This video feature is about a group of women who are determined to build peace in southern Thailand’s Muslim insurgency zone.

At the time I completed the story, more than 2,300 people had been killed in the violence since it began in 2004. The number of victims has now risen to over 3,000.

Watch the piece online on PBS Frontline World:

www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2007/08/thailand_women.html

Thailand: Women for peace
Aaron Goodman

Feb. 2007

PATTANI, Thailand. Southern Thailand is fast becoming a war zone. For the last three years, Muslim militants have been fighting to create a separate state in the region. More than 2,300 people have been killed in insurgent violence and government counter-attacks.

At first, militants targeted symbols of the state, such as police stations and army posts. They have also killed dozens of teachers and torched more than 100 schools. Insurgents have also killed Buddhist monks, and in the worst parts of the conflict zone, the Thai government has given arms to civilians. Recently insurgents have started gunning down ordinary people in daily drive-by shootings, and the violence is spreading.

I recently went to the conflict zone to explore what’s being done to try to stop the violence. Unlike in many other conflicts, virtually all relief organizations, UN agencies, and foreign governments have stayed away because of the risks. The Thai government itself has focused on using military force to battle insurgents, and has offered little humanitarian aid to locals.

I met Soraya Jamjuree, a lecturer at Prince Songklah University in Pattani. She leads a team of Muslim university students, who travel to remote villages in the insurgency zone to help people caught in the conflict. Their group is known as Friends of Victimized Families, and they’re supported by the Canadian government.

The team visits women and children whose husbands and fathers are killed by militants and government forces. Their work isn’t a solution, but visiting affected families and offering emotional and psychological support helps people deal with the deaths of their relatives.

While I was in the south, the worst coordinated attack in the history of the conflict took place February 18th. Militants set off nearly 30 bombs in restaurants, karaoke bars and gas stations, killing six people and wounding more than 60. 

When the attacks started, Soraya and her group had stopped to pray at Pattani’s Central Mosque. I stood outside the mosque and watched two massive blasts light up the sky.

Militants had bombed the power station, and the city was plunged into dark. The crowds at the mosque panicked and began racing for home.

“Are you nervous?” I asked Soraya, as she escorted each of the young volunteers in her team to their homes.

“Not nervous,” she replied. “We believe God will protect us, because we do good things to help the people. I called my husband to make sure he was all right, and he was. So that’s it.”

But as Soraya looked out the window at people racing to get home, she looked deeply concerned. I wondered how she stayed fearless in the midst of the chaos. With all lights out in the city, rumours were spreading that militants could launch further attacks. There were simply no safety zones.

***

Thailand’s deep south has the look and feel of a very different country. People here share closer ties with neighboring Malaysia – everything from Malay food, architecture and clothing, not to mention religion.

More than 80 per cent of people in Thailand’s three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat are Muslim. Many say they are discriminated against by the Buddhist central government in Bangkok.

The region formed an independent kingdom for hundreds of years, but Thailand took direct control of the area in 1902. Since then, a separatist struggle has simmered. In the 1960s, insurgent violence soared, but within 10 years, amnesty deals ended the bloodshed.

Bangkok promised to improve ties with the south. But little has changed.

The local language — a Malay dialect called Yawi – is barred from government offices, and still not allowed to be taught in public schools. Many Muslim children have been forced to bow to statues of the Buddha, and the economic boom that transformed Bangkok into a modern city has clearly not spread to the south.

In 2004, militants from at least four rebel groups took up the separatist struggle with a fury. They include the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), the National Revolution Front (BRN), Gerakan Mujahideen Islami Pattani (GMIP), Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), and others.

While not all have the same goals, they share a common Islamist agenda and insist on independence from Thailand. To date, none have claimed responsibility for attacks, nor have insurgents publicly stated their goals or political platforms.

Their secrecy has strengthened their tactics. Authorities admit to knowing little about their structures and capacities, and have had little success apprehending their fighters.

Thailand’s defense minister, Gen. Boonrawd Sontas, recently told the National Legislative Assembly that militants can now call on as many as 10,000 fighters.

With 30,000 soldiers and police in the south, the Thai government is still grappling with how to tackle insurgents.

The defense minister admitted: “We do not know them. As long as they mingle with ordinary people, it’s difficult to tell them apart.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, who came to power in a coup last September has apologized the former government’s hard-line policies in the south. Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire telecoms tycoon accused of corruption, introduced martial law and emergency regulations in the region.

Human rights abuses during Thaksin’s rule led to widespread mistrust of the government and fueled the militancy. Government forces were given the power to arrest anyone for indefinite periods. Human rights groups claim as many as 21 young men and boys have been ‘disappeared’ by security forces. Nine hundred others have been sent to government “re-education” camps for months at a time.

Two notorious examples of government brutality tarnished the government’s reputation and spread fear in the south. On April 28, 2004, 32 militants armed with machetes fled to the Krue Se Mosque in Pattani. Security forces stormed the mosque with grenades and automatic weapons, killing all of the men inside.

On October 25, 2004, Thai forces killed six demonstrators and arrested 1,300 others. Government forces piled the men like logs in the back of trucks, and at least 78 suffocated to death while being transported to an army camp.

Most analysts claim the insurgency remains an internal conflict. They add Muslim teachers trained in Pakistan and the Middle East have imported a hard-line form of Islam. Observers now warn that unless Bangkok finds a speedy way to end the crisis peacefully, groups such as Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, may soon get involved.

The conflict has already spread to Bangkok. On December 31, 2006, nine bombs in the city killed three people and wounded nearly 30.

Officials first pointed the finger at former Prime Minister Thaksin or police or army still loyal to him. But a bomb expert involved in the investigation has said the explosive devices were identical to those used in the south. To now, authorities have stopped short of blaming Muslim insurgents for the attacks. Meanwhile, Thai officials as well as the US, Australia and Canada have warned of the possibility of further large-scale attacks in the south and in Bangkok.

***

The morning after militants set off nearly 30 bombs in the south, Soraya and her team traveled to meet Rasenah Samalalae in Bangor Pulo Village in Narathiwat. Since her husband was killed, she has been responsible for raising her 13 children on her own.

Soraya’s group sat on the floor encouraging the kids as they drew in new coloring books. Samalalae recalled the day militants shot her husband outside her home.