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September 25, 2006
Jihad and Thailand's New Leadership
News reports indicate that there were a number of reasons why Thailand's military decided to overthrow Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last week, but the most interesting among them was a disappointment with his strategy toward the Muslim insurgency in the south. From The Australian:
THE Royal Thai Army will adopt new tactics against a militant Islamic uprising, following the coup that sent Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted prime minister, into exile in London last week.But at the same time Zachary Abuza, a political science professor at Simmons College in the US, and author of a forthcoming book about the Thai insurgency, offers a more nuanced take:According to sources briefed by the army high command, Mr Thaksin's bungled response to the insurgency in southern Thailand, which has claimed 1700 lives in two years, was a critical factor in the generals' decision to get rid of him.
Military intelligence officers intend to negotiate with separatists and to use psychological warfare to isolate the most violent extremists, in contrast to Mr Thaksin's heavy-handed methods and harsh rhetoric.
[ . . . ]
if the prime minister's absence was the opportunity, sources said, the incentive to act was a sense that the Thai state was losing control over its southern territory, where about four million Muslims live.
A final spur for the coup came when bomb explosions tore through the south's commercial and tourist centre of Hat Yai this month, killing a Canadian visitor and three others, wounding dozens and prompting holidaymakers to flee.
Shocked Thai officials conceded that the terrorism could no longer be contained and might spread north to resorts such as Phuket and Koh Samui, with catastrophic results for the $13billion-a-year tourist industry, still reeling from 2004's Boxing Day tsunami.
[ . . . ]
When Mr Thaksin, a former policeman who made his fortune from telecommunications, came to power in 2001, he broke with the old order. He put police cronies in charge of the southern border and shut down two intelligence clearing centres.
Soon, reports in the media alleged that corruption, smuggling and racketeering were rife.
In January 2004, militants raided an armoury and started a killing spree. They have murdered Buddhist monks, teachers, hospital staff and civil servants - anyone seen as representing the Thai state. The army has seemed powerless to halt the chaos.
"Down there, you stay inside the camp at night," said a soldier who recently returned from a tour of duty. "If you go out, you die."
Mr Thaksin's iron-fisted methods went disastrously wrong. A suicidal mass assault on army and police posts by young Muslims, many armed only with machetes, ended with almost 100 "martyrs" dead. Later, 74 unarmed Muslims died at the hands of the security forces in the village of Tak Bae, most of them suffocated in trucks, and a suspected police death squad abducted Somchai Neelaphaijit, a Muslim lawyer, on a Bangkok street.
Somchai, who had brought torture cases before the National Human Rights Commission, was never seen again.
Then there is the southern insurgency. Will the CDR [Council for Democratic Reform] and interim administration be better equipped to deal with [it]? At the very least, there will be less political interference in counter-insurgent operations and fewer personnel reshuffles and policy initiatives from an impatient “CEO prime minister.” Second, the CDR is likely to implement many of the recommendations of the National Reconciliation Council that Thaksin had blatantly ignored. Though the NRC’s recommendations alone will not quell the insurgency, they will have an important impact in regaining the trust of the Muslim community. Third, Sonthi has expressed a willingness to talk with insurgents, though to date only PULO has offered to talk and the aged leaders in Europe have no control over the insurgents. And many in the military establishment including Sonthi, himself a Muslim, have publicly refused to see the insurgency for what it is, denying it any religious overtones or secessionist goals. Nor is the political situation likely to alter the campaign of the insurgents. If anything they may step up attacks in an attempt to provoke a heavy-handed government response. The Muslim provinces have been under martial law for over two and a half years, with little to show for it but an alienated and angry populace.
Commentary
It seems Thailand has made two strategic errors in the past 15 years, the first of which was the dismantling of intelligence assets in the south.
A 2004 article from The Straits Times notes that
the upsurge in violence is also proving difficult to understand and control because it comes after Bangkok effectively dismantled its intelligence apparatus in the area and scaled down its military presence, thinking it had all but crushed the separatist movement in the late 1990s.Dr. Abuza made the same point in the piece above, noting,The simple, stark fact, as admitted to me by a retired Thai general last week, is that neither the military nor the police now have a clue what is going on in the south.
“There has been a complete failure of intelligence. No one knows who the insurgents are. They don’t have a face.”In the absence of this lack of knowledge, it seems that ousted PM Thaksin made his second error: he responded to the insurgency with heavy-handed tactics, rather than classic counterinsurgency strategy. This only served to make things worse.
How will the generals do? We shall soon see. It was through cunning and realpolitik that Thailand avoided becoming a European colony while every single one of its neighbors did so in the last 300 years.
