New Command for the deep South hits the snag
The Operations Centre to Resolve Problems in Southern Border Provinces headed by Deputy Prime Minister Yutthasak Sasiprapa has encountered challenges from Islamic militants as well as the Southern Border Provinces Development Advisory Council.
Following the cabinet’s decision to set up the Bangkok-based centre on August 8, the SBPDAC held an urgent meeting on August 18 at the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC) in Yala to announce its opposition to the centre.
A letter of protest outlining five reasons about why the advisory council opposes the centre was submitted to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra after the meeting. Among the reasons cited are: the concept of the operations centre which gives the military full power over the civilians will not be helpful in resolving the unrest problem; instead of a Bangkok-based operations centre, the 4th army region or the 4th regional Internal Security Operations Command should be the key player for security affairs while the SBPAC should be responsible for development and non-military affairs; and the SBPAC has been doing a good job for the past one year.
The advisory council also noted that the operations centre would be a duplication of the Strategic Committee for the Development of Southern Border Provinces which was created in 2010 by virtue of the Southern Border Provinces Administration Act.
The council criticized the operations centre was a top-down structure as it places all the 17 ministries involved in the solution of problems in the deep South under one sin gle umbrella which is different from the Strategic Committee for the Development of Southern Border Provinces which allows public participation.
All the 49 members of the advisory council have threatened to resign en masse if their opposition against the operations centre is not heeded. They also threatened to take their case to the Administrative Court as a last redress.
While there is still little progress about the Operations Centre to Resolve Problems in Southern Border Provinces, it was reported that Prime Minister Yingluck had ordered a change of the name of the centre to become Operations Centre of the Committee to Move Forward Policy and Strategy to Resolve Problems in Southern Border Provinces in order to avoid confusion.
Despite the prime minister’s order, it appears that the official name of the operations centre still remains unchanged, according to sources.
The National Security Council has been assigned by General Yutthasak to examine the structure of the operations centre to see to it that there won’t be any duplication with the structure of the SBPAC.
Regarding the advisory council’s opposition against the operatons centre and the threat of the council members to resign en masse, General Yutthasak said he had instructed his men to clarify to the council members. He maintained that the civilian side would still be a key player to resolve the unrest problem.
Meanwhile, the Senate Military Affairs Committee has recently come up with a study on the southern unrest problem. In the study, the Senate committee disagreed with the idea of a special administration for the deep South apart from the current decentralistion formats such as municipal, tambon administration orgnisation and provincial administration organisation.
The committee said that military approach should be concurrently applied with political approach to resolve the problem on some occasions. It also agreed the militants must be suppressed before there is any peace talk or peace dialogue with the militant groups.
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Caption : An urgent meeting of The Southern Border Provinces Development Advisory Council (SBPDAC), on August 18.