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By Martin Petty
YALA, Thailand, July 3 (Reuters) - When he heard the loud
cracks of gunfire, Prapan Pormapat knew the insurgents had just
claimed another victim.
An engine roared as two gunmen sped away on a motorcycle,
leaving behind the body of a saffron-robed Buddhist monk in a
pool of blood.
"Everyone here carries a gun now," said Prapan, a Buddhist
tailor, recounting the chilling tale of when a shadowy
five-year rebellion first struck in this sleepy neighbourhood
of Yala in southern Thailand.
"I rarely go out. I'm too scared to travel anywhere. We
don't know who is behind this violence, or what they want," he
said.
Thailand's Muslim deep south has become the battleground of
one of the world's most mysterious conflicts, a brutal
insurgency that has claimed nearly 3,500 lives since 2004.
A climate of fear and intimidation has gripped the
provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and the 30,000
troops here offer little protection against the near-daily
bombings and shootings.
The soldiers sent to crush the insurgency have no idea who
they are fighting.
"We don't know where the attacks will come from," said
Daeng, an army colonel, nervously huddled behind a wall of
barbed wire and sandbags at a checkpoint outside a Muslim
village.
"We don't know if these people live in this village, or if
they've come here to kill us."
With its rolling hills and thick jungle dotted with white
village mosques, the rubber-rich region bordering Malaysia is
one of Thailand's most picturesque, but the unrelenting
violence has ensured tourists and investors keep well away.
INVESTORS SCARED
Attacks on plantation workers have slashed the local rubber
output, and would-be investors have declined government offers
of soft loans and tax breaks for fear of being targeted.
"The only businesses making any money here are the ones
selling guns," said Wirach Assawasuksant, president of Yala's
chamber of commerce. He carries a gun himself.
"There's no new investment, insurance premiums are too
high. All the businesses are suffering," he added, with a
shrug.
At dusk, a provincial capital once abuzz with shoppers and
packed restaurants now resembles a ghost town after a slew of
drive-by shootings and motorcycle bombings, carried out just a
mile away from an army base housing several thousand troops.
No credible group has claimed responsibility for the
violence in the deep south, which was part of an ethnic Malay
Muslim sultanate annexed by Buddhist Thailand a century ago.
The army says it has "dramatically improved" its
intelligence gathering, but admits its counter-insurgency
capabilities are limited because it is unsure exactly who the
enemy is.
Even individual insurgents are kept in the dark.
"They don't know who they are fighting for or who is giving
their orders," said Colonel Parinya Chaidilok, a senior
Yala-based official from Thailand's powerful Internal Security
Operations Command (ISOC).
"The groups have not revealed themselves, or who their
leaders are. If we know, we can have dialogue, we can find out
what they want," he said.
Security analysts and academics say the insurgency is an
independence struggle by Malay Muslims rebelling against 100
years of forced assimilation and Thai Buddhist "oppression".
Although the campaign appears to target symbols of the Thai
state -- police, soldiers, teachers -- more than half of the
victims have been Muslims, which has fed speculation about
extra-judicial killings by security forces and state-armed
Buddhist defence volunteers.
MOSQUE MASSACRE
Feelings of anger, alienation and injustice are rife, with
relations between Muslims and security forces strained by the
failure to investigate or punish state officials for the
deaths, torture and disappearances of villagers.
When 11 Muslims where shot dead by mystery gunmen as they
prayed at Narathiwat's Al Furquan mosque on June 8, the
government had difficulty convincing villagers it was the work
of Muslim militants.
"I suspect the authorities are behind it, because no one
has been arrested," says Bearmah, showing his disdain for the
troops during a discussion with locals in a rustic village tea
shop in Pattani. "Muslims don't kill other Muslims praying in a
mosque."
The mosque deaths in Cho Airong district, a "red zone" the
military says is "infested" with insurgents, added to the 43
people killed and nearly 70 injured in the south in the last
month alone.
With lives at stake, most people are afraid to discuss
separatism, or to speculate as to who is behind the violence.
"We don't know what these attacks are about, or who is
doing this," said an elderly man, smoking hand-rolled
cigarettes among a group of villagers after evening prayers in
Pattani.
Like most people, he requested anonymity for fear of
reprisals.
"We just keep ourselves to ourselves, live our lives. We
don't get involved," he said in the Malay dialect spoken by 80
percent of the people here.
"All we want to know is why all these soldiers cannot stop
these killings."
Successive Thai governments have tried everything,
including tough military crackdowns, investment aid, "hearts
and minds" campaigns and even free cable TV showing English
Premier League soccer. Yet nothing has worked.
The unrest is another distraction for Prime Minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva as he works to revive Thailand's
export-driven economy while fighting off political challenges
from both inside and outside his fragile six-party coalition.
Like his predecessors, Abhisit has refused to engage in
dialogue with separatists, or accept outside help.
"This is an internal problem which the government can
resolve," Abhisit told a seminar on the southern unrest in
Bangkok this week.
"With violence, there's no way they can reach the goals
they say will lead to fairness, justice or a better life for
their people."
The charismatic Colonel Parinya, who has studied
counter-terrorism in the United States, says the army has
learned from past mistakes, and heavy-handed military tactics
have only exacerbated the conflict.
"This insurgency could go on for a long time, that's why we
have to keep changing our strategy," he says.
"We're now starting to win the hearts and minds of the
people. When we win their support, we will win this war and the
killings will stop."
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