For the moment though, the south of Thailand, just like Waziristan or Somalia, has become another of the black holes with which we have become all too familiar, which the rest of us stare into with vacuous looks upon our faces, wondering intently what goes on in there, and from which the faintest traces of muezzin calls can be heard.
Posted by Chester at September 25, 2006 9:43 PM
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Comments
it's over, stick a fork in it. the tumor is malignant. its metastasizing. 1700 dead so far. we all know the script that follows.......
Posted by: patrick neid at September 26, 2006 8:46 AM
I don't think the US will stand by and watch a secession from Thailand. As long as the Thais are making attempts, the story isn't over.
Posted by: Chester at September 26, 2006 9:01 AM
Nor will Malaysia want a fundamentalist failed state on its northern border, providing impetus and a hinterland for opposition Islamist parties like the PAS.
Posted by: anon at September 26, 2006 10:29 AM
OK, dumb q, perhaps, but ... if Thailand's official population is about 64m, and according to the article over 4m Muslims live in the South, it means that Muslims are over 6.25% (4/64) of the population.
But the official census numbers are 4.6%. Is this a case of the Muslims overstating their numbers, the govt understating them, more than a million illegal immigrants up from Malaysia ... or what? Or have I missed something in my calcs?
Posted by: ras at September 26, 2006 11:25 AM
Not sure, ras. Where did you get the census figures, and how old are they?
Posted by: Chester at September 26, 2006 12:23 PM
Chester,
I initially got the figures from The CIA World Factbook, but have also seen them elsewhere as census numbers, such as here. The 4.6% figure is from 2000.
To move from 4.6% to 6.25% in 6 years would be significant, a diff of over a million people in that span. Since the 2000 census gave a total Thai population of 60.6, that would further mean that Thailand's overall population had grown by about 3.4m in the same period. 1m/3.4m = about a third of Thailand's population growth was Muslim in that 6-year period ... if ...
... well, if the numbers are to be believed, that is. They imply that in 6 years, 2.7m Muslims (4.6% of 60.6m) begat about 1m more.
Posted by: ras at September 26, 2006 12:58 PM
I recall a conference last year where a Thai minister admitted that there is no government consensus on Thailand's actual population ... apparently the interior ministry and immigration ministry have wildly different numbers. So no surprise to learn that there might be inconsistencies in official stats on religious affiliation.
Posted by: Grahame at September 26, 2006 1:41 PM
Grahame,
Interesting, I hadn't known that. Thx.
Tho the two ministries that you cite - interior and immigration - hmmm, sounds like there might be more immigration from muslim Malaysia than is officially reported. To a purpose?
Posted by: ras at September 26, 2006 1:53 PM
Grahame,
That was going to be my next guess: that the census numbers for that area are estimates at best. If the security situation is so bad, then it is probably hard to count people, whatever method is used.
Also, there could be a lot of internal or regional migration since the tsunami that the numbers have not caught up with.
Posted by: Chester at September 26, 2006 2:19 PM
Chester,
... that the census numbers for that area are estimates at best.
Maybe, but the word "census" implies a tally, not a guesstimate to within a million people outta three or four mil.
Also, there could be a lot of internal or regional migration since the tsunami that the numbers have not caught up with.
That's a good insight, esp given Grahame's comment that it's the the Immigration Ministry who's disagreeing with the Interior. I wonder if any of your readers have info on the amount of regional migration due to the tsunamai? Was the Thai govt better at recovery than the Malaysian govt?
Posted by: ras at September 26, 2006 3:31 PM
Chester,
I was referring in my prev comment to the 2000 census of course.
Current estimates of population probably are just educated guesses, esp given the security situation.
Posted by: ras at September 26, 2006 3:59 PM
I believe there are muslims in both the south and in the north. The northern ones are not rebelling.
Posted by: Aaron at September 26, 2006 8:45 PM
"Military intelligence officers intend to negotiate with separatists and to use psychological warfare to isolate the most violent extremists..."
Yes, lets negotiate and appease. Then they will just go away.
"I believe there are muslims in both the south and in the north. The northern ones are not rebelling."
Certainly. The Thai General who led the coup is Muslim. Why rebel.
Posted by: jill at September 27, 2006 8:50 AM
I find it very bad news indeed that the head of the coup, a Muslim, is downplaying the religious and political aims of the Islamist insurgency in the south.
Sounds to me like the Islamists benefited from the coup.
Let us see.
Posted by: Juan Golblado at September 27, 2006 8:57 AM