Time to bring in a neutral mediator

The Thai government seriously needs to consider using outside help to end the ongoing conflict and bring permanent peace to the Malay-speaking deep South, where more than 3,400 people have been killed since January 2004. This message was made loud and clear at a recent seminar organised by Parliament's Legislative Committee on the Deep South Conflict, during which Thai academics and local participants urged the government to learn from various conflicts around the world.

Panellists at the conference included Daniel Pruce, charge d'affaires at the British Embassy in Bangkok, spoke about the three-decade-long intractable conflict with the Irish Republican Army; and Finland's Juha Christensen, the chief architect behind the peace agreement that brought an end to the bloody conflict in Indonesia's Aceh, who urged the Thai government not to be afraid to use a non-Thai mediator to end the conflict.

Separately, at a press conference following his speech on Asean and the global financial crisis, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim echoed what Pruce said about the need to open up the process to civil society. He urged all sides to change their perception that the conflict in the deep South was a zero-sum game. An ethnically diverse culture can add to the richness of a society, Anwar said.

Christensen, the general manager of Finland-based Peace Architecture and Conflict Transformation Alliance (Pacta), said he had detected some positive signals from the government about the idea of establishing dialogue with the separatists. He added that members of the militant groups have also informed him that they were interested in entering a dialogue process.

Officially, the Thai government does not have a policy of negotiating with Malay Muslim separatists. But unofficially, for as long as anybody can remember, the government and various agencies have sent people from all walks of life - from active and retired military officers to peace activists and academics - to talk to members of the long-standing groups.

Many of these so-called discussions were carried out as part of news/intelligence gathering exercises and were not part of a well-thought-out mandate. This explains why none of these secret talks, discussions, or whatever you want to call them, have had any bearing on policy change or policy recommendation.

Since the Surayud Chulanond government, peace talk initiatives have quietly re-emerged. Some appeared to be gaining traction while others were short-lived. The so-called peace process initiated by Chettha Thanajaro was almost immediately billed as a hoax and a laughing stock.

Capitalising on Chettha's humiliation was Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, Thailand's former Army chief, who had the audacity to announce a specific date as to when the violence would come to a complete end.

Outside of Thailand, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, as well as Indonesia's Vice President Yusuf Kalla, also got involved, but failed to make any serious headway. Kalla met with retired General Kwanchart Klaharn, the former Fourth Army commander who was serving as security adviser to the then prime minister Samak Sundaravej. When the Indonesian media broke the story, governments on both sides were quick to distance themselves from the talks, saying they were a private initiative.

But as academic Mark Tamthai, also a panellist at the Monday seminar, pointed out, what is lacking is a peace process that is subject to continuity in spite of government changes. Moreover, the issue is not about how the conflict in southern Thailand is similar or different from that in Aceh, but what can be drawn from that experience.

Thai governments often say their approach to the deep South is guided by political principle, but in practice their operations in the restive region are essentially military in nature. But to call them "military operations" is an overstatement. The Army is fighting faceless enemies who appear to be picking and choosing their targets at will.

Authorities get frustrated when Malay Muslims don't cooperate with the government, and there is a tendency to take up an "us and them" attitude when locals don't step forward and finger the culprits behind bombing attacks and roadside ambushes.

We have a tendency to think that our good intent is enough to overcome this century-old conflict, centred on the legitimacy of the Thai state in the Malay historical homeland known as Patani.

Perhaps this is the time for the government to come up with a roadmap for peace. But the problem is that the government has never liked the idea of foreign mediation. This is partly an ego problem and partly a fear that the authorities will not be able to control the pace and direction of the process.

According to Mark Tamthai, the Thai authorities have made promises to the separatist groups during their encounters over the years but have never lived up to them, thus the mistrust.

Because there is no trust between the two sides, there is a need for a third party to mediate.

There is no quick fix to any of this if we are to take the peace process seriously. The Thai security agencies are going to have to learn to put the national interest above their inflated egos.

It will be a long and hard road, and it will be politically costly in the course of time when the general public demands answers from elected leaders on sticky issues such as compensation and justice.

As Christensen puts it, a stable deep South will be good for neighbouring countries, not just Thailand. The question now, it seems, is how to get this process off the ground.