1 - The Historical Context and the Seven Demands of Haji Sulong

1The seven demands articulated in 1947 by Haji Sulong3, a respected local Muslim religious leader who studied at Mecca and was on good terms with the democratically minded Statesman Pridi Banomyong (Regent from 1942 to 1946 and Prime minister from March to August 1946), were rooted in long lasting grievances of Malay Muslim leaders vis-à-vis the Thai State. Several scholarly works have reinterpreted the historical setting of these demands, which have acquired a kind of sacred status in the local narrative of the Pattani history. According to one thesis, the demands had not been elaborated on the basis of a widespread consultation with the local residents of the four provinces, but were devised during a meeting of the Islamic Committees of the four provinces – Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Satun – and held in Yala. If we go along with this interpretation, it is possible that this apparent lack of consultation somehow reduced the “demands” credibility and that they were more a reflection of the desires of the local elite rather than of the local population as a whole.4 However, even although formulated without the widespread consultation of the local population, the fact remains that these demands were a reaction to an official assimilation campaign and many years of brutal oppression that Malay Muslim villagers suffered at the hands of local government officials, as vividly reported by the British journalist Barbara Wittingham-Jones in October 1947.5

2The seven demands, which essentially were a request to re-establish an autonomous region for the Muslim South, were:

• The appointment of a person with full powers to govern the four provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Satun. This person must have the power to fire, suspend or replace all local civil servants. This person must be a native of one of the four provinces and must be elected by the inhabitants of the four provinces.
• 80 per cent of all civil servants in the four provinces must be Muslim.
• The Malay language must be an official language alongside the Thai language
• The teaching in primary schools must be done in Malay
• Muslim laws must be recognized and implemented under the aegis of an Islamic court, separated from the civil court where the qadhi (Muslim judge) is seating as an assistant.
• All taxes and incomes collected in the four provinces must be used locally.
• The establishment of a Muslim affairs bureau with full powers to manage Muslims affairs under the authority of the governor mentioned in the first point.6

3They were presented on 24^th August 1947 by Haji Sulong, on behalf of the Malay-Muslim population of the South to a commission sent by Bangkok to investigate the complains of Malay Muslim about the abuses of power by local government officials.7 The petition made clear that its intention was not to violate the Siamese constitution but to create better conditions of living for the Malay Muslims. An important point is that these demands were not a set of unilateral requests thrown together by the locals for the government to accept or reject. As shown by political scientist Thanet Aphornsuwan, the “demands” were the result of negotiations between the two sides: the representative of the Thai government (Luang Thamrong Sawat) and Muslim leaders from Pattani.8 Therefore, the document was based on an initial agreement and sent to the central government for further consideration.

4In the historic context of post war Southern Thailand, Pridi Banomyong, a man impregnated with democratic values due partly to his French education in the 1920s at the University of Caen, could have well accepted Haji Sulong’s demands, and then tried to deal with the unavoidable military outcry. However, Pridi was worried by the distinct possibility that Southern Thailand would be reunited to Northern Malaya under the British, as Great Britain insisted, after the Second World War, that Thailand should be treated as a defeated enemy. Henceforth, he thought necessary to try to win back the support of the Malay Muslims of Southern Thailand, and he even indicated that he could allow autonomy.9

5That was, in substance, what Haji Sulong was asking for in the four southern provinces; there was clearly no intention to secede from Thailand. Rather than secession, he favoured political integration with the Thai State by participating in elections. During the 1946 national legislatives elections, he supported Charoen Supsaeng, a Buddhist candidate, who was elected, winning over a Muslim opponent, and became an MP of Pattani province. Within the Malay Muslim leadership, a different faction saw independence as a possible alternative. This current was led by Tengku Mahyuddin, who, during the Second World War, had organised a resistance movement against the Japanese and the Phibun government in the deep South.10

The Old Market in Yala city (Photo François May, March 2011)

