A former BRN core member spills the bean about the separatist movement
A former core member of the BRN (Barisan Revolusi Nasionale) separatist movement believes that the creation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in the next three years will help ease the unrest situation in Thailand’s Deep South as Muslim youths in the region will turn more attention to education issue than to separatism issue.
The same ex-BRN member also believes that the separatist movement will, in the future, abandon their dream for a separate homeland of Pattani because the dream will never be realized and that they will settle for a special administrative zone instead.
The aforementioned information was recently provided to the Isra news agency by a BRN defector who spoke on the condition that his identity is held confidential. So the Isra news agency decided to identify as Yusoh.
Isra news agency have cross-checked with several credible sources which confirmed that Yusoh formerly worked for the BRN and he was a core member of the religious faction.
Yusoh told Isra news agency that he decided to part with the separatist movement because his thought about the movement’s struggle for a separate homeland of Pattani clashed with that of the movement. Several core members of the movement also shared different views with some doubting that the dream of a separate homeland will never be realized.
Besides ideological clash, the defector said that there was also conflict on vested interest among the core members.
Asked about his own safety for leaving the movement, Yusoh said that the BRN did not have a policy to eliminate the defectors with one condition that they must not provide information about the movement and its activities to the authorities and must not go against the movement. That was why several defectors can still live in their localities and pursue a normal life after they left the movement, he added.
Offering information about the BRN’s funding, Yusoh said the movement earned financial support from the local households by collecting three baht a day from each household which is sympathetic to their cause. For every three baht received, one baht would go for buying ammunition and the other two baht were invested to make more revenue by buying loincloths and Muslim women’s dress and reselling them at a small profit to their supporters in different villages.
Yusoh said that the separatist movement had been soliciting fund and investing part of it in small business for a long time with or without the knowledge of the authorities. Even if the authorities knew about it, they could not do anything because the business is legitimate.
Asked why the separatist movement has not weakened despite the fact that several of its members were killed or captured by security forces, Yusoh said that it was because of the power of thought and belief which were driven into the minds of their members which would take many years to be erased from their minds.
He cited the Krue Se as a case in point about the effect of indoctrination on movement’s members. He disclosed that a spiritual member of BRN had lured a large group of Muslim youths to join in a violent attack of security forces by telling them they would be safe and would be invisible if they took with them prayer beads (Tasbih) that he gave them.
Yusoh said the same clergy also planned to use the same trick with Muslim youths in Yala and Narathiwat on the same day that the Krue Se incident took place which was April 28, 2004. Had that plan worked out, many more Muslim youths would have been killed, he said, adding that he himself lost four of his youth members.
"We didn’t know how the youths were duped by the clergy who disappeared after the incident," he said.
Like the BRN, Yusoh said that the RKK or the military wing of the separatist movement was also confronted with the problem of ideological conflict. He said that some RKK members had offered their services to influential groups in the region in exchange for money, arms and ammunition and they were protected.
Getting rid of the RKK is an uphill task because several of them are operating in urban areas and not in the jungle. However, he noted that the RKK is losing strength due to the government’s aggressive approach, forcing several RKK members to operate out of their normal zones.
"For instances, we have cases of RKK members originated in Yaha district of Yala getting killed in Krong Penang district of Yala and members from Bannang Sata district of Yala killed in Rueso district of Narathiwat," said Yusoh.
About the proposed special administrative zone for the Deep South, Yusoh said the proposal was premature as the local people knew very little about it and they also suspected that only some people would benefit from it.
But the proposal may work in the long-term future when the separatist movement leaders finally realize that their dream of a separate homeland will not be realized and they will start negotiating with the government to settle for a special administrative zone.
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Caption : Krue Se mosque