A tough life for defence volunteers in the Deep South
Fifteen men killed and eight injured during the six-month period from January this year are a cruel reminder of the life-threatening danger facing paramilitary defence volunteers (or-sor) on daily basis in the three southernmost provinces.
But the danger associated with the defence volunteers’ job is just half of the sad story. The other half is that the plight of these volunteers has always been overlooked by their superiors in Bangkok.
"I am very discouraged. If I do not have to take care of the education of my children, I will have quitted the job long time ago so I don’t have to risk my life," said a defence volunteer based in Muang district of Pattani.
Speaking to the Southern News Centre in a recent interview on condition that his identity was held confidential, the embittered 54-year old defence volunteer he felt the volunteers were abandoned by their superiors because they were mostly poorly-educated and came from poor families. He complained that he was assigned to an outpost on sentry’s job four days a week but was given only one pack of instant noodle, one pack of instant coffee and three eggs.
"But I have to eat three meals a day. So how can we have the strength to fight the insurgents?" he asked.
He further disclosed that in some outposts the defence volunteers had to buy everything, including food, with their money. "Sometimes when we ran out of cooking gas, we had to cook with charred coal stove. As a matter of fact, there is a budget for these expenses for each outpost. But I don’t know where the money has gone," he said.
The veteran volunteer further complained about the delayed payment of monthly allowances. "Sometimes, we got paid once in three months or four months. They (those responsible for the payments) have never thought that we, too, are badly in need of money."
He also complained about the shortage of modern firearms to match the firepower of the insurgents, broken vehicles and shortage of necessary equipment such as bomb detectors.
Another volunteer, 28-year old Ananthavuth Chucheep, who was assigned to maintain safety on trains shuttling between Hat Yai township and Yala province said his working timetable was ten days of working in one stretch and a break of five days.
He admitted that his work was stressful because there were normally many people on board and it was difficult to ensure 100 percent safety. He said he was satisfied with the monthly pay of about 12,000 baht which included salary and allowances.
What he has wanted is to have their service rifles, the outdated M16 A1 which has longer barrel, replaced with the new version, M16 A4, which has shorter barrel and more convenient to carry around in tight space such as on board a train carriage.
Ananthavuth also said that he wished volunteers be provided with better welfare because their job is as risky as that of the police and the army.
Of late, the defence volunteers have become convenient target of attacks by the insurgents because they are seen of being poorly trained and poorly equipped. In the past six months since the beginning of this year, 15 volunteers have been killed and eight injured. Eleven weapons, including a few brand-new AK47 assault rifles, have been stolen by the insurgents.
On June 27, the strategic committee for the development of southern provinces within the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre agreed to seek 943 million baht from the government to strengthen the force of defence volunteers in the Deep South so the volunteer force and the paramilitary ranger force will be able to take over the security maintenance job from the army once the army starts gradual withdrawal from the region.
The five-year volunteer force expansion plan will see the number of volunteers in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla increased by 2,700 men, including 300 to be posted to maintain security in urban areas.