Published on Sep 6, 2006 - For a man who has been assigned one of the most daunting security
tasks in modern Thai history, Lt-General Ongkorn Thongprasom tried
hard not to sound like a battle-hardened commander.

Ongkorn, who has made his career in the Army's Special Forces, made it
clear that military means alone would not bring peace to the restive
Malay-speaking deep South, which has been shaped by a history of
rebellion against the Thai state and its refusal to let go of its
cultural characteristics.

All of Bangkok's initiatives and policies have failed to bring about a
permanent peace or answer the grievances that have bred dissent in the
region. Because nothing has so far worked, men like Ongkorn continue
to be sent here to quell armed insurgencies.

This latest round, which surfaced in late 2001 but was not officially
acknowledged until scores of militants carried out a major raid on an
Army battalion in

January 2004, has so far claimed more than 1,700 lives, according to
the latest statistics compiled by Srisompob Jitpiromsri, an assistant
professor at Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani campus.

Millions of baht have been spent on enhancing security in the region
over the past two-and-a-half years, in addition to more than 20,000
armed troops being stationed there. Despite this, the state apparatus
is still largely perceived to be a foreign conqueror with officials
who rarely speak the local language or take the time to understand
local culture.

Ethnic Malays say they don't feel they have a shared destiny with the
rest of the country, and that they continue to regard officials as
agents of a Buddhist state intent on pushing through a set of policies
aimed at making them Thai at the expense of their own identity.

In a recent interview with senior journalists from Nation Multimedia
Group, Ongkorn said that initial encounters between the two sides -
the Thai state and the Malay-speaking region - started off on the
wrong foot, and that the current generation has been left to pick up
the pieces. Permanent peace can only be achieved through a long-term
collective effort from all sides and a permanent reconciliation could
take at least two more generations to achieve, he said.

One of the short-term goals, said Ongkorn, is to look for ways to
distinguish insurgents from common criminals, and then to look for a
way to channel insurgents back into Thai society.

"Many of these insurgents are good kids. They are not criminal by
nature," said Pol Lt-General Adul Sangsingkeo, commissioner of the
Ninth Police Region, which oversees the country's seven southernmost
provinces.

Adul said officials from the military, law enforcement and the legal
community have been meeting regularly to discuss how to differentiate
insurgents from common criminals.

Ongkorn confirmed that authorities are in the process of building a
detention centre to house suspected insurgents with the aim of
returning the "re-educated" ones back into society as productive,
nation-loving citizens.

But like most controversial initiatives, the devil is always in the
details. Among those who back the idea of turning insurgents into
peace-loving citizens, said Adul, the debate revolves around who
should have the power to determine who is a common criminal and who is
an insurgent. The legal community said such a judgement should be up
to them, while security officials think they should be the ones to
decide. But even if the state were to succeed in turning insurgents
into productive citizens, the heart of the problem still has to be
addressed: the source of inspiration for Malay separatism.

While the two generals agreed the conflict is a battle of ideas -
Malay separatists vs the Thai state - neither has gone into detail as
to what needs to be done in order to address the roots of separatism.
At most, both generals would agree that issues such as history,
education, poverty, social mobility and inequality should be addressed
collectively with the help of Islamic leaders, if the state is to
succeed in winning the hearts and minds of those in the region.

Ongkorn and Adul did not point fingers at any particular government or
incident, but stated that decades of neglect, along with the failure
to detect that a new generation of insurgents was in the making during
the previous decade, has led to the current predicament.

"In the past the militants were hiding out in remote hills but now
they are operating from within the villages," Ongkorn added.

Long-term solutions aside, both generals said they have a more
immediate concern, pointing to the roadside bombings that are followed
by brief gunfights as well as the drive-by shootings that take place
almost on a daily basis.

"Insurgents carrying out an attack go through several short steps.
They have people who function as their eyes and ears, informing those
down the line about the movement of the authorities," Ongkorn said.

"Another team would be responsible for placing weapons at a designated
location, and then a different group would enter the picture to
carryout a roadside attack," he added. Adul said the immediate aim is
to contain the violence from intensifying beyond its current state.

He said insurgents' attacks appear to be intensifying with more
coordinated hits and larger explosions in roadside bombings. But
fundamentally the overall tactics haven't changed. Even so, security
officials appear to be fighting an uphill battle. Last month,
authorities found about 20 holes dug in one stretch of road that they
believed were supposed to be bomb slots. "It's like a spider's web out
there, so many twists and turns," Ongkorn said.

Officially, the region of Thailand's three southernmost provinces is
not a war zone. "But we feel that we could be hit at any moment,"
Ongkorn said.

Don Pathan
The Nation
Yala