses remains prevalent. Frustration,
  alienation, and anger in the ethnic Malay Muslim
  community has been further fuelled by the
  enforcement of security legislationswhich
  provide the security forces almost blanket
  immunity for criminal misconduct and human rights
  violations.

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• On the other hand, Buddhist Thais are also
  showing more contempt against the policy of
  reconciliationwhich they see as a sign of
  weakness, ineffectiveness and a concession to
  allow separatist militants to kill more Buddhist
  Thais. Such resistance has also been visible
  against any encouragement to the security forces
  to operate within due process of law and with
  respects of human rights.

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• There exist numerous reports that Buddhist
  Thaisincluding those serving in the security
  forcesare starting to resort to vigilante
  violence to defend themselves from separatist
  militants and seek revenge after each brutal
  attack by separatist militants.

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• This trend can easily set off a vicious cycle of
  reprisal attacks between Buddhist Thais and
  ethnic Malay Muslims making the already volatile
  situation in the southern border provinces more
  prone to escalating into communal violence.