Thai officials resume peace dialogue with main southern insurgents

[webfact]

Thai officials resume peace dialogue with main southern insurgents

By Panu Wongcha-um

 

File photo//REUTERS

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A senior Thai official met an envoy of the main insurgent group fighting in the country's largely Muslim south in what both sides described as a positive step towards a peace process, the Thai government said on Tuesday.

 

The meeting in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur marked the first time the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) had returned to talks since it pulled out of an earlier peace dialogue in 2014.

 

The long-running insurgency in the Malay-speaking region of predominantly Buddhist Thailand has killed some 7,000 people over the past 15 years.

 

The conflict has flared on and off for decades as insurgent groups like the BRN continued a guerrilla war to demand independence for Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, which were part of an independent Malay sultanate before they were annexed by the Thais in 1909. Successive Thai governments have refused to allow any degree of autonomy in the restive region.

 

General Wanlop Rugsanaoh, the head of Thailand's Peace Dialogue Panel, met with Anas Abdulrahman, a representative of the BRN on Monday for a discussion brokered by the Malaysian government, a Thai government statement said.

 

A senior BRN official, Abdul Aziz Jabal, described the meeting as "the first round of official peace dialogue".

 

He told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur that the two sides agreed on several mutual commitments, including a framework and terms of reference laying ground rules for future talks.

 

The BRN official added that the talks were attended by "observers from overseas", without elaborating.

 

The BRN was among several insurgent groups to have participated in formal peace talks with the Thai government until a military coup in 2014.

 

The military junta resumed talks with other insurgent groups two years later but the BRN did not join that process, which stalled in 2018.

 

Since then, the BRN and the Thai government have had several contacts, including a secret meeting last August outside of Thailand.

 

Mara Patani, an umbrella group representing other insurgent factions, welcomed Monday's meeting as a positive step for the stalled peace process.

 

"It is good that the BRN has agreed to come to the table finally, We have been expecting that for so long and they were elusive," Abu Hafez Al-Hakim, a Mara Patani, spokesman, told Reuters. "I hope the Thai government will be serious and more committed from now on."

 

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-01-22

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[Grumpy John]

Peace talks......  Their version of peace is return the 3 provinces to Malaysia,  remove all non Muslums and forget about the 7000 dead by their hands.  But I  doubt the Thai government would go for that. My view is the government should arrange for all those who wish to be a citizen of Malaya be given the opportunity to do so thereby revocing Thai citizenship.  A nice big wall be built along the border and anyone trying to cross illegally into Thailand should be shot on sight.  There is  plenty of army personal to man the wall. 

[yellowboat]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

"I hope the Thai government will be serious and more committed from now on."

Inflammatory, insulting language with lots of wishful thinking all in the same sentence.  Off to a great start with an overly sensitive army that is not use to criticism. 

[RichardColeman]

You cannot negotiate with Muslims. End of.

[Moonlover]

4 hours ago, Grumpy John said:

Peace talks......  Their version of peace is return the 3 provinces to Malaysia,  remove all non Muslums and forget about the 7000 dead by their hands.  But I  doubt the Thai government would go for that. My view is the government should arrange for all those who wish to be a citizen of Malaya be given the opportunity to do so thereby revocing Thai citizenship.  A nice big wall be built along the border and anyone trying to cross illegally into Thailand should be shot on sight.  There is  plenty of army personal to man the wall. 

You need to brush up on your history a bit. The 3 provinces were never a part of Malaysia, nor its precursors. The region, the former independent Sultanate of Pattani, was annexed by Thailand in 1785 and has been part of that country ever since. That's long before Malaysia (or Malaya) came into existence.

 

The current insurgency is about an independent state, not reunion.

[Orton Rd]

Insurgents is just a nice word for Islamic terrorists who have murdered thousands and who cannot be reasoned with, it's their way or no way.

[ChrisY1]

How many years now....7--10+....always talks of talks.....nothing ever achieved....7000-8000 killed and ongoing.

However, it's often seen as a good argument for increasing the defence budget!

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, Moonlover said:

You need to brush up on your history a bit. The 3 provinces were never a part of Malaysia, nor its precursors. The region, the former independent Sultanate of Pattani, was annexed by Thailand in 1785 and has been part of that country ever since. That's long before Malaysia (or Malaya) came into existence.

 

The current insurgency is about an independent state, not reunion.

To further foreign confusion is the moniker "Malay Muslim" typically used by Thai governments. 

The ethnicity of the Muslims of the former Sultanate of Patani is "Maleyu" who settled in the area in about 1500 AD as they spread throughout the coastal and island areas of now Malaysia, Indonesia and Burundi.

"Malay Muslim" isn't per se an ethnicity but rather (as I understand) a generalization of Muslims currently living in the Malaysian regions that includes substantial Muslim immigration from the Middle East and India.

[Srikcir]

On 1/22/2020 at 5:07 AM, webfact said:

The BRN official added that the talks were attended by "observers from overseas"

This is a major concession by Prayut (and the military establishment before Prayut's coup) who has insisted that the insurgency was solely an internal problem that can only be resolved by the military under the veil of a Thai government.

PM Prayut refused "internationalizing" the insurgency, ie., giving it international recognition, that could pressure the Thai government away from its decades old solution of treating the insurgency as an economic, education and criminal issue. 

That said, the article gives no detail to who the "observers from overseas" were, the nature of their role and the events that led to their participation as observers. If not detailed elsewhere, such might prove a weakened stance by the Thai government without " shot to be heard."

This is a success for BRN.