Southern peace process: The best and worst of times

First, the whole process has now exposed the Thai government’s amateurish way in engaging in a peace dialogue with the insurgents. Since February 28 when the dialogue first began, we have witnessed how Thai negotiators have repeatedly failed to come to grips with the complexity of the negotiations. Their tactics and fixed mind-set of stopping the violence has benefited the insurgents in augmenting their demands during the second and third rounds. 

Apparently, the bargaining power of the insurgents increased as the Thai team had its hands tied due to the murky domestic politics and the spillover effect of a possible leadership change of Lt-General Paradorn Pattanathabutra, the National Security Council secetary-general. The Central Administrative Court recently ordered the reinstatement of Thawil Pliensri, Paradorn’s predecessor, who was hastily dismissed by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra two years ago to pave the way for the current NSC chief. The government has appealed against the court’s decision. 

Obviously the Yingluck government was reluctant to have Thawil back at his old job and as the head of the peace negotiations. Before the government began the current peace process, Thawil and his team had already held talks in secret with the insurgents and put together a pilot project to reduce violence in three designated areas in Narathiwat. The primary outcome was positive with nearly a 60-per-cent reduction in overall violence and attacks. The project was supposed to continue and expand in the future but unfortunately the Democrat-led government lost the election in 2011. It was discontinued.

Under the Yingluck government, Thaksin Shinawatra’s own personal agenda remains the only driving force in the peace dialogue without considering the readiness of concerned agencies and authorities that have to be keep abreast of the dialogue. 

So far, only the negotiating team – a small number of people – is kept informed. The others, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is kept in the dark. This aberration has encouraged the insurgents to up their ante and quickly move from “inner” negotiating table to “outside” dialogue arena, communicating and networking with the larger community. After the first dialogue, the Barison Revolusi Nasional has quickly turned to YouTube and other social media to raise their key demands and issues to garner broader sympathy and support. 

 Early this year, it was envisaged jointly by Thaksin and Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Najib Razak that peace in the South is deliverable by the year-end if both sides pressed on at full throttle. Following the outcome of the Malaysian general election in May, the future of Najib’s leadership of his Barisan Nasional has become a question. Whatever is the outcome of the BN leadership, it will certainly impact the peace process in Thailand. Already, the Thais are talking about bringing in other international players, rather than rely only on Malaysia. Informally, Indonesia has been contacted by the Thai side. But there is nothing clear about Jakarta’s role at this point. In the latest Thai assessment, additional international players such as Norway and Japan are needed to help with the peace process and to pressure the insurgents to follow the rules of engagement, especially related to child and women victims. They will also help to monitor the progress made in the future. Previously, Thailand constantly rejected international players.

 In the meantime, the Thai authorities are working on identifying new groups, especially young militants not based in Malaysia, who could be brought into the mainstream. 

Although there is a danger of giving them much-needed recognition, it can also marginalise them in the open. That would need special measures and dramatic administration of justice for these groups due to their existing records of violence. To help the peace process, the judicial process in backlog cases since 2004 related to the insurgency in the Deep South must be settled. And there should be no exception. Otherwise, this will remain the biggest hindrance for the peace process.

Therefore, it is rather naive for the Thai side to often link a halt to the violence with the success of the process at this early stage. For the insurgents, violence and peace overtures are part and parcel of their negotiating strategy with the state apparatus. Valuable lessons can be learned from Ireland, Mindanao and Aceh about the prospects for the peace process. 

Once mutual trust has been established, which will take months and years, the violence will automatically recede. For the time being, the two protagonists have not yet established any grounds for mutual trust at all. Their dialogue is only a publicity stunt.

Therefore, the Thai demand that during the coming Ramadan period, the insurgents should abstain from any violent act to show their sincerity would be in vain. Instead, the insurgents have issued additional demands, including the withdrawal of all military, police and civil forces from the disputed areas. 

Violence during Ramadan will cause further rupture in the peace process given the prominence of young militant groups that have been active in targeting high officials in the past three months.

Finally, Najib’s suggestion that “meaningful autonomy” should be given to the Muslim minority communities in the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand has cleared up old suspicions. Questions were raised immediately as to what he had in mind when he said it. Myanmar, which has rejected Najib’s role in the Rohinya crisis, was extremely unhappy with his suggestion. However, both the Philippines and Thailand have already practised de facto autonomy. 

At the last round of talks, Malaysia clarified it as “self-determination within the purview of the country’s constitution”. That would mean no support for the secessionists. 

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in May 2007 took a similar position during the highly publicised visit to Thailand. In the three provinces, decentralisation of power was in practice at all levels – the only absent symbolism is the flag and the sense that it is a Patani state.