A Fourth Army officer greets four Muslims at Ingkhayuthaboriharn camp in Pattani. The Muslims, three of them religious teachers, were questioned in connection with the Aug 11 arson attacks in Pattani's Nong Chik district.

Regional Police Bureau 9 has launched one of its new strategies to end violence in the troubled South this month, aimed at developing community policing.

A pilot project began on Aug 1 to set up community police committees to ensure security for communities in the southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. The panel's work includes assessing candidates for high-level posts and assessment of qualified community police volunteers and nominated officers.

Pol Lt-Gen Manote Kraiwong, chief of Regional Police Bureau 9, said the project is aimed at narrowing the social gap between police and local people and to bring peace to the provinces.

The panels, representing the local population, aim to ensure security at community level and will meet local demands by selecting people from the community to serve as volunteer police, while experienced and well-qualified senior sergeant-majors from the force would be appointed community police chiefs.

``Implementation has already begun, and 472 senior sergeant majors from the police are vying for 200 community police chief posts. Nominees must meet the requirements of the bureau, such as passing physical and personality tests, and completing successful interviews before being promoted to the rank of police sub-lieutenants,'' Pol Lt-Gen Manote said.

``Community police volunteers must be chosen by the committees. After one-year's service, those who are suitably qualified will be appointed police officers,'' he said after meeting over 3,000 members of the committees in the three provinces.

Pol Lt-Gen Manote said the project would help ease procedures for local people wishing to serve in their communities. He said that in the past people from other provinces had been more successful in entrance exams for provincial police schools. As they often lacked an understanding of the local culture, they often quickly sought transfers out of the provinces, he said.

Regional Police Bureau 9 would next try and achieve another goal in achieving greater security in the South by setting up strategic tambon police stations in remote areas to serve as many people as possible in the wake of the violence in the South. This would help the police to react more quickly to calls for help from remote communities. The longer-term aim to ensure that strategically-important police stations have at least 12 police officers or community police volunteers on duty at tambon level, or at least one per village. These officers would be regularly rotated among the three provinces.