Politicians are afraid to admit that the southern insurgency is a historical, not criminal, problem

This has not been a good week for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is planning to make his first trip to the deep South since taking office last month. First, there was the posting of an amateur video on YouTube showing a group of gun-toting Thai soldiers kicking, punching and slapping what appeared to be a helpless Malay-Muslim teenager. The clip was posted under the title "Pattani menangis", which, in Malay, basically means, "Pattani in tears", with a flashing statement saying, "This is how they investigate suspects in Southern Thailand".

Then came the report by Amnesty International about the systematic use of torture on suspected militants in the region. AI found 34 cases of ill treatment and said that at least four people had died as a result of torture. The true figure could be much higher because suspects only started coming forward with their stories just over a year ago.

Given the level of violence, it is understandable that frustrations run extremely high in the region. Many officials have lost friends and colleagues in bombings and ambushes carried out by insurgents. But while the insurgents have "engaged in brutal acts, nothing justifies the security forces' reliance on torture," said Donna Guest, deputy director of AI's Asia-Pacific programme.

As expected, the Thai public appears indifferent to these incidents. The idea of losing public support on this matter may be one of the reasons why the government has been reluctant to take a pro-active approach over these incidents.

Generally speaking, governments condemn the use of torture. But as the report illustrates, there is a culture of impunity in this country in which the authorities tend to turn a blind eye to the problem until journalists and researchers bring it up. Doing the right thing is not difficult as long as you have some degree of integrity and courage. Must the government wait for an uproar before it comes forward to say more than just, "We are looking into it?"

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the use of torture further alienates the southern population, the very people the Thai government says it wants to win over. The daily violence, on the other hand, continues unabated with no end in sight.

In spite of these hiccups, the Abhisit government should be complemented for starting off on the right foot. Abhisit has said that past governments' approaches to the deep South have been too security-oriented while ignoring other factors such as culture, history and identity. Abhisit is also looking to restore civilian supremacy to the region, where the Army has been the dominant power. Draft legislation is being prepared to systematise a new, civilian-led agency, but the real test will be how far Abhisit is willing to go in terms of resisting the Army's influence on the outcome. As it is, the military stands to lose a great deal of power, not to mention money, if and when the new administrative body comes into being.

For the past five years the Army has dabbled in everything from security to development, believing that its good intentions, along with its inflated budget, would be enough to win hearts and minds in the Malay historical homeland.

The angry young men behind the daily bombings and shootings are part of a long line of militants who surface in the deep South generation after generation. Even if Thai soldiers succeed in killing all of the current crop, history shows that in a matter of time a new generation will surface. We don't seem to understand that we are not just fighting cells of young militants, but a national spirit. Like insurgencies elsewhere, the one in southern Thailand runs in social networks of family and friends, and is held together by a cultural narrative that sees the Thais as the illegitimate rulers of the Malay homeland.

For as long as anybody can remember, the Thai state has hid behind the banner of nationalism when it addresses this problem. We don't have the courage to acknowledge that the current political border is a legacy of the colonial period. It's going to be difficult for the Abhisit administration, or any government for that matter, to turn the page and move on if it can't come to terms with the past.

It's easy to condemn the brutal tactics of the insurgents, brand them as young men who have been misled by the false teaching of Islam and a distorted history. It's easier to do that than to face up to an unpleasant past, because all our political leaders know that it's too costly politically to do or think otherwise.

Is Abhisit ready to set the record straight and tell the 73 provinces that they going to come to terms with the fact that the three Malay-speaking southernmost provinces don't share the same values that define the nation-state of Thailand? Perhaps we should see the southerners as who they are instead of trying to mould them into something we want them to be? Abhisit's message of social justice, as delivered to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand yesterday, was a good start. We just hope that he will be vigilant enough to bring an end to the culture of impunity in the deep South.

In the final analysis, justice must be delivered upon the culprits who stacked young Malay Muslim men into the back of military transport trucks in Tak Bai, which led to 78 of them suffocating to death; the men who beat to death a Narathiwat imam, Yapa Kaseng; and the men who kicked and punched a young man this week - an incident that made its way onto YouTube for all the world to see.