Credibility of the southern peace talks slides downhill

Chalerm himself has suggested that he might actually take part in the direct talks with Hasan Taib, the man who has designated himself as the liaison officer for the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), one of the long-standing Malay-Muslim separatist organisations that surfaced in the late 1960s to take up arms against the Thai state.

Few people, including government insiders, see Chalerm as the kind of person who can grasp the complex and sensitive issues surrounding the century-old conflict.

Over the past two years, Chalerm has visited the restive region only once, and that was because he – as one of the country’s security chiefs – was embarrassed by the fact that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had already done so.

This past January, Chalerm led a huge delegation to Kuala Lumpur to meet Malaysian officials on how they could help with ending the insurgency in the three southernmost provinces. One senior Malaysian officer described his behaviour as rude and that he was too demanding. With nothing much to do, Chalerm surrounded himself with friends at a hotel lobby and allegedly got drunk. The fact that the incident was caught on camera was somewhat embarrassing for the Thai government. 

With Chalerm comes shrewd and uncompromising political trading that may not go down well with the separatist movement and other heads of Thai security and intelligence agencies because he will leave little room for anybody else to manoeuvre.

“These drastic changes will no longer be discussed in any future meetings,” said Chalerm, in reference to Hasan’s five demands that are seemed designed to extract him from the process due to his lack of credibility. The statement was issued almost immediately after the prime minister gave him the nod to oversee the negotiating team.

Even before being assigned to oversee the peace dialogue, Chalerm was already making a lot people nervous as he surrounded himself with controversial police officers, some of whom have a tainted past from their days in the deep South. 

It was a way for Chalerm to show the separatists that he means business. From a bird eye’s view, it also reflects the lack of unity in various political circles. Chalerm has his tough guys, while the National Security Council (NSC) and the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) have their negotiators. 

The Army, which don’t like the idea of having civilians running any peace talks with the Malay-Muslim separatists, is sitting back and watching how this whole process unfolds. The top brass will probably come back with a big “I told you so!” to the Pheu Thai Party circle behind this initiative that was the brainchild of Thaksin Shinawatra, the party’s de facto leader.

Thaksin became directly involved in the discussion with the insurgents when he met with about 17 exiled leaders from various long-standing separatist movements in March 2012 in Kuala Lumpur. Two weeks after that, insurgents on the ground sent him and the old guard a stern warning: a triple car bomb turned part of Yala into rubble and killed 13 people and injured well over 100. A simultaneous attack was carried out at a major hotel in downtown Hat Yai, which sent hundreds to local hospitals.

It became quite clear at that point that the insurgents were going to disrupt any effort towards a peace process that did not receive their blessing. Nevertheless, “Team Thaksin” was determined, with or without the endorsement of the militants on the ground, to launch a peace process, and they found in Hasan Taib a man they could work with. 

NSC Secretary-General Paradon Pattanatarbutr and “Team Thailand” took a big leap of faith with Hasan, hoping that he could bring BRN-C factions, other long-standing separatist groups, and the militants on the ground, to the negotiating table. 

Hasan is not the first to claim that he is a BRN-C leader. Between 2006 and 2012 the NSC conducted secret talks – the so-called “Geneva Process” – with a faction of Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), which had with them men who claimed to be BRN-C leaders. The then NSC chief, Thawil Pliensri, and deputy secretary-general, Somkiat Boonchoo, ran that process. When Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra came into power, she ditched the Geneva Process and sent Thawil and Somkiat to inactive posts while her brother Thaksin asked Malaysia to facilitate talks. 

Many Thai security officials believe that Malaysian authorities have been supporting, directly and indirectly, the insurgents in the deep South. And so when Malaysia was brought into the process, they conveniently assumed that the situation would improve all around. 

What they failed to understand is the separatist leaders and Kuala Lumpur have issues they have yet to resolve. Most importantly, they want a guarantee that Malaysia will not deport them, and to ensure that, they want Bangkok to grant immunity to people who will take part in the negotiations. 

Bangkok decided instead to place its bet on Hasan. But it didn’t take long to realise that Hasan was the wrong horse. 

Today, the Paradon-Hasan fiasco has hit a brick wall and the NSC is looking for an exit and to rethink its approach to the talks. NSC and government insiders generally agree that the peace talks must go on with or without Hasan. And while it may be difficult to look beyond the daily attacks, it is essential that the dialogue process stay the course, they say.

The problem, say exiled separatist leaders, is not only about which BRN-C faction has the ability to influence the insurgents on the ground. The culture of impunity among Thai security officials and the zero-sum-game mentality among hardliners and people like Chalerm and his crew make it difficult to generate confidence and trust in any peace process. 

In fact, the refusal by the government to clamp down on death squads has dashed the hope that Muslim clerics and grassroots organisations like youth-student movements could potentially play a mediation role. 

But with or without Chalerm, the militants on the ground have decided to step up their attacks with more intensity. It a stark reminder that nothing comes easy. Bangkok can have the best security planners on the planet. But if Thailand can’t see how it has mishandled the Malay-speaking South over this past century – or understand how its ethnocentric policy and attitude has paved the way for an armed struggle fifty years after the region came under Bangkok’s direct rule – the insurgent violence, it seems, will continue for the time being.