Signs of new hope in South

Is the situation in the restive region bordering Malaysia getting better or does it remain just so-so as the southern violence enters its sixth year?

Statistics collected by the police show that what security authorities and the government have been doing is going in the right direction. People in Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla and Yala have endured 8,886 attacks since Jan 4, 2004, when a group of insurgents raided and stole weapons from an army camp in Narathiwat. About 3,000 people have been killed over the past five years, most of them civilians - 2,759, far outnumbering police and soldiers. Police have lost 206 officers and 181 troops are dead.

The situation peaked in 2007 when most of the bombings and shootings occurred, notching up 2,475 deaths. Since then the attacks and the number of the victims have dropped sharply by more than half in Songkhla and almost half in Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala.

Those figures give security authorities a boost in that the momentum of the war against the insurgents is gradually shifting in their favour after they were on the defensive from the beginning of the renewed violence.

"It's like we are walking in the jungle. In the past we lost our direction. Now we know where we are going, but we really don't know what is going to happen along the way," said Chamlong Kunsong, deputy commander of the combined forces of civilians, police and soldiers operating in the country's most dangerous area.

Still, the impressive figures and stats are not the only indicator to judge their performance.

Soldiers, police and government officials on the frontline of this battle know very well that the deciding factor is to gain the trust of the local people. And that is the most difficult thing they face now.

Security authorities are trying to do everything they can to build trust with villagers. One tactic is that each soldier is assigned to make friends with five local people. They are assigned to frequently visit the villages within their areas of responsibility.

But trust cannot be built overnight, especially when villagers live in fear for their lives if insurgents know that they are too close to the authorities or trying to cooperate with the government. Soldiers and police can come and go but the insurgents live in their areas forever as long as they are not arrested.

That could be a reason why villagers and local leaders are extremely cautious about talking to officials. They greet the visitors and warmly welcome them but they cannot go beyond that.

The problem is a costly example for the government to learn. The network of intelligence was severed due to complacency by the government and the authorities. They underestimated what happened in the sensitive region of the South with the government's announcement on Dec 10, 2001 that the southernmost situation was under control.

This wrong assessment led to the closure of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre until it was revived last year when Surayud Chulanont was prime minister.

As officials felt comfortable about the situation in the far South, the insurgents quietly prepared to launch new attacks with a new strategy by moving their operations from the southern jungle into villages and towns.

This time they were more sophisticated by breaking down into small cells of six or seven people with different divisions of labour.

Even now the intelligence network has not been fully restored and working as it used to, but at least "it is taking shape", Maj-Gen Chamlong said. That means it will take some time before authorities get a step ahead of the insurgents.

At least three key leaders responsible for the far South, Fourth Army leader Lt-Gen Pichet Wisaijorn, assistant national police chief Pol Lt-Gen Adul Saengsingkaew, and SPBAC chief Pranai Suwannarat have the same line of thinking, that shooting and killing are not the real solutions to winning the war.

Getting the locals on their side is the real answer.

But it is not happening right now and they are not speaking out on everything as the trust is not yet there.

As Abdullah Abru of the Islamic Studies College at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani said: "If villagers are still in fear of telling everything to the authorities, success will probably never come."