Two policemen were killed in Thailand's southern Pattani province
Monday, while they were trying to defuse a bomb which had been
placed on
a motorcycle.
This comes after four soldiers were killed during a pre-dawn
raid on a weapons depot in southern Thailand on Sunday.
As a result, martial law has been imposed in Pattani and
two other districts, and all administrative power has been
handed over to a Royal Thai Army commander.
For a reaction to this, Yvonne Gomez spoke to Mr Somchai
Homlaor, Secretary-General of Forum Asia in Bangkok.
SH: Actually, I don't think the implementation of martial
law will help to improve the situation. The Thai government
should have better communication and understanding with the
Muslim people in the south, especially since there are cultural
sensitivities, which are important. We have to respect other
religions and their culture. And you know, the government
officers deployed there created the conflict with the communities.
YG: Now you mentioned communication and understanding with
the Muslim
people in the south. Even Prime Minister Thaksin is reportedly
so angry with the negligence of the Thai security forces that
he said that the soldiers who were killed deserved to die.
This is quite a strong statement, but how much of it is true,
considering the existing rebel and bandit activity in the
southern districts?
SH: We cannot deny that there are some elements of separatists,
but the influence of these separatists will not get stronger,
if the government had good policies and the good implementation
of these policies. During the past one or two years, under
Thaksin's administration, it seemed to me that the government
ignored the cultural sensitivities and political sensitivities.
For example, in the case of the Malaysia gas pipeline, the
administration ordered the police to crack down the peaceful
demonstrators, eventhough they were Muslim and were praying.
And last year, they arrested two or three people accused of
being members of separatists linked to the Mujahideen and
al-Qaeda. Actually, some of them were simply community leaders
and the ones whom the people loved very much. And now, they
are on trial. This affected the feelings of the Muslim people
in the south very much. This atmosphere gave the opportunity
to the separatists to have greater and greater influence.
Apart from that, because of the corruption and the abuse of
power of the government officers in the south, and most of
them are Buddhist, it makes the situation worse. So I think
the
implementation of martial law will give more power to those
corrupt government officers in the military and the police
and will create an even worse situation in the south.
YG: You also mentioned cultural sensitivities in the south
several times?how do you propose that the Thai government
deal with these sensitivities?
SH: For example, they should allow the people in the south
to perform their cultures freely. The policies of the government
in Bangkok have tried to reduce the Muslim boarding schools
and replace them with modern schools. This has had a very,
very bad impact. Recently, there was a big protest by the
Muslim community when a radio station owned by the military
which used to broadcast programmes by the Muslim leaders for
religious purposes, but they now use that Radio station for
commercial purposes. In this sense, it hurt the feelings of
the Muslim community a lot. This is very sensitive, so whatever
government officers do in the south, they have to rethink
its impact.
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