Thai rebels head for the hills
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
YALA, Thailand - The Blackhawk helicopter flies fast and high above an endless
expanse of hills, some gentle and rolling, some with sharp peaks, in this
southernmost tip of Thailand, where an insurgency has raged for over five
years.
The scene below is a canopy of thick dense forest. It is difficult to see what
lies within the jungle terrain; it is likewise impossible to detect who moves
under such forest cover, even on a late morning bathed with bright tropical
sunlight.
Yet penetrating these forest-covered hills close to the Thai-Malaysian border
is the new challenge that the Thai military faces in its battle with shadowy
Malay-Muslim militants. The military's counter-insurgency campaign aims to
limit the space militants
have to operate in this largely rural rubber and rice-growing region. That
includes flushing the insurgents out of Malay-Muslim villages.
For now, the military is turning to small well-armed patrols to track down the
militants hiding in the forests. The soldiers and rangers, often working in
groups of 22, spend five to 10 days on such missions triggered by intelligence
gathered by the army. At times, helicopters offer support.
The numbers the military has in its crosshairs remain as elusive as the actual
nature of the Malay-Muslim militants, who have not openly rallied under a
distinct banner or leadership. While the army estimates that the shadowy
network they are targeting at around 8,000, others put it close to 9,500, not
all of whom are trained fighters. Some of them serve as couriers while others
perform other tasks.
The military high command that oversees operations in the three southernmost
provinces, which include Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala, admits that the task of
tracking down insurgents in the forest-covered hills is formidable. "The whole
mountain area is vast. We are not fully successful at controlling movement in
the forests," said Lieutenant General Pichet Wisaijorn, commander of the 4th
Army Region.
"The insurgents are good at moving through the forests, which are very dense,"
he revealed during an interview. "This is our weak area."
Former veterans of jungle warfare, such as Wang Than Hok, understand the task
that the Thai military faces. "The forests in these parts are so thick that it
is impossible for the military to move through unless they know the routes,"
said the 50-year-old ex-fighter of the Malaysian Communist Party, who spent 11
years deep in the jungles during another battle that was waged in this terrain
until the mid-1980s.
Consequently, the Malay-Muslim militants have found the forest-covered hills of
Yala and Narathiwat ideal to hide weapons and make bombs. A military patrol
that recently stumbled upon a camp vacated by the militants also found solar
batteries that, according to a military source, are "used to charge mobile
phones".
Yet such traces of increasing militant activity in the forests are being
translated by the military here as a success, indicating that the operating
space for the militants in the over 2,000 villages that dot Yala, Narathiwat
and Pattani provinces is shrinking and driving them into the hills.
Part of that strategy has been to set up military camps, each with a platoon of
31 soldiers, in the heart of 217 villages that are located by the side of
rubber plantations and paddy fields. They have been identified as hotbeds of
militant activity, which the military calls "red zones".
"Before we moved in two years ago, the red zones were strongholds of the
insurgents," said Colonel Parinya Chaidilok, spokesman for the 4th Army Region.
"The villages served as operation bases and provided the insurgents with
support."
By entering the villages and staying with the people day and night, the army
wants to "build trust with [them], help them with small development projects
and get information about those active in the insurgency," the official said
while walking through a village in Narathiwat that had been a den of militant
activity.
"We are trying to contain insurgent activity, to keep them out of the villages
and to push them into the mountains," he said. "It is a slow process; we have
to be patient."
"This is typical counter-insurgency strategy, like what was done in Malaysia to
combat the communists," said Marc Askew, author of the book Conspiracy, Politics
and a Disorderly Border: The Struggle to Comprehend Insurgency in Thailand's
Deep South. "The army wants to separate the fish from the water."
"This strategy is working at some levels, because more villagers are giving
them information, and they know the names of the [insurgents] operating in some
areas," said the Australian national who has been researching the conflict.
"But sometimes this information is given too late."
The military's muscle in this counter-insurgency campaign is evident elsewhere,
too, as it pours in more troops, creates paramilitary units and arms civilians
as ad hoc defense forces. While the official number of all these armed men and
women are estimated at close to 60,000, unofficial figures place it as high as
90,000.
A network of 873 small camps on the side of roads and near the entrance of some
villages has become part of this troubled landscape. Here, soldiers armed with
M-16 rifles mount a vigil behind sandbags and rolls of barbed wire.
Other uniformed men mount guard duty, some as foot patrols, some on
motorcycles, as part of the nearly 2,300 missions carried out daily by the
troops. Their assignment: to protect Buddhist monks, teachers, schools and
temples that have been targeted by the militants.
Such a heavy military presence is a factor behind the cycle of violence dipping
significantly in the last two years, according to a study by Deep South Watch
(DSW), an independent research center monitoring the conflict at Pattani's
Prince of Songkhla University. In June 2007, for instance, 247 instances of
violence were recorded. By January this year, that figure had fallen to 55.
"Violence has decreased since June 2007, when the army began large-scale
operations by sending more than 60,000 troops to round up suspected
insurgents," DSW notes. The center has recorded 8,810 violent incidents in the
conflict that flared up in January 2004.
But there have been ominous signs since March this year that the violence
perpetrated by the militants has increased, raising strategic questions about
the military’s counter-insurgency campaign.
There are also more disturbing signs of human rights violations, said Srisompop
Jitpiromsri, a political scientist who heads DSW. "The military's efforts to
contain the violence and engage with the villagers have been successful, but
there have been human rights violations," he said. "This is the big problem
they have. It happens when suspects are arrested under emergency laws and
detained for 37 days in camps with no access to lawyers."
It is a view echoed by the global rights lobby Amnesty International in a
report released earlier this year. Thai security forces have systematically
relied on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
in their efforts to obtain information or extract confessions to compensate for
poor intelligence and evidence gathering, said the report, "Thailand: Torture
in the Southern Counter-insurgency".
More than 3,400 conflict-related deaths have been documented in the region
since early 2004. The victims have included around 1,500 civilians, ranging
from rubber tappers, teachers, and Buddhist monks to Muslim clerics. Over 200
soldiers and a similar number of policemen have also been slain.
The violence has deep cultural and political roots. A previous generation of
militants waged a separatist campaign in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to reclaim
the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat for the Malay-Muslims, who are a
majority in this southern region of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
The three provinces belonged to the Pattani kingdom, which was annexed by Siam,
as Thailand was then known, in 1902. Malay-Muslims have since the annexation
complained of cultural and linguistic discrimination and, later, economic
marginalization.
To change such a mindset, Pichet said, "dialogue and trust" between the
military and the people not involved in the militancy are needed. "We are
trying to use politics, talking to the people, maintaining a dialogue, helping
them in agriculture programs, to solve this problem."
But does that mean the heavy military presence in the region will end anytime
soon? "We have no plans to withdraw," he said.
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