Thai south worsened by government-sanctioned defence volunteers
Updated
A new report says the Thai government should stop arming civilians in the south and dismantle volunteer defence forces.
The group Nonviolence International Southeast Asia warns of more bloodshed in southern Thailand, unless the government changes its tactics in quelling violence between Islamic and Buddhist groups. The report was launched as part of the Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, reseacher for Nonviolence International Southeast Asia
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SOMBATPOONSIRI: I would start like this, I would say in the report we pointed out the insecurity situation in the south and that insecurity situation leads to the proliferation of firearms, especially amongst civilians. So basically three channels of firearms have been indicated in the report. First is private ownership, so basically we give the number of registration of firearms in the area, so approximately there are 160,000 registered firearms in the area.
LAM: This is right across the four provinces?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: Four provinces, and the highest number is in Songkla Province, which is interesting, because the incidence mostly occur in Pattani, Naratiwat and Yala, but Songkla has the highest number in terms of firearms for each person, so that is interesting.
LAM: Do we know why this is so?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: Hmm, according to our research, will go into detail about this civilian defence groups, but there are some quite a number of civilian defence forces in Sonkar Province, so I guess that could be one of the reasons.
LAM: But of course part of the problem also is that it's government policy to give weapons and ammunition to some of these volunteer defence forces?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: Yeah.
LAM: And there is no proper monitoring of the arms?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: Yeah, so in the report, we point out that the government actually does two things. When saying the government, as you know, you know the political situation in Thailand, we have had several changes of the government and basically the problem is in charge by the military for the past two years, after the coup d'etat. So a lot of weapons have been in many ways supported by the army.
LAM: So you are saying the Thai military is acting without much direction from the government in Bangkok?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: No, if you have a look at the structure of the organisations or the bodies of conflict resolution in the area now, you will see a lot of these bodies are under the military. So at the moment, the ISOC - the Internal Command Operations... sorry...
LAM: It doesn't matter what the term is, but you are saying that it's the military that is perpetuating the problem, that their.....?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: No, no, no, it is not the military that cause the problems, but they play a part in terms of they see [that] diseminating guns or firearms would stop the insecurity problem, that is what they perceive about conflict resolution in the area. So I would say they try to solve the conflict, but the way [they try] to solve the conflict is problematic.
LAM: Well the government and in fact even the previous government, the governments have been talking about an education and engagement program in southern Thailand. Has that worked, because it has been going on for the past few years now, even in the last year of Thaksin's regime?
SOMBATPOONSIRI: Yes, that worked, but there are two problems in here. First these education programs have been attached with the psychological warfare strategy. So in many ways, these so-called education program is a part of what the Malayan-Muslim perceive as a detention program. So basically under the emergency law, at the moment, a lot of young boys, a lot of young men, were so-called invited and they are investigated and detained in some education camps, so that is what is perceived by Malay-Muslims. But for Thai Buddhists, these development programs is somehow the privilege over the Buddhist population in the area, so for them in many ways discrimination against Buddhist population.
