Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Researcher blames government for violence in south Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Government mismanagement and misjudgment have ignited a smoldering Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand in which more than 570 people have died this year, an academic researcher said Tuesday.

"The death toll this year alone is higher than the past 10 years combined,'' said Srisompob Chitpiromsri in a telephone interview, placing the blame largely on the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Srisompob, a professor at Songkhla Srinakarin University in southern Thailand, said that also contributing to the upsurge was the strong, deeply rooted separatist ideology in the south's Muslim dominated provinces and the influence of international terrorism.

He said the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq had bolstered the local movement, "paving the way for international terrorists to secretly creep in.''

"But the government is totally deaf and blind to these things,'' Srisompob said.

Thaksin has been widely criticised, at home and abroad, for a heavy handed approach to the insurgency in the south, where Muslims have long felt sidelined in a predominantly Buddhist nation.

Neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, countries with which Thailand enjoys good relations, have also lambasted the prime minister, who last week claimed that Thai militants were being trained in Malaysia, although without that government's knowledge, and that the insurgents were being brainwashed by radical ideologies exported from Indonesia.

Thaksin says his remarks were distorted by the media and his foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Tuesday the misunderstanding arose because reports by international news agencies about Thaksin's comments reached the neighbouring country before an explanatory letter sent by his ministry.

Srisompob said statistics he has compiled over the past 10 years show that between 80 to 100 violent incidents had occurred each year in the south since 1993.

But the number soared this year to 1,253, with 573 people dying and another 524 sustaining injuries.

He said the spike in violence began after Thaksin's government came to power in 2001.

A key mistake, he said, was the dissolution of the Southern Border Provinces Coordination and Operations Center, which was responsible for monitoring the separatists as well as socio-economic development in the region.

The center was formed in the 1980s after the government granted general amnesty to Muslim separatists and other guerrillas.

Muslim and community leaders, the police and military had an equal say within the disbanded agency.

Since its dissolution, responsibilities for key areas have not been clearly defined. Thaksin himself has complained of infighting among different government agencies in the south.

Initially Thaksin blamed the increased violence on "low-level bandits,'' drug traffickers and other criminals before acknowledging that a revival of the Muslim separatist movement was taking place.

Before the government amnesty, the Pattani United Liberation Organization commanded more than 20,000 guerrillas at the height of its power.

PULO was disbanded but some of its adherents split into small groups to engage in extortion and banditry. - AP

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