January 25, 2005

The South could do without more troops

 Anuraj Manibhandu is Editorial Pages Editor, Bangkok Post

The cabinet's expected consideration, and likely approval, today of an

army plan to set up an elite force for the South shows that military and

civilian authorities have learned nothing from more than a year of

violence in the region.

By the army's own admission, 333 state officials and local residents

have been killed in a total of 888 incidents confirmed as linked to

insurgency activities from Jan 4 to Dec 31, 2004. The past weeks have

seen a resurgence of attacks after the anniversary of the raid on an

arms depot in Cho Airong district of Narathiwat passed relatively

peacefully. And the perpetrators are becoming more brazen, risking and

receiving condemnation for firing on a school bus in Pattani last

Tuesday and injurying two children.

But despite the failure of the use of force, more of the same is to be

deployed in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

Already some 20,000 troops are stationed in the restive provinces. They

include 15,000 infantrymen, many of whom were sent from different parts

of the country to beef up the locally-based Division 5, and about 5,000

from the navy. Infantry Division 15 will almost double the army presence

in the deep South as plans call for it to field 12,000 commissioned and

non-commissioned troops as well as draftees.

Technically, the cabinet's nod would revive the unit previously based

in Pran Buri district of Prachuap Khiri Khan dispersed following the

financial crisis in 1997. In what is seen as a bid to mollify critics,

the army has made a point of stressing that the unit would not only

engage in combat duty but also carry out development work and engage

local communities. But the public relations effort has not succeeded,

and the army is still seen to be applying force to fight a war that is

highly political.

Surachart Bamrungsuk, security analyst at Chulalongkorn University, has

emphasised that the political aspect of the counter-insurgency in the

South does not concern competition for popular support in the coming

general elections or promotion within one's own organisation. This

political war is ``about repercussions, and power to command trust and

loyalty'', he wrote in a recent article. The government's challenge in

2005 is to come up with ``positive measures'' to win the trust of local

people.

But security authorities still express outdated ideas and the

government is yet to overcome management problems. The removal of Pol

Lt-Gen Wongkot Maneerin as overall police commander in the South on

Thursday was a stark reminder of age-old contentions between the police

and military. His replacement, Pol Lt-Gen Paisal Tangchaitrong, promises

smoother relations as he is a former classmate of the army

commander-in-chief. But the country's two main security agencies should

not be held hostage to personal relations, and must invest in building a

professional system for mutual respect.

The continuing insurgency in the South cries out for a joint operations

approach that pools state resources and allows local participation.

Whether it should be modelled on the Civilian-Police-Military Command 43

disbanded in 2002 is debatable. That task force was set up 23 years ago

when the Cold War was still going strong, and any successor needs to

adapt to present-day conditions if it is to be useful.

The bolder tactics of insurgents, the persistence of inter-agency

rivalry and the insistence on applying a military-led strategy do not

bode well for the future of peace in the deep South.

The recent upsurge in attacks could be a response to the arrest of

ustaz, or Muslim religious teachers, as military authorities have

suggested. Eight teachers have been taken into custody in the past three

weeks, and warrants have been issued for the arrest of 21 on treason

charges.

But there is also logic in the view that insurgents are using the

pre-election vacuum to make their point. For weeks, politicians have

been busy campaigning, without any remarkable programme for bringing

peace to the region. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who may have

opened the door to insurgents and riled his opponents by saying he would

tackle the problem seriously after the polls, must follow through if he

is indeed re-elected.