THAILAND: Push Muslims Too Hard and Risk a Jihad, Warns Rights Body

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Feb 24 2005 (IPS) - A global human rights watchdog warned the Thai government that its harsh polices to stamp out violence in the country’s predominantly Muslim provinces could trigger sympathy among extremists in the Islamic world.

”It seems like Thailand wants to attract jihadis,” Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told reporters here Thursday. ”The Thai government’s policy is a recipe for attracting such support.”

Researchers from the New York-based group monitoring Arabic websites have noticed that the ”Thai name has appeared” on them, he added.

The reference to the jihadis – or Muslim extremists driven by a passion to use violence – is with reason. In the last two decades, angry young men from parts of the Islamic world have been drawn to wage what they perceive as a jihad (or religious war) to help their persecuted fellow Muslims in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya.

The warning by Human Rights Watch is the latest in a string of criticisms levelled against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for contemplating measures aimed at denying government funds to villages sympathetic to suspected separatists in the country’s predominantly Muslim southern provinces.

Since Thaksin announced his plans on Feb. 16, critics ranging from leading human rights activists to a former chief of the Thai army have denounced the idea.

”People might think they are being segregated. If this feeling is abused, it’s like throwing oil onto a fire,” former army commander General Surayud Chulanont was quoted in Tuesday’s ‘The Nation’ newspaper.

A ranking member of the country’s premier human rights body argued likewise. ”The policy is discrimination. It violates human rights and is unconstitutional,” Pradit Charoenthaithawee, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, was quoted in ‘The Nation’ on Sunday.

By mid-week, Thaksin had consented to have his hardline stance discussed during a joint session of the country’s parliament and senate. Yet media reports reflected the premier’s mind on this contentious issue. While lashing out at his critics, he was quoted as asking: ”What should I do? Should I give them (southern insurgents) money to buy more bombs?”

The government’s plan seeks to divide nearly 1,500 villages in the troubled provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani into three zones. Villages placed within the ”red zones” would be deprived of development funds worth 30 billion baht (750 million U.S. dollars) for not cooperating with the government and being sympathetic with the insurgents.

Villages classified under the ”yellow zones” would also be on the government’s watch list, due to some resistance against the state and marginal support for the assailants. But development assistance would still flow to them.

Villages in the ”green zones,” according to the government, are the most favourable, due to the absence of any insurgent activity.

Thaksin unveiled this policy a week after he led his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party to a landslide victory at the Feb. 6 general elections. It was an unprecedented achievement at two levels: the first time that a prime minister had been reelected for a consecutive term and the seats the TRT won – 375 in a 500-member parliament – was the largest ever for a single political party.

Yet at the same time, the Malay-Muslim minority in the south turned their backs on TRT, by endorsing the opposition Democrat Party candidates.

Analysts attribute the failure of the TRT to win any of the 11 parliamentary seats up for grabs in the southern-most provinces to the disenchantment stemming from the government’s hardline measures against the insurgency since January 2004.

”The message was clear: those people in the south wanted change. They were not happy with the Thai Rak Thai’s policies,” Gotham Arya, head of Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based regional human rights lobby, told IPS.

On the eve of the election, for instance, Bangkok revealed its faith in a military solution by announcing it would be sending 12,000 more troops to strengthen the 20,000 already stationed in the restive region.

It seemed to flow from the decision last year to impose martial law, giving the police and army sweeping powers to target civilians, including the right to destroy property belonging to suspected insurgents.

The government has also not been transparent with two emotionally charged events in the south last year – the death of 32 Muslim militants, in April, when government troops attacked a historic mosque they had taken refuge in and the October deaths of 78 Muslim protesters while in the custody of the Thai army.

The full report that the government has of the Kru Se mosque deaths and the deaths of the protesters in Tak Bai should be made public, said HRW’s Adams. ”The next step, vigorous prosecution, should follow.”

Since early January last year, when unknown assailants attacked a military camp in the south, violence has been on an upward spiral. Among those targeted by exploding bombs and shootings have been civilians, government officials and the police and army. By the end of 2004, the Thai army had recorded 888 such attacks.

According to the media, over 550 people have been killed over the past year.

The Malay-Muslim minority in this predominantly Buddhist country has often complained of cultural and economic discrimination. To that has been added a sense of fear in this southern community, due to alleged police and army brutality, growing cases of torture and disappearances.

The current outburst of violence comes after a relative calm in an area that has experienced clashes between Muslim separatists and government troops from the 1970s through to the 1980s.

The three southern provinces that are under seige – Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani – were once part of the independent kingdom of Pattani that was annexed by Siam, as Thailand was then called, in 1902.