Thailand’s new government must at last take energetic steps to further the peace process

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) warned on Thursday of a further escalation of violence in the south of Thailand. The human rights organisation appealed to the newly elected Prime Minister, Samak Sundaraveij, to take more active measures for peace in southern Thailand. The tactics of the previous governments to rely solely on a military victory over the rebel movements in the south of the country, which is predominantly Moslem, have failed. "Raids, mass arrests, internment camps and constant attacks on the civilian population are not the way of securing trust”, said the GfbV Asia correspondent, Ulrich Delius. The spiral of violence in South Thailand is turning with increasing speed. In the year 2007 more than 860 people were victims of the civil war. There have been on average per month more than 200 politically motivated attacks, attacks by the Moslem freedom movements or retaliation by the army.

"The civilian population is subjected to dreadful suffering as a result of the increasing violence. People are being ground down between the Moslem freedom movements and the army”, explained Delius. "Both parties to the conflict are committing dreadful violations of human rights. 444 bombings, 2,025 violent incidents, 1,167 attacks with firearms, 281 cases of arson, intimidation, death threats, arbitrary arrests, incarceration for months on end without a warrant or court hearing, imprisonment of relatives and torture have in the past year worn the people down and to a large extent paralysed public life in Thailand.” Local human rights groups have feared the attacks of the military, which have suppressed any independent research and documentation on violations of human rights.

The military government, which is in office until the elections on Monday, and which came to power on 19th September 2006 through a putsch, has promised peace initiatives, but these have remained empty promises. The prime minister, General Surayud Chulanont, who has been voted out of office, has even expressed his regret for several massacres committed by the army against Muslims in the south of Thailand. But even he has set store by a "military solution” to the conflict and not prevented recent attacks of soldiers on civilians.

"The problems in south Thailand are homegrown”, said Delius. "The reference of the military government to presumed links of the rebels with the terror movement el-Quaeda is quite misleading.” For decades the Moslem Malay minority, which makes up four percent of the 64 million inhabitants of Thailand, has complained of discrimination and the neglect of south Thailand by the central government. "As long as one is not allowed in Bangkok even to speak openly about autonomy for the south of the country there is hardly any chance of a peaceful solution to the conflict”, said Delius.