After six years, the situation remains unchanged
By the News Desk
Today, the 4th of January, marks the sixth anniversary of the daring raid of an army armoury at the Prince Narathiwat garrison in Joh-I-Rong district of Narathiwat by suspected militants who managed to take away 413 M16 assault rifles.
The unprecedent violent incident also marks the beginning of a new wave of terror campaign in the three southernmost provinces plus four districts of Songkhla province by what is believed to be a new generation of militants.
After six years, the overall situation in the restive region remains unchanged to the extent that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva recently admitted that he was not satisfied with the performance of the authorities concerned in addressing the violence in the deep South. Anyway, it is a timely occasion to take a look back at what the Democrat-led government has done – in term of policy – in its attempt to address the problem in the region.
- Deputy Interior Minister Thavorn Senniam was appointed to oversee efforts to resolve the southern problem amidst widespread criticism that he was not the right person for the job, resulting to lack of progress on policy matters. Worse still, the interior minister belongs to another coalition party.
- The government managed to ram through the first reading of the House a bill for the establishment of a new administrative body for the deep South. It remains doubtful whether the bill will become law at all.
- The government’s idea to set up a new administrative body for the region has not only run into opposition by the military, it has also been overshadowed by Puea Thai party chairman General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh’s proposed Nakhon Pattani model of administrative body.
But the Democrat-led government’s most daring achievement for the past year seems to be its decision to lift martial law in four districts of Songkhla province. However, such decision has a big question mark in some circles that whether the decision was just meant to open up the four districts for a trial experiment of the enforcement of a new security law despite some ambiguous aspects of Article 21 of the law which need to be cleared up. As far as the emergency decree is concerned, despite promises by the prime minister that the decree will be lifted, it appears that the decree which has been imposed in certain areas where insurgency is active has been repeatedly extended.
As far as special development budget is concerned, the government has allocated altogether 63.3 billion baht spanning over four budgetary years starting last year. For outsiders, it appears that the government has wrestled back the control of the budget disbursement from the military. But the truth is that every project needs the approval of the military or the Internal Security Operations Command.
Although the number of violent incidents has declined last year to 761 compared to 1,025 a year ago, the incidents have become more serious. The death toll for 2009 budgetary year which ended at the end of September was registered at 1,331 compared to 1,738 a year earlier. There were altogether six car bomb attacks for the whole 2009 fiscal year.
But the worst violent incident of the year was the gun attack of the Alfugron mosque in Joh-I-Rong district of Narathiwat by gunmen which left ten worshippers dead and 12 others injured. No suspects have so far been arrested. Lately, Army Commander-in-Chief General Anupong Paochinda discosed that two wanted suspects may have already left the restive region.
Regarding security forces in the region, altogether 30,000 troops and 18.000 policemen have been deployed to maintain peace and order. On top of that, there are another 18,000 local officials and defence volunteers plus an addition of 48,000 village defence volunteers trained and armed by the state.
But despite the superior manpower, altogether more than 100,000, the war against the insurgency is yet to be won and, after six years, nothing has changed for the better. Peace still remains elusive…