Thailand is poised to inaugurate a super security agency by superimposing one bureaucratic structure over another - creating a government within a government.

With the blessings of interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, the revamped Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) is expected to be up and running by next month.

Army Commander-in-Chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin is currently the ISOC director. and Army Chief of Staff, General Montri Sangkhasap, will take on dual responsibility as ISOC secretary-general.

Surayud named the two military leaders to take charge of the restructuring of ISOC to boost its mandate last month - and their recommendations are about to be put into action.

If things go according to plan, ISOC will prove to be a gigantic and powerful bureaucracy never before seen in the history of modern Thai administration.

Sonthi has described the revamped ISOC as equivalent to the Department of Homeland Security in the United States.

Critics are concerned that ISOC may be even more powerful than its Washington counterpart, which is an amalgamation of various security and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and other emerging threats.

In Washington, homeland security authorities have a specific mandate and are accountable for their actions to either the White House or Congress.

In Bangkok, ISOC functions under the prime ministerial order and has no laws to back up its existence. It acts like a shadowy puppet master pulling strings among existing agencies. It answers to no one although it has the entire bureaucracy under its control.

After the restructuring, the ISOC director could easily overshadow the prime minister as he would be empowered to direct three independent agencies for security-related investigations that are beyond the control of any government.

The three agencies are the National Counter Corruption Commission, the Department of Special Investigation and the Anti Money Laundering Office.

ISOC came into existence in 1969 although its precursor body was created four years before. Its key architect was military strategist General Saiyud Kerdpol. It was aimed at reining in the bureaucratic war seen as an impediment to fighting communism.

Various military, police and civilian agencies with overlapping jurisdictions settled their differences in the corridors of the ISOC.

Military strongman and prime minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittikhachorn opted for a hands-on approach to run the bureaucracy via ISOC.

The military domination over the bureaucracy did not become apparent because Thanom had dual leadership in the military and the government.

At the end of the Cold War, the Communist insurgency faded away and ISOC was left in limbo as successive prime ministers and Army commanders could not form a consensus on its relevance.

In its last face-lift in 2001, the Thaksin Shinawatra regime delegated a military ally, General Pallop Pinmanee, to oversee ISOC - and the public watched in horror as ISOC was further discredited by the alleged car-bomb plot against the premier.

Just before the September 19 coup, ISOC was slated for restructuring after Pallop lost his job.

Following the coup, Surayud and coup leaders agreed that ISOC should be reinvented to meet new and emerging security risks, as well as taking the lead role for the bureaucracy to counter-balance the runaway power of any rogue government.

For the immediate goal, ISOC with its enhanced mandate is designated as the lynchpin in the strategy to quell violence in the South. It has a proven track record in resolving the bureaucratic war and unifying the government machinery to cope with security

threats.

The long-term goal to keep politicians on their best behaviour may become problematic once the country fully reverts back to democratic rule.

Through ISOC, future Army commanders will keep tabs on the elected government, thus perpetuating military involvement in partisan politics. This is not a good sign for a sustainable democracy.

Avudh Panananda

The Nation