6Some issues, mentioned in the demands, were directly connected to religion, like the one concerning the Islamic courts. Islamic laws on family (marriage and divorce) and inheritance had been abolished by the Phibun Songkhram government in 1944. The Islamic judge (qadhi), who was seated in the civil courts to advise on matters involving Muslims, had also been suppressed. The consequence had been that no cases were filed by Malay Muslims in Thai civil courts in the South until 1947. Most of the Muslims were simply crossing the border and going to the Islamic courts in the States of Northern Malaya.14

7The first post war government led by Khuang Aphaiwong, and advised by the Regent Pridi Banomyong, engaged a policy of appeasement and restored the conditions which were prevailing before the Phibun’s first government (1938-1944). Friday was again considered as a public holiday. Family and inheritance Islamic laws were restored in 1945. Islamic courts were re-established, but with a judge from the Ministry of Justice sitting alongside the Muslim judge to co-sign the decisions. The following year the qadhi was reinstated within the Thai civil court, but as an official of the ministry of Justice (i.e. appointed by a non-Muslim), which created tensions with the Malay Muslims leaders, especially with Haji Sulong. Nevertheless, the policy of Islamic patronage led by Pridi Banomyong had smoothen relationships between Southern leaders and representatives of the Thai central State, which made a mutually acceptable compromise look possible, especially after Pridi became Prime minister in March 1946.

8Not long after, the tide turned on the advances made in the reconciliation process. Pridi’s grip on power was weakened by the waves provoked by the mysterious death of King Ananda Mahidol, killed by a bullet to the head in June 1946. In November 1947, a military coup forced Pridi to leave the country. Accused of conspiracy in a separatist movement, Haji Sulong was arrested in January 1948, three months before Field marshal Phibun Songkhram, the ardent French educated nationalist and mastermind of the assimilationist policies in Southern Thailand, came back to power. For Phibun, the seven demands made by Haji Sulong were equivalent to a call for secession and were contrary to the principle of the indivisibility of Thai territory. From then on, the Southern campaign for autonomy was branded by the central State as “separatism” and Haji Sulong recast as one of the main leaders of this rebel movement. According to political scientist Thanet Aphornsuwan, “separatism was invented and reinforced by Thai authorities to suppress and intimidate regional political assertions of their own aspirations and identities”.15

9The fact that, as explained above, the demands were the result of preliminary negotiations between a representative of the government and local Muslim leaders, strengthen this thesis.

10The return of Phibun Songkhram and his assimilationist policies quickly renewed tensions in the southern border provinces. Things exploded at the end of April 1948, in the village of Duson Nyor, in Rangae district of Narathiwat province. During two days, a violent confrontation took place between hundreds of Muslims and several police regiments. Between 100 and 400 Malay villagers were killed as well as 30 police officers.18 This uprising, known in Bangkok as the “Haji Sulong uprising”, was followed by a harsh repression campaign, which provoked the flight of between 2,000 and 6,000 Malay Muslims to Malaysia. Haji Sulong, who had been released after four years in jail, was again arrested with his eldest son Ahmad Tohmeena in 1954 and both disappeared, very likely murdered under police custody. Their bodies were never found.

11After the Duson Nyor “incident”, various Malay political groups of Malaya and Singapore appealed to the United Nations Security Council on behalf of the Malays in Siam. Protests were also forwarded to the Council of Human Rights and Civil Liberties.19 International pressure built up and the Bangkok government had to introduce several reforms in the four southern provinces. The freedom of worship was fully guaranteed. Malay language was introduced in primary schools. Some corrupt officials were transferred.

12During this whole time, from the immediate post-war period until the 1960s, Malay Muslims politicians were actively participating in national politics. Some managed to be elected as MPs and subsequently raised issues important for the Malay Muslims within the parliament. A few of them were appointed as cabinet members, as for instance, the Satun MP Jae Abdullah Wangputeh who became a deputy-minister of Education in Phibun Songkhram’s government in April 1948. He led a mission of local assemblymen and government officials in order to report on the problems in the four southern provinces, with the announced objective of reorganizing the administration in Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and Satun “according to the wishes of the Muslim population”.20 It shows that a part of the Malay Muslim population was favourable to a path of political integration with the Thai State through a democratic process.21

