Thursday, April 17, 2014

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma


Burmese journalists pray for Zaw Pe’s release

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 05:04 AM PDT

DVB reporters and staff in Rangoon gathered for Burmese New Year's Day to pray for the release of their colleague, Magwe correspondent Zaw Pe [Zaw Phay] who was recently sentenced to a one- year jail term for charges related to his journalistic work.

Zaw Pe and his friend Win Myint Hlaing were each sentenced to one year in prison by Magwe Township Court on 7 April after being found guilty of charges of "trespassing" and "disturbing a civil servant on duty", pressed by a government official. The Magwe Divisional Education Department official pressed charges in August 2012 after Zaw Pe had inquired about a scholarship programme.

On 17 April, fellow DVB staff in Rangoon, wearing matching black t-shirts carrying placards calling for the release of Zaw Pe and for greater press freedom, gathered at the east gate of Shwedagon Pagoda in a prayer session. They also released fish and birds as acts of merit-making, a traditional Burmese custom at this time of year.

Hla Hla Win, a DVB reporter who also had been arrested and jailed by authorities while covering news in 2009, said: "Zaw Pe went to the government office to cover news which was in the public interest and his jailing indicates that no reporter in the country is safe to cover news at government offices without risking arrest.

"We are journalists collecting information for the public and not some thieves or criminals – we don't deserve to spend even one day in the prison," she said.

DVB staff members in Mandalay also released fish and birds on Thursday as symbolic calls for justice for Zaw Pe.

Meanwhile, Mandalay-based journalists from several media outlets gathered at the historic Maha Myat Muni Pagoda and prayed for the release of all reporters arrested and jailed in the line of work.

Zaw Thet Htwe, a former political prisoner and leading member of the Interim Myanmar Press Council who took part in the activity, said the jailing of reporters for chasing news is completely unacceptable.

"Basically this indicates that every reporter can be sued for charges such as trespassing for visiting a venue to cover news. This basically makes it impossible for them to work anywhere in the country and therefore we cannot accept this," he said.

"We would like the government in Burma, the parliament and the public, as well as the international community, to know that the jailing of Zaw Pe was completely unfair and this is why we have joined this event today."

DVB has vowed to work with other media organisations and rights groups to continue campaigning for Zaw Pe's release.

Rights group calls for international investigation into sexual violence by Burma military

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 04:43 AM PDT

In a report reopening allegations of the Burmese army's persistent and systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) has reignited calls for an international commission into violence against women in Burma.

"The widespread nature and scale of rape and sexual violence incidents meets the legal definition of war crimes and crimes against humanity," the BCUK report reads, citing the UN's repeated use of the terminology which define those legal terms in statements made on sexual violence perpetrated by the Burmese army.

In a 2008 report, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, alluded to instances of sexual violence, which "are not simply isolated acts of individual misconduct by middle- or low-ranking officers, but rather the result of a system."

Despite this, the UN has at no level initiated any investigation into sexual violence described by BCUK "as an organised means of dominating and subjugating ethnic populations".

Nor has the seemingly reformist current Burmese government.

Thein Sein, despite appearing to have positioned himself as a counterweight to hardline military conservatism, has failed to acknowledge the possibility of rape and other grievous crimes against women by the army. "Our military is very disciplined. There is no reason for the military to commit acts of rape or murder," Thein Sein guaranteed in 2012.

Nor does domestic pressure exist which might force the government to make such an admission. The 2008 constitution provides legal foundation to a culture of impunity surrounding grievous human rights violations by the Burmese military. Article 455 states "no proceeding shall be instituted against … any member of the Government, in respect to any act done in the execution of their respective duties."

As the ruling government remains inextricably linked to the military there is a vested interest on the part of nominally civilian parliamentary representatives to suppress their own past indiscretions. BCUK's report notes that 45 incidences of military rape were chronicled between 1996 and 1998 in the immediate area surrounding Kentung, eastern Shan State. There, at that time, Thein Sein himself commanded troops during Burmese army offensives that resulted in the displacement of 300,000 villagers.

Tin Tin Nyo of the Women's League of Burma said she believes that since coming to power, Thein Sein has done nothing to improve the situation of women's rights in Burma.

Whilst constitutional Article 455 belies the need for a national-level inquest into sexual violence and other human rights abuses by the Burmese military, the British government has acknowledged the need for international acknowledgement of the issue of the systematic use of sexual violence by the Burmese armed forces.

Through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, the UK government has provided funds in the region of US$500,000 for legal training for women and counseling to victims. Further to this, Hugo Swire of the UK Foreign Office met President Thein Sein and armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing in January in Naypyidaw, where he lobbied for Burma's signature on the 2013 UN Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict.

However this alone will not solve the problem, according to BCUK director Mark Farmaner. "We need to see a commission on sexual violence in Burma along the lines of the UN commission of Inquiry on North Korea." Farmaner told DVB. "It must be able to take evidence and make an assessment as to whether violations of international law are taking place."

Seng Shadan, of the Kachin Women's Association of Thailand, agrees that the international community must probe violence against women in Burma's peripheral ethnic areas. "Rape has been used as a weapon by the Burmese military for over 60 years," she told DVB on Thursday. "To change this would require a shift in the attitude of the government, which I don't think will happen without international pressure."

