The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : A FESTERING WOUND

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 01, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

A FESTERING WOUND

THE VIOLENCE IN southern Thailand, in which the military establishment has played an extremely brutal role, has resulted in at least 84 deaths. While the shooting spree by misguided, insurgent Muslim youth cannot be condoned, the handling of the situation by the Army has raised serious questions. That the regional army leadership chose to herd more than 1000 detenus in lorries, causing at least 78 suffocation deaths, is an infamous breach of human rights. That the mindless military establishment packed people, including women and children, into army trucks like sardines, and that too in the holy month of Ramzan, speaks volumes on its approach to the problem of militancy and unrest in the south. After initially justifying the handling of the situation, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had to apologise when the issue came up for debate in the Senate. It is time for the Thai Government to evolve a national political consensus on how to tackle this communal and economic problem that has defied solution for years.

At the root of the problem is unemployment and lack of development in the south. Despite drawing up ambitious plans for industrial development and employment generation, successive Governments have failed to deliver. In the political evolution of Thailand, the Army has played a major role in making and unmaking coalitions and governments. No single party has been able to win an absolute majority in a general election. Mr. Shinawatra has the advantage of working with a more credible popular mandate than his predecessors. Thai history is replete with instances of coalition experiments falling apart within months, and of Army Generals migrating to politics and cobbling together new coalitions. A glue that has held the country together is the people's esteem for the Thai monarch, King Bhumipal Adulyatej, who has kept himself above the fray in an exemplary way. But so far, none of the coalition regimes has attempted seriously to implement a socio-economic programme that addresses the basic livelihood and development issues.

Given the growing global network of fundamentalism and terrorism, the Shinawatra administration must deal imaginatively with the challenge in southern Thailand. Using his vantage position as a business magnate, the Prime Minister should get together a group of industrialists and investors to look at opportunities in the southern provinces, discuss their plans with the local Muslim leaders, and work out a practical solution that can help contain the rising trend of insurgency and violence. The Muslim leaders must be persuaded that industries and infrastructure projects will do a lot of good for their areas and create jobs for their youth; there must be moral pressure on them to convince the insurgent groups to give up violence. The Army also has to be sensitised to the needs of development so that its approach to the people will become truly humane. While maintaining its presence to ensure law and order, it must not provoke the youth or go berserk when there is an outbreak of violence. A people-friendly, hearts and minds programme must be implemented by the Army so that the gulf between the military and the people can be bridged some time in the future. Southern Thailand desperately needs an integrated, healing approach that can ultimately bring the people back to the mainstream and wean them away from secessionist tendencies.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

MESSING UP ALL ROUND

A FESTERING WOUND

Looking beyond Musharraf's proposals