Violent response suggests peace deal was too hasty

It didn’t take long before the insurgents on the ground in the far South responded to the recent so-called historic breakthrough deal between the Thai government and the self-proclaimed leaders of Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) aimed at setting up a peace process.

Within 24 hours of the signing ceremony Narathiwat was rocked by two bombs. One of the bombs went off within a safety perimeter dubbed a green zone.

The first bomb went off at around 5am on March 1. About 5kg of explosives were hidden in a motorcycle parked near the main market in Muang municipality. Six people were injured and one vehicle and six motorcycles were damaged.

The grey Honda Dream motorcycle that carried the explosives was reportedly stolen on December 1 last year. Military ordnance personnel said later that the bomb was detonated by a digital wristwatch instead of a mobile phone that is regularly used, as this motorcycle was parked behind a military vehicle operating a mobile-phone signal jamming device.

The second bomb went off around noon, when 50kg of explosives packed in a green Isuzu pickup parked in front of the command post of the provincial police force blew up.

There were no casualties but nearby shophouses and a car were damaged. The green Isuzu pickup was not on a five-car watch list and was different from two other vehicles which the authorities had issued a warning about earlier.

The following day on Saturday, a motorbike bomb killed two Paramilitary Rangers and critically wounded three others as they were driving through Yala. Locals also talked about a gunfight early in the day near the New Market community.

Senior government officials were hard pressed to explain these incidents. But no matter how hard they tried, they did not have the gumption to admit that the recent so-called breakthrough may have been hastily carried out – or not a breakthrough at all.

It was hastily carried out because the government did not have a buy-in from the military, while all the intelligence agencies could not agree on how cutting a deal with Hasan Thoyib could affect the course of violence on the ground.

Senior government figures should have known that there is no unity among the separatist movements and that any demands these so-called leaders may want to make would first need to be verified to show that they have command-and-control over what is occurring on the ground.

Just as important is the fact that there is no unity on the Thai side, especially between the government and the army.

Moreover, it is a bit ironic for a group of old men to claim to represent a people – the Malay Muslims of Thailand’s Deep South – and yet, nobody seems to know them.

This begs the question as to why the government and the National Security Council (NSC) went ahead and signed this deal with Hasan Thoyib. Perhaps political needs outweighed national security.

Some political and security insiders billed the deal as a big leap of faith. But, the problem is the ongoing violence makes this leap of faith look more like a hoax.

Nobody said peace with the Malay rebels would be easy. But to suffer retaliatory acts like this from the get-go, and the intensity behind them, suggests that Bangkok may have been duped into an agreement that they can’t go back on.

But, it’s not too late to expand the course that Thailand has taken by opening up to other separatist movements, including other factions within the BRN-Coordinate movement.

Make no mistake – peace proposals are a good thing. And Bangkok did the right thing by endorsing the idea of talking to the separatists. However, they should have asked for verification that the people they were talking to had the needed credentials and a capacity to deliver.