13Nevertheless, the cosmetic measures taken by the central government after the Duson Nyor uprising were not sufficient to dispel the deep distrust between the local Malay Muslims and State officials, of which was fuelled by the ultra-nationalistic policies of Phibun Songkhram and the brutal repression which followed the disappearance and likely execution of Haji Sulong in 1954. For some Malay Muslims, the path of political integration was too bitter to swallow under an authoritarian government. The accumulated resentment, and the experience from almost all positions in the provincial administrative structure being occupied by Thai Buddhist officials by virtue of “standard rules” governing the civil service, gave birth to a new pattern of identity assertiveness by the Malay Muslims: the rise of armed guerrilla movements, starting in 1959.

Malay muslim girl learning Thai alphabet in a school in Yala province (Photo Arnaud Dubus, 2005)

14Thus, the seven demands of Haji Sulong were dropped out of the successive governments’ agenda, and almost slipped out of the public’s consciousness within the southern border provinces. Despite this, they are still surprisingly relevant in a political context today. Some of the most recent proposals by civil society to solve the conflict are partly inspired by these demands (see chapter six).

15The object of this study, as already said, is to analyze the successive policy papers of the different governments since 1978, and the way they were implemented, if at all. Most of these policy papers skirt around the seven demands of Haji Sulong, either by considering them as irrelevant or by proposing “alternative solutions”. The two boldest attempts to progress into the direction of the seven demands – Chaturon Chaisaeng’s road map of 2004, and the recommendations of the National Reconciliation Commission’s report published in 2006 – were not implemented and shelved by Thaksin Shinawatra’s government. Before reviewing these documents, it is necessary to briefly describe the various power structures which exert an influence on the southern border provinces.

2 - The Administrative, Political and Religious Structure between the Central and the Local Levels

2.1 - The Political-Administrative Framework

16The administrative framework to administer the southern border provinces has evolved several times since the end of the 19^th century, but was fixed after the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932. What was until then a monthon or circle (an administrative region, in this case regrouping the former sultanates) was divided into the four current provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Satun.22 As in every other province of Thailand, the governor rules over a number of district officers, both are professional bureaucrats employed by the ministry of interior (see figure 1). This bureaucracy is national, and the recruitment is done through examinations managed by the Civil service commission on a national basis. Henceforth, there is no expectation that district officers of one province are natives of that province. Nowadays, all the governors and the vast majority of district officers in the deep South are Thai Buddhists coming from other regions, despite the fact that Malay Muslims represent 80 per cent of the population of the three provinces.23 The same is often true for the key State organizations. For instance, Malay Muslims represented only 10 per cent of the police force serving in the southern border provinces in 2009.24

Fig. 1 - Political-Administrative Framework

17At the sub-district and the village level, the kamnan (heads of sub-district) and the phuyaibaan (village headmen) have been elected since 1897, becoming then the first elected representatives in Siam. In the southern border provinces, almost all of them are Malay Muslims. A new layer of local democracy was added in 1994 with the election of chairmen to the Tambol Association Organizations (TAO) or Sub-district Association Organizations. Contrary to the hierarchy of kamnan and phuyaibaan, who are directly answerable to the Ministry of Interior, TAO chairmen are only responsible to their constituents. In the South, TAO chairmen (or nayok) are, unsurprisingly, almost all Malay Muslims. Their functions run in parallel with those of the kamnan and phuyaibaan, creating an intense competition for power at the sub-district level. According to several informants, this competition accounts for a large part of the violent incidents in the border provinces.25 In theory, kamnan and phuyaibaan are responsible for security and the TAO chairmen for the economic development, but this division of duties is not really implemented on the ground.