Journalists charged with defaming Thai Navy

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 04:08 AM PDT

Two Thailand-based journalists were charged on Thursday with defamation and violation of the Computer Crimes Act for citing a Reuters article that contained allegations against members of the Royal Thai Navy.

Australian editor Alan Morison and Thai reporter Chutima Sidasathian of Phuketwan online news could face up to seven years in prison and fines amounting to US$3,000.

Following arraignment and five hours in holding cells, 100,000 baht (US$3,000) bail for each of the two defendants was posted on their behalf by supporters at the Andaman Foundation.

The pair are currently out of custody and due to return to court on 26 May for trial.

"This experience has only made us more determined to fight the charges," Morison told DVB on Thursday shortly after his discharge. "We've done nothing wrong."

Morison and Chutima were first informed of the impending charges in mid-December, five months after publishing an article that summarised an investigative report by Reuters news agency. Phuketwan cited a paragraph suggesting that some Thai officials profited directly from the smuggling of Rohingya Muslims from Burma.

Charges have not been brought against the authors of the contentious paragraph, Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings. A Reuters spokesperson told DVB on Thursday that, "To our understanding, the complaint is under review by the authorities, but we have not been charged."

Szep and another Reuters reporter, Andrew RC Marshall, were awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for their reports on Burma's Rohingya Muslims, whom the United Nations has termed one of the world's most persecuted peoples.

The stateless minority bore the brunt of two years of renewed communal violence in western Burma, where decades-long tension between Buddhists and Muslims exploded in a rash of riots that has left around 200 dead and more than 140,000 displaced.

Many have fled the country as a result of the conflict, often on boats that pass through Thai waters en route to Muslim-majority Malaysia. The award-winning Reuters coverage examined a network of human smuggling checkpoints, at which many Rohingya are thought to be intercepted, tortured, extorted and indefinitely detained.

The reports allege that some Thai naval officials abetted and profited from the scheme.

Phuketwan, an online news site founded by Morison in 2008, has been reporting on Thailand's treatment of Rohingyas for several years. Reuters retained the assistance of Chutima to secure local contacts throughout their investigation, though an agency spokesperson said that her role was "very limited".

Morison has criticised Reuters' remove from the case, calling on the agency to speak up for media freedom. He has further insinuated that the charges are a clear case of targeting a "small, local organisation with little resources", a suspicion that has been echoed by numerous rights groups including Human Rights Watch (HRW).

"Instead of being brave enough to stand up and defend themselves publicly, the Thai Navy plays 'shoot the messenger' with a small Phuket-based website with limited means to defend itself," said Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of HRW Asia. It seems clear, said Robertson, that the Thai military is picking on locals instead of taking on an international agency with lots of money and lawyers, even though they produced the disputed content.

Robertson also emphasised that the Thai Navy has yet to address the allegations against them, which are fundamental to the controversy.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has similarly denounced the charges, and forecasted that the case could set a precedent of trepidation among journalists in Thailand. Upon passage of the Computer Crimes Act in 2007, some rights groups anticipated that the law could be used to censor the media, but this is the first case in which it has actually been levied against journalists.

“The formal defamation and Computer Crime Act charges brought today against two Phuketwan journalists aims ultimately to curb reporting on the Thai military’s apparent involvement in gross human rights abuses,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s Southeast Asia representative. “Regardless of the case’s eventual verdict, the state-backed charges will cause self-censorship among all journalists covering the Thailand angle of Burma’s growing Rohingya refugee crisis.”

While the suspects have received substantial support from media rights advocates — "ludicrous" and "absurd" are among the many terms used to describe the case — Reuters has been relatively silent, but did tell DVB on Thursday that they "oppose the use of criminal laws to sanction the press — large or small, local or international — for publication on matters of serious public interest, like the Rohingya stories here."

Thai officials have thus far been unavailable for comment.

 

Literacy campaign aims to coach 46,000 people

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 03:00 AM PDT

University lecturers and students are volunteering their time during this summer holiday as part of the 2014 Literacy Campaign in Burma, which aims to provide free classes to 46,479 people, including children and elderly persons who never learned to read.

The campaign, which takes place from 1 April to 15 May, aims to provide literacy classes in more than 1,000 wards and villages in 29 townships across the country, and will benefit from the time given by some 4,200 students and university faculty members who will volunteer to teach reading and writing skills.

Khin Maung Htwe, assistant director of the Myanmar Education Research Bureau (MERB) overseeing the campaign, said: "Literacy is the key to educational development in this country; therefore our aim is to help everyone in the country become literate."

Speaking at 6 April ceremony to launch the 2014 Literacy Campaign in the village of Sanpya in Mandalay Region, Burma's President Thein Sein said, "As development of the nation totally depends on [our] literacy rate and education development, strenuous efforts are being made for undertaking reforms in [the] education sector so as to improve education standards," according to a report in state-run The New Light of Myanmar.

According to government statistics, Burma's literacy rate in 2000 was over 91 percent. MERB is projecting the figure will go up to 95 percent after 2015 following successive literacy campaigns.

UN data from 2007-11 puts the adult literacy rate in Burma at 92 percent, which compares favourably with several neighbouring countries; while Thailand and China boast adult literacy rