thai article review 191103

Thailands southern insurgency

School killingsA wave of brutal murders in the deep

south, but also some glimmers of hope

January 19th 2013 | BANGKOK | From the print edition : Asia

Article Review

Website :http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21569769-wave-brutal-murders-deep-south-also-some-glimmers-hope-school-killings. [18 November 2013]


School killingsA wave of brutal murders in the deep south,

but also some glimmers of hopeThe Economist | January 19th 2013 | BANGKOK | From the print edition : Asia

Presentation of article Situation in the 4th quarter of 2012

Background

Thailands policy

A glimmer of hope

Conclusion




SITUATION IN THE 4TH QUARTER OF 2012Concerted assault on all schools and teachers in the area:-

31 October

A school caretaker and his 11-year-old son were

shot dead;

22 November:

The headmistress of Ban Tha Kam Cham school

was killed while driving home. A week later part of

a school was burned to the ground. Children have

also been wounded in bomb attacks;

December:

Two teachers were shot dead by armed men at Ban

Ba Ngo school in Pattani. As a show of protest,

Teachers Unions shut down all 1,300 state-run

schools in the 3 provinces of Pattani, Yala and

Narathiwat, and in four districts of neighbouring

Songkhla. They have only just reopened.

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1134526/thai-militants-kill-teacher-school-

canteen




SITUATION IN THE 4TH QUARTER OF 2012 (Continue)

Soldiers and policemen have been targets in the past, but

Buddhist teachers in state-run schools have also been

victims.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, estimates

that 157 teachers have been murdered since 2004.

A soldier stands guard as students leave their school in southern Thailands

Pattani Province on Dec. 19, 2012.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/asia/4-merchants-killed-in-thailands-restive-

south.html

http://www.ucanews.com/news/insurgency-attacks-are-effectively-war-crimes-ai/31254




BACKGROUND

The situation in southern Thailand has

attracted little attention in Thailand and at the

international level.

Though the violence had ebbed somewhat in

recent years, yet the carnage towards the end

of year 2012 suggests that the terrorists have

regrouped and rearmed.

Since 2004, more than 5,000 people have

been killed in the 4 southern provinces of

Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323452204578291874116144436

Muslim people prayed during a mass funeral ceremony for

demonstrators in Narathiwat province on Oct. 28, 2004. Some 85

Muslims suffocated and died when they were arrested at a

demonstration outside a police station and bound and stacked in a

convoy of army truck

http://www.chiangraitimes.com/news/16052.html




BACKGROUND (Continue)

There are 60,000 heavily armed Thai soldiers

in the 4 provinces, but has been unable to

stem the violence.

The gunmen were almost certainly from one

of the shadowy Muslim groups, such as the

Pattani-Malay National Revolutionary Front

Co-ordinate (known by its Malay initials,

BRN-C).

The Muslim groups have been fighting for the

restoration of the ancient sultanate of Pattani,

which Thailand (then Siam) annexed in 1909.

Police officers inspect the site of a car bomb attack in southern Thailands

Sai Buri District in Pattani Province in September 2012.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/asia/southern-thailands-insurgency-turns-jihadist.html




THAILANDS POLICY

The Thai government of Yingluck Shinawatra,

elected in July 2011 is taking the insurgency

seriously as a political problem as well as a

security issue.

Thailands new policy outlined in 2012:

i. Dialogue with those who have different

opinions and ideologies from the state;

ii. Discussion about political decentralisation,

but the issue remains pretty radical stuff

for a conservative establishment;

iii. Trying to meet Muslims complaints that

they are culturally marginalized in their

own country. Eg: starting a satellite-

television service in the Malay language.

State funding to Islamic schools and a

university.

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/thailands-secessionist-muslim-insurgency-escalates




A GLIMMER OF HOPE

Although the situation in southern Thailand is becoming an

increasingly bloody and intractable civil war, glimmers of hope are

emerging and Thailand might eventually find a way out. HOW?

i. The success of the peace talks in Mindanao of southern

Philippines in October 2012;

ii. The Thai government in early January 2013 sent a high-profile

delegation to talk to the Malaysian government, which helped

broker the Mindanao peace deal.




CONCLUSION

According toThitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn

University in Bangkok:-

i. whereas these below-the-radar maneuvers are

promisingthe Thai establishment is not ready

to move yet;

ii. Any gestures towards decentralization have

always been anathema to the powerful army,

which insists on Thailands unitary nature, under

King Bhumibol;

iii. The king is ill, and few have the stomach to

question the territorial integrity of the state;

So the trauma in the south of the country is unlikely to

end just yet.

King Bhumibol

PM Yingluck

Army Chief Prayuth

thai article review 191103

Documents

print edition

deep south

southern provinces of

glimmers of hopethe

teachers unions

buddhist teachers

glimmers of hopejanuary

narathiwat province