December 1st, 2006, 00:26
From the Magazine Time Asia
In Death's Shadow
A TIME investigation sheds light on the growing strength and radicalism of the new breed of Islamic militants fighting in southern Thailand
By ANDREW MARSHALL | PATTANI
* Exclusive: Inside the Thai Insurgency
* Analysis: A State of Denial in Thailand's South
Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006
There's something striking about Ma-ae, but it takes a while to work out what it is. It's not his looks: he's a lanky teenager who, like most Thai youths, wears blue jeans and a T shirt. Nor is it his religion: he's Muslim, like almost everybody else in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. What's striking about him is this: in a part of the country where a separatist insurgency has claimed more than 1,800 lives since it flared anew three years ago, and where ordinary people are gagged by fear and secrecy, Ma-ae talks. He talks about growing up in a remote, militant-held village that has become a virtual no-go zone for Thai security forces. He talks about how insurgents are recruited, initiated and dispatched to commit mayhem and murder. And he talks about his father, a government official and?claim the men who gunned him down?a military informer. He says he knows the names of the killers (they're his neighbors) but dares not confront them. "If I did," he says, "they'd kill me too."
Ma-ae (not his real name) is not the only one talking. In an interview with TIME, a high-ranking insurgent leader confirms what the teenager suggests: a new generation of militants is tightening its grip on the south, employing increasingly brutal methods that threaten to wreck an uncommon mood of conciliation in Bangkok. The leader, who calls himself Hassam and commands 250 fighters, claims there is now at least one militant cell in 80% of southern villages. His and Ma-ae's rare testimony help to illuminate a shadowy insurgency remarkable for its secrecy, resilience and bloodiness.
Since the military coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Sept. 19, Thailand has been in limbo. At first, public support for the coup was strong: the generals had removed an administration widely viewed as corrupt and divisive, and vowed to quickly restore democracy. Now that support is waning. Martial law is still in place, a date has yet to be set for fresh elections, and no formal corruption charges have so far been brought against Thaksin. But interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has moved more swiftly in the south. He has departed radically from Thaksin's iron-fisted?and ultimately self-defeating?attempts to crush the rebellion. He has personally apologized for the government's past heavy-handedness, including the notorious Tak Bai incident in which 85 Thai Muslim protesters died, and has acknowledged Islam's special place in a corner of this predominantly Buddhist nation. His government has also revived the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center, a peace and development agency credited with keeping a lid on the violence until Thaksin dismantled it in 2002; kick-started the investigation into the 2004 abduction of a prominent Muslim human-rights lawyer, Somchai Neelaphaijit, who is still missing; and last week announced the formation of a special economic zone to boost development in the impoverished region.
full article http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/ ... 09,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501061204-1563009,00.html)
In Death's Shadow
A TIME investigation sheds light on the growing strength and radicalism of the new breed of Islamic militants fighting in southern Thailand
By ANDREW MARSHALL | PATTANI
* Exclusive: Inside the Thai Insurgency
* Analysis: A State of Denial in Thailand's South
Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006
There's something striking about Ma-ae, but it takes a while to work out what it is. It's not his looks: he's a lanky teenager who, like most Thai youths, wears blue jeans and a T shirt. Nor is it his religion: he's Muslim, like almost everybody else in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. What's striking about him is this: in a part of the country where a separatist insurgency has claimed more than 1,800 lives since it flared anew three years ago, and where ordinary people are gagged by fear and secrecy, Ma-ae talks. He talks about growing up in a remote, militant-held village that has become a virtual no-go zone for Thai security forces. He talks about how insurgents are recruited, initiated and dispatched to commit mayhem and murder. And he talks about his father, a government official and?claim the men who gunned him down?a military informer. He says he knows the names of the killers (they're his neighbors) but dares not confront them. "If I did," he says, "they'd kill me too."
Ma-ae (not his real name) is not the only one talking. In an interview with TIME, a high-ranking insurgent leader confirms what the teenager suggests: a new generation of militants is tightening its grip on the south, employing increasingly brutal methods that threaten to wreck an uncommon mood of conciliation in Bangkok. The leader, who calls himself Hassam and commands 250 fighters, claims there is now at least one militant cell in 80% of southern villages. His and Ma-ae's rare testimony help to illuminate a shadowy insurgency remarkable for its secrecy, resilience and bloodiness.
Since the military coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Sept. 19, Thailand has been in limbo. At first, public support for the coup was strong: the generals had removed an administration widely viewed as corrupt and divisive, and vowed to quickly restore democracy. Now that support is waning. Martial law is still in place, a date has yet to be set for fresh elections, and no formal corruption charges have so far been brought against Thaksin. But interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has moved more swiftly in the south. He has departed radically from Thaksin's iron-fisted?and ultimately self-defeating?attempts to crush the rebellion. He has personally apologized for the government's past heavy-handedness, including the notorious Tak Bai incident in which 85 Thai Muslim protesters died, and has acknowledged Islam's special place in a corner of this predominantly Buddhist nation. His government has also revived the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center, a peace and development agency credited with keeping a lid on the violence until Thaksin dismantled it in 2002; kick-started the investigation into the 2004 abduction of a prominent Muslim human-rights lawyer, Somchai Neelaphaijit, who is still missing; and last week announced the formation of a special economic zone to boost development in the impoverished region.
full article http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/ ... 09,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501061204-1563009,00.html)