EDITORIAL : THE BANGKOK POST, THAILAND

 

 

Decentralise to save the South

One day before Visakha Bucha Day, two monks were killed instantly in a bomb blast that signified the instigators' continuing attempts to widen religious rift in the violence-torn provinces of southern Thailand.

Since the turmoil erupted in 2004, military might has been the government's main strategy to suppress the violence, but to no avail. In its seventh year and with no ending in sight, the violence has taken more than 4,000 lives, the majority of whom were civilians, while 550 of those killed were soldiers and police officers.

These are not mere statistics. These are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters whose deaths have caused their families unfathomable grief. They left behind more than 2,000 widows and 5,000 orphans to struggle on their own. Meanwhile, more than 7,000 people have been injured and maimed as the protracted violence continues unabated.

The savagery has also been escalating over the years. Victims are beheaded. Car bombs are on the rise. So has the frequency of attacks on temples and monks in a bid to drive a wedge between the Muslim and Buddhist communities.

Since 2006, there have been nearly 30 attacks on monks, killing 9 and injuring nearly 20 others. The atrocity from both sides looks set to continue as the state mounts its violent suppression and the instigators respond in kind in an endless cycle of revenge.

Having wasted 145 billion baht on tackling the turmoil, the government should now admit that military might is no answer for the restive South. The only answer is political decentralisation.

The top-down bureaucracy has caused widespread suffering across the country by siphoning human and natural resources to feed Bangkok and strengthen industrialisation. The anger is specially fierce in the Muslim-dominated South. With their own distinct race, language, and history, the southern Muslims all share the resentment that their motherland is being ravaged by outsiders while administrative powers change hands only among the Bangkok mandarins. This has got to change. If the government wants to restore peace in the deep South, administrative power must be decentralised to allow southern Muslims to work for peace themselves.

There are many models to consider. The National Reform Committee led by former prime minister Anand Panyarachun proposes political and fiscal decentralisation to empower local administration bodies, with active civil society councils as check-and-balance mechanisms. It also proposes land reform and community land ownership to end land rights conflicts between the locals and the state.

Quick to discern local sensitivities, Thaksin Shinawatra, the de facto leader of Pheu Thai Party, has promised to make the three southernmost provinces a special administrative zone if his party wins the general election.

While the reform committee's model aims to wean away central state control and empower localities, Pheu Thai's so-called "Nakhon Pattani" plan seeks to blend locally-elected office with state control: the governor and council members would be elected for four-year terms but village heads and kamnan, who often double as vote canvassers, would remain. The Interior Ministry would also retain power to oversee "Nakhon Pattani". How will this model work to serve the public's best interests? Not only must Pheu Thai clarify this in its election campaigns, but other political parties must also be ready with their southern solutions.

Military might and money dumping does not work. The country desperately needs peace. Decentralise.