Eight years after Tak Bai, we are no nearer to peace

Deputy Prime Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha and Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha visited the deep South on Wednesday, a day before the eighth anniversary of the Tak Bai incident. The visit was partly to ensure that the troops were on high alert, amid reports of possible attacks to mark the anniversary.

Pol Colonel Tawee Sodsong, secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC), insisted that the government had taken good care of those affected in the aftermath of the incident, in which at least 85 men suffocated to death after being beaten, bound and stacked in Army lorries.

The anniversary also marks high time that the government reviewed its strategy in the deep South, by addressing the root cause of the problem and showing sympathy to its victims.

In 2007, then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont issued a heartfelt apology for the incident, as well as for other atrocities committed by the state against the Malays of Patani. The apology was long overdue, but was nevertheless well received by local residents. 

It was also an opportunity for the rest of the country to turn the page and open up a new chapter in Thai-Patani relations. Thai society had the chance to refocus on the plight and the historical grievances of the Malays down south. 

In most societies, such an apology would have been followed by an acknowledgement of past mistakes and then initiatives and programmes to help bridge a rift opened by centuries of mistrust. Instead, the public and bureaucrats turned their backs on the opportunity made possible by Surayud and let it pass, as if an apology were enough to bring an end to the conflict. 

This is not to say that such apologies and defensive statements such as Tawee’s are unwelcome. It is rather that they take place in the broader context of Bangkok’s short-sighted and misguided policy on the deep South.

Mistakes have been made. And for the Malays and the Thais to move forward as a nation, the state must acknowledge these mistakes. A nation cannot heal its internal scars unless it makes efforts to acknowledge that there is a wound in the first place. 

Tawee needs to know that all the money in the world will not heal this wound. Money might dissuade bereaved families from pursuing justice through the courts. But while families of the Tak Bai victims may have been silenced, the authorities shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that this has ended the deeper mistrust between the two sides. 

To do that, our political and security agencies must come to an agreement on how to push forward a peace process and stop merely paying lip service to the idea of peace. 

Secret initiatives have been launched, but their overall aim is to bring the violence to an end once and for all. It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. 

The insurgency draws its strength from the longstanding mistrust between the Malays of Patani and the Siamese/Thai state. 

Our policymakers seem blind to the fact that, if they gave the Malays more space for their culture and for incorporating their historical narrative into the Thai story of nationhood, the end result would be greater legitimacy for the Thai state in the Malays’ historical homeland that we call Patani. 

There is a tendency to blame much of the violence in the deep South on criminal activities such as the illegal-drugs trade. While there is some truth to the argument that criminal gangs have taken advantage of the insurgents’ presence, crime is not the core issue. Criminals merely take advantage of the underlying, deep-rooted insurgency. At issue here is not just finding ways to combat criminality, but addressing the historical grievances that are at the heart of the troubles in the deep South.