Change tack in far South

The government and army’s responses to this week’s deadly attack at a civil defence volunteer checkpoint in Yala province in the deep South are deeply worrying, largely because of their insistence on sticking with numerous failed and questionable means of tackling violence in the restive region.

Gunmen killed 15 people at the checkpoint and injured at least four, and this should serve as another wake-up call for the government to think about adopting different approaches to deal with the conflict. For instance, putting an end to the use of special laws in the region and rethinking the use of village defence volunteers need to be considered. At the same time, peace talks with insurgent groups must be restarted soon.

However, 4th Army chief Phonsak Phunsawat on Thursday insisted that the special laws — martial law, the emergency decree and the Internal Security Act — will remain in place in Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani where more than 7,000 people have been killed since the insurgency erupted again in 2004.

The use of these laws has sadly failed to curb violence and guarantee the safety of local residents. Instead, they have paved the way for abuses and rights violations by security officials who have repeatedly made questionable arrests and detentions without proper judicial oversight. Many of them have got away scot-free from suspected involvement in torture, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings of insurgent suspects.

Equally ineffective and questionable as the use of the special laws is the state’s recruitment of village defence volunteers to provide protection for their fellow villagers. According to Isra news reports, about 95,000 civilians have undergone training, working with some 35,000 police and military personnel. There have been attacks on this civilian defence force for years. But the trend has been rising steadily over the past two years because of an increase in the number of volunteers.

However, many of these volunteers, a sizeable proportion of whom are elderly, only received a modicum of paramilitary training prior to being armed with rifles and shotguns and stationed at checkpoints. They have become easy targets for insurgents who often steal their rifles and handguns after attacking them.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday insisted that the government will maintain this civilian force. Lt Gen Phonsak, meanwhile, said the system is up for “review and revamp”, and volunteers will likely be assigned to a more mobile system, heading out out on regular patrols to seek insurgents instead of being “sitting ducks”. This is outrageous as it will only make the civilian force more vulnerable to attacks. The authorities should no longer shift part of their defensive burden in the region onto civilians.

The government should speed up the peace dialogue with insurgent groups, which has been stalled since February this year. Meanwhile, it should be open to conditions conducive to peace such as the granting of a certain level of autonomy to the Muslim-majority region while paying heed to calls for Islamic law to be taught and for the local language used in schools there. The government should also put an end to state policies deemed as discriminatory against locals such as forcing mobile phone users register for SIM cards using facial identification.

There have been growing calls for the government to change its strategies and adopt these alternative political solutions to the conflict and violence in the deep South. The Prayut administration should do away with its insistence on a military-led approach in resolving this long-running conflict.