18The appointed bureaucrats, governors and district officers, tend to have very little contact, if at all, with Malay Muslims villagers who speak a language they don’t understand and inhabit a world at odds with their own cultural and religious sphere. They rely mostly on kamnan and phuyaibaan as intermediaries.26 The position of these elected administrators is a tricky one as they are often viewed by the Malay villagers as “collaborators” with the Thai State. The same is also true for the TAO chairmen, although they don’t have to report directly to the ministry of interior. In the context of the resurgence of the separatist insurgency since January 2004, their position became increasingly difficult. If they seem to be too much on the side of the Malay villagers, they are quickly branded as separatists and blacklisted by the military or police. And if they extend enthusiastically a helping hand to the authorities, they are distrusted by their own constituents as having sold out to the Thai State.

19Despite the tight framework of the Thai administration, it is noticeable that, at the village level, there has been a strong resilience of the traditional structures of Malay leadership. Such was the conclusion reached by the anthropologist Andrew Cornish after a one-year field research project, in the mid-1990s, in a Yala village:

20“The Malay language still flourishes despite strenuous government efforts to make it redundant, and Islamic adherence has only been strengthened by association of the Thai State with Buddhist values. Political power in villages continues to rest with traditional Malay leaders, irrespective of whether they are approved as village headmen by the local administration.”27

2.2 - The Religious Framework

21A structured network of official religious organizations is established in parallel to the administrative structure (see figure 2). Overall, this network seems to be more democratic, as elections are a prominent feature of the system. At the local level, imams - the official heads of registered mosques-are directly elected by the worshippers of the mosques. As it is frequent that even a small village has several mosques, often each representing a specific type of Islam, there can be two or even more imams per village. The Provincial Islamic Councils occupy the second level. Until the Islamic Organization Act of 1997, these councils, composed of 30 members, were renewed through a rotation system: when a member resigned or died, the remaining members invited someone to take his seat. The Act of 1997, adopted after a long and tense debate between the New Aspiration party and the Democrat Party,28 transformed the system: the members of the different provincial councils were elected by the local imams, each of whom could select a set of 30 candidates. McCargo argues that this “gave individual imams considerable influence” and “had the potential to replicate many of the shortcomings of Thai electoral politics, like vote-buying and electoral manipulation”.29

Fig. 2 - Religious-Administrative Framework

22The Provincial Islamic Councils have limited and strictly religious powers. They advise the provincial governor on Islamic affairs. They also can intervene to resolve some religious disputes, particularly on divorce and inheritance. They are also the authority that issues Halal food certificates. Despite these circumscribed duties, the Islamic council elections became, after the adoption of the Islamic Organizations Act, the object of an intense competition, in which national political parties and State agencies, particularly the military, got involved. Some local politicians, like Den Tohmeena, a former Pattani senator and a son of Haji Sulong, wanted to exert complete control over the Pattani Islamic Council, in order to guarantee the political future of his family. On their side, the military had been frustrated by the passive attitude of the council after January 2004 in light of the violence caused by insurgents. They wanted to get rid of Den’s clique, considered as too sympathetic to the separatists. Some other Malay Muslim politicians were also keen to challenge Den’s grip on the province. The result of this complex background was that money was widely used by all sides to convince the imams to vote the “right way”. In the eyes of Malay Muslim villagers, well aware of the vote-buying, the image of their religious leaders was tarnished. They became, at the same time, stained by the stench of material interests and dirtied by their close association with pragmatic politics.

23At the central level, a National Islamic Council is composed of members nominated by the Provincial Islamic Councils. On top of the pyramid is the Chularajamontri, who is “the advisor of the King on Islamic affairs” and also the president of the National Islamic Council. He is appointed by the king on the recommendations expressed by delegates sent by the 29 Provincial Islamic Councils, of which only four are composed of Malay Muslims. Hence, although the Malay Muslims represent the largest proportion of Muslims in Thailand, the Chularajamontri is always a Muslim from Central Thailand. As for Buddhism, the Islamic organizational structure is tightly ensconced in the bureaucratic and the political apparatus of the Thai State. According to McCargo, “the intention here is to nationalize Islam in Thailand, curbing its dissident tendencies and linking it to the legitimacy of the State, to integrate it into representative Thai political structures”.30

2.3 - Development and Security: the SBPAC and the CPM Task Force 43

24The third organizational framework covering the southern border provinces revolved around the Southern Border Provincial Administrative Centre (SBPAC), an agency created by Prem Tinsulanonda’s government in January 1981 in order to attempt to solve the insurgency issue in this area. The inspiration for the setting up of the SBPAC came originally from a report of the National Security Council in 1978 which considered that the government’s main problem in the area was a lack of unity, with too many agencies working without coordination, and with overlapping lines of command.31

25Functionally, the SBPAC was put under the authority the Ministry of Interior and the agency’s director was a permanent deputy secretary of the ministry, but at the beginning the SBPAC’s director was directly accountable to the commander of the Fourth Army. Two deputy directors representing the police and the army were assisting the director. SBPAC officials were seconded from ministries and department, particularly the Department of Land administration within the Ministry of Interior.32 Its activities were also supervised by the National Security Council. It was one of the early examples of an inter-agency operating under such an ad hoc framework, but this allowed it to operate “conveniently and quickly”.33 In 1996, the SBPAC was removed from the Fourth Army’s line of command, in order to clearly separate security and political-economic responsibilities (see figure 3).

Fig. 3 - Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) and Civilian Police Military Task Force 43 (CMP 43)

26The SBPAC was placed above the level of provincial administrative officials and, henceforth, was able to oversee their activities. Another strong point of this agency, staffed by officials selected by Prem’s entourage, was that it was headquartered in the Southern region (in the city of Yala), which allowed local Malay Muslims to have direct access to it to express their complaints regarding abuses of power by some officials. Assisted by an advisory council of religious leaders and Malay Muslim scholars, the SBPAC did not hesitate to transfer officials out of the area when allegations of wrongdoings were proved true, whether they be policemen, military or bureaucrats.34 This established a relationship of trust between locals and the agency, which is one of the reasons behind the relative quietness in the region between the mid-1980s and the beginning of the 2000s.

27A large part of the activities of the SBPAC were regrouped under the label “socio-psychological measures”. They aimed to reduce the alienation of Malay Muslims from the State. According to Wheeler:

“[These ends] were pursued above all through a heavy schedule of meetings, seminars and trips designed to cultivate relations with local leaders, especially religious leaders. From its inception, the SBPAC sponsored monthly meetings between provincial governors and the presidents of the Provincial Islamic Committees, as well as fieldtrips to Bangkok for local leaders”35

28The SBPAC also improved the quality of administration by training the officials sent to the southernmost provinces on matters of Malay culture and religion. Overall, one of the main goals of the establishment of the SBPAC was to give a benevolent image of the Thai State to the local Muslims, to project the agency as a symbol of good governance.

29An inter-agency unifying the Border Patrol Police, the Rangers (thahaanphran) and the army, the Civilian-Police-Military Task force 43 (or CPM 43) worked in coordination with the SBPAC. This interagency, created in the 1970s and placed under the authority of the Internal Security Operational Command (ISOC) headquarters in Yala, was in charge of tackling the insurgency through the coordination of the various actors in the security field. The CPM 43 was highly effective, not only in obtaining a good intelligence picture of the insurgents and of their activities, but also significantly decreasing the level of violent incidents.36

30When Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime minister at the beginning of 2001, he launched a program dubbed “Governors as CEOs”, whose main feature was to allow provincial governors to act independently from the Ministry of Interior and run their province as “a business company”. He then dissolved both the SBPAC and the CPM 43 in April 2002, asserting authority against the existing networks of power in the region by giving complete responsibility for the security of the region to the police, leaving the Fourth army in the cold. Both decisions proved disastrous as we will see in Chapter Four.

31After the coup d’Etat of September 2006 which evicted Thaksin from power, both the SBPAC and the CPM 43 were restored, but under a different organisational arrangement. They were placed under the authority of the Internal Security Operational Command, the key security agency of the country. All budgets, even for development projects without any link to security, had to be approved by ISOC. It was only in 2010, under the Abhisit Vejjajiva government, that the SBPAC got back its autonomy for development projects and its right to transfer misbehaving officials, except military officers (see Chapter Five).