Army, insurgents in a battle for minds
There is increasing concern about the use of Islam by Malay-Muslim separatists in the deep South to discredit government agencies and garner popular support for the insurgency, senior intelligence officers say.
This trend was seen in recently discovered leaflets distributed by the insurgents among remote villages in the region that call on Malay Muslims to shun the government on religious grounds. The Army hit back on Thursday by distributing leaflets from helicopters that portrayed the government in a positive light. They called the insurgents' methods "unethical" and even accused them of disguising themselves as state officials. Written in both Thai and Malay, the Army leaflets asked parents to keep a close watch on their children's activities and to have faith in the state. On the other hand, a separatist leaflet that surfaced recently in Krong Pinang district of Yala bore the headline: "Who are we going to live with?" and described the Thai authorities as "Satan in human disguise". The leaflet urged Malay Muslims in the region not to believe anything the authorities say and slammed the re-establishment of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) and its security wing, the Civilian-Police-Military 43 (CPM 43), as "a way to split the Muslim community". It described the Malay-speaking region as a "conflict zone" that is "no different from Palestine, Afghanistan, etc… "This land must be separated between Muslims and the non-believers. This land must be liberated and an Islamic system must be its foundation. This land is not the land of the Thais but the land of Fathoni Darulsalam," the flyer said, using the Arabic name for the historically Malay Pattani region. Other flyers that surfaced in Narathiwat's Sisakorn district called on Muslims not to buy or benefit financially from lands abandoned by Buddhists, saying these plots would be reserved for underprivileged Malays once the Pattani region was liberated from the occupying Siamese. These flyers followed the exodus of some 200 Buddhists from their village in Yala who are currently taking refuge in a temple. Many of them hope the government will buy their land from them and offer a resettlement scheme outside of the Malay-speaking South. Authorities have blamed much of the ongoing violence on a new generation of village-based militants who so far have refused to surface and claim responsibility for the daily shootings and bombings. They say the militants have effectively shattered the fabric of society, creating mistrust in the local population, especially between Buddhist and Muslim villagers.
Prayut Sivayavirote Don Pathan The Nation Pattani
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