Southern MPs call for debate on southern insurgency
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Democrat Party MPs from five southern border provinces Tuesday called on the government to open a special parliamentary debate to discuss the violence in the deep South.
The MPs called on the government to invoke Article 179 of the Constitution to open a debate on insurgency in the southern provinces.
The Democrat MPs made the call after holding a meeting that lasted for more than an hour. The meeting was chaired by Songkhla MP Thavorn Senniem.
Thavorn said the group of Democrat MPs would submit a letter to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra later on Tuesday to ask her to convene a special joint House-Senate meeting to discuss the situation in the deep South.
Thavorn said the meeting also resolved to submit an interpolation to the prime minister on Thursday to ask her about the situation in the troubled region.
Thavorn also called on Yingluck to use the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre more to try to return peace and order to the region.
Thavorn said the prime minister is the ex-officio director of the Internal Security Operations Command so she should charge of efforts to tackle the southern insurgency.
Thavorn said the prime minister should invoke the SBPAC Act to convene a meeting of the centre once or twice a month to closely monitor the situation. He said the prime minister should also assign a Cabinet member to be directly in charge of efforts to solve the problems.
