Published on August 30, 2005

But the killers of innocent citizens, regardless of what they happen to call themselves, must be brought to justice. Recent news reports about a supposed resurgence of the old 1970s- and 1980s-era separatist Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), based on an interview with a self-proclaimed spokesman, must be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism.

The claim of secret talks being held last week in Switzerland between Thai government officials and representatives of the ethnic Malay rebel group should also be taken with a grain of salt.

Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya, who is directly responsible for security in the strife-torn deep South, and Defence Minister Thamarak Isarangura both denied that the government had entered into any such negotiations. After all, the organisation is regarded by many as moribund and no longer holding sway in the restive Malay-speaking region that covers the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

Be that as it may, the Thaksin administration, on at least a few occasions last year, let slip proposed or ongoing talks with Wan Kadir, a Thai-Malay exile in Sweden who used to run Bersatu, a political front for Malay separatist organisations. The government later backtracked, saying negotiations would give legitimacy to the separatist movement. It was not clear whether any meetings had actually taken place.

The renewed violence in the Malay-majority region, which started in earnest on January 4 of last year, has so far left more than 800 dead. Malay separatists/Islamic militants have waged a campaign of terror, including raids on military and police outposts, assassinations of officials, random killing and maiming of civilians and bomb attacks.

The claim made by Pulo that it was the driving force behind this latest wave of well-coordinated southern insurgency may be a little ludicrous, given the yawning generation gap between the ageing former Pulo fighters and today’s relatively youthful insurgents. But whether Pulo is trying to claim undeserved credit is beside the point.

More important is that the actual masterminds of this sustained bloody campaign, which has seriously disrupted law and order in the restive region, appear to have succeeded to a certain extent in sowing the seeds of suspicion – if not outright hatred – between Malays and non-Malays, between Muslims and non-Muslims. Even long-established Muslim and Buddhist communities that had traditionally co-existed peacefully for generations, have now begun to harbour a sense of distrust against each another.

All of this is happening while the government continues to fumble with one half-baked measure after another, in a desperate attempt to restore a semblance of rule of law, which remains elusive as the situation degenerates even further into lawlessness and chaos. And the insurgency continues unabated despite the heavy presence of security forces.

Even the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) – tasked with fostering peace through more sensitive and proactive approaches in dealing with local residents and trying to make up for decades of neglect, heavy-handed discrimination and marginalisation, plus more recent atrocities like last October’s Tak Bai incident – appears to have failed in its purpose.

That is because what the NRC is trying to achieve will take years, generations maybe, even to begin to bear fruit. The systematic mistreatment of Thai-Malays in the three provinces that has largely been ignored by the rather apathetic Thai mainstream, cannot be undone as quickly as many Thais would like it to. It will take patience, perseverance and a sincere effort to reach out to Thai-Malays and convince them that all citizens, regardless of their religion or ethnicity, share a common destiny.

But then, any genuine reconciliation is a two-way street that could only happen when all peace-loving peoples come together, unequivocally denounce violence and terrorism and begin to work on a dignified and mutually beneficial settlement of long-standing grievances.

In the meantime, the government must demonstrate beyond all doubt that it has a winning strategy and the wherewithal both to stop the daily senseless killings of innocent civilians and to bring to justice the perpetrators of the violence – all the while upholding civil liberties and human rights.

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