A new super agency to deal with violence in the far South?
The deputy national police chief, Pol Gen Adul Saengsingkaew, is in favour of a super agency to deal more effectively with the unrest problem in the deep South.
In an exclusive interview by the Isra news desk, Pol Gen Adul talked about his idea of the super agency to be led by the National Security Council and comprise 18 other state agencies, namely the National Intelligence Agency, the defence and interior ministries, the Office of the Attorney-General, the Natioinal Police Office the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the ministries of commerce, justice, social development and human security, public health, education, labour, industry and information technology and communications, the Internal Security Operations Command as well as the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC).
The deputy police chief said that the present organizational structure led by the Internal Security Operations Command to deal with the southern unrest problem is inadequate. “It amounts to just a pain killer. In order to cure the disease, we need a Team Thailand or a teamwork of all stakeholders,” he added.
Pol Gen Adul explained that, according to his idea, the new organization will have the NSC chief as the director and the commander of the Fourth Army Region as the commander overseeing all the situations down there with the Fourth Army Region and SBPAC serving as the operating forces.
The deputy police chief is of the opinion that the number of violent incidents in the restive region has dropped but the degree of violence has increased. This was because the insurgents who used to operate in small groups in specific zones have now turned to using larger groups in their operations with members being drawn from different zones to join the operations.
According to statistics, there were altogether 954 violent incidents with 496 deaths from October 2010 to August 2011 compared to 1,034 incidents and 487 deaths during the same period a year before. In short, the death toll has increased but the number of violent incidents has declined.
In his capacity as secretary-general of the Office of Narcotics Control Board, Pol Gen Adul admitted that contraband and drug gangs had connections with the insurgent groups. He said that each time authorities made a big seizure of illicit drugs or contraband goods, the insurgents would launch a retaliatory attack.
On the three bomb blasts in Sungai Kolok district, Narathiwat, on Friday September 16, an informed source in the local ISOC office, claimed that the Sungai Kolok incident and the fatal ambush which took place in Ka Phor district, also in Narathiwat, one day earlier were linked together. The two incidents were retaliatory acts to avenge a recent drug raid in Sungai Kolok, he said.
Four people, including three Malaysians, were killed and more than 50 others injured in the bomb blasts in Sungai Kolok last Friday. In the Ka Phor district ambush, fur para-military rangers and one army officer were killed.
The source said that the authorities raided the house of Mr Samee-oong Poh Artae, a member of Narathiwat provincial Administration Organisation, in Sungai Kolok on September 13 after he came under suspicion of being unusually rich.
Four suspects were arrested but gunshots fired from the direction of another big house in the neighbourhood during the raid led to officials to another raid which led to the seizure of a computer which contains valuable information about the illicit drug trade and drug connections.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Kowit Wattana said that the government has no plan to scrap the emergency rule in the deep South because of the endless violence there.
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Thanks :
- pic. Pol Gen Adul Saengsingkaew from http://www.chaoprayanews.com
- pic. bomb in Sungai Kolok district from The Nation