A new govt, a fresh effort to restore peace

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's trip to the strife-torn deep South on Saturday to introduce the cabinet committee set up to quell the violence there, has aroused mixed feelings among people involved with the situation.

Villagers rally for peace in Pattani on Dec 22, following a bomb attack which killed a woman and seriously wounded her two children, aged 4 and 2. Six others were also hurt in the explosion.

Most welcomed the idea of having a special committee devoted to the southern conflagration but remained sceptical about it producing any desirable outcome.

"It's good to have such a committee in my area but I'd like to ask: how much confidence should I have in it?" wondered Sirichai Kitticharoen, chairman of the Pattani Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Sirichai said past governments had set up a number of committees to solve the southern unrest, which has claimed thousands of lives. None of them can claim to have had success. Foreign business people have continued to withhold their investment from the region while local investors are striving hard for recovery.

Tourists, both Thai and foreign, have little inclination to visit the area because they are afraid of being targeted by the insurgents, he said.

Mr Sirichai called on the government to help restore confidence and channel more local and foreign investment into the area as soon as possible.

On Tuesday, the cabinet approved the setting up of a committee to develop the five southernmost border provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, Songkhla and Yala provinces.

The committee, chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit and made up of 17 members, is tasked with coming up with policies and measures to douse the southern flames, fix and set aside budgets necessary for carrying out developmental projects, and find ways to amend obsolete regulations and laws that obstruct these development efforts.

The prime minister confirmed that the committee would tackle the problem from all angles ranging from security, justice, education and economy to social and culture.

He said solving all problems in the deep South must be made through cooperation and integration and that he was confident such a panel would likely be "a tool" to develop the living conditions of people in the deep South and eventually bring peace there.

The prime minister has tried on many occasions to garner support for the committee and to seek cooperation from both Thai people and members of the international community.

A soldier stands guard with a heavy machine-gun on a humvee vehicle in downtown Pattani. The governent has launched a thorough review of the use of martial law in the country’s conflict-ridden deep South, where some 3,500 have been killed over the past four years.

He spoke about the issue to a group of foreign diplomats from several countries and a group of representatives of Thailand-based international organisations who met him at Government House. He also addressed the issue at a dinner talk organised by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT).

Angkhana Neelaphaijit, chairwoman of the Working Group for Justice and Peace - who has closely monitored the situation in the deep South since her husband Somchai, a Muslim lawyer handling southern cases, disappeared five years ago - agrees with the special committee effort. She suggested it pay more attention to "the people's voices".

One of the reasons why past governments failed to solve the problems there is because they ignored the locals' opinions and denied them participation. Worse, they did not address the decline in respect for basic human rights of the Muslim people, she said.

If possible, she wanted the new committee on the South to set up another independent panel to investigate every allegation of human rights violation in the area. The panel should be authorised to take any case it deems valid to the courts for consideration, she added. "We have found many Muslims who said they were abused by soldiers when they were taken for questioning," she said.

The emergency law currently in place in the far South empowers soldiers to investigate those suspected of being involved in southern attacks. They have the right to detain the suspects if they believe they are real offenders, before submitting the cases to courts. She believed the emergency decree should be lifted.

Waeuma Waedoloh, a kamnan at tambon Tanyong Yuloh in Pattani's Muang district, expressed confidence that the Democrat-led coalition would be able to reduce insurgent attacks and improve the quality of life of the people, as "it knows the southern problems well".

However, rather than economic development, he insisted the first priority should be to ensure that justice is done, and done fairly. State authorities charged with abusing innocent people must be prosecuted, he said. "If the committee can achieve these things, I believe it is not difficult for the deep South to get back to business," he added.

The district chief said he would lead his villagers to meet the prime minister and that he would use this occasion to provide him with first-hand information on the current situation in the deep South.

Abdullohman Abdulsamat, an adviser to the Narathiwat Provincial Islamic Committee, said Muslim leaders in the province were ready to cooperate with the committee to work for the area.

"I want them to work as seriously as they can, not just for political benefit," said Mr Abdullohman, who also believed that if the Democrat party was truly determined to solve the southern problems, it would not be difficult to win the hearts and minds of the local residents.

And that would be a very good start in the effort to bring peace and tranquility to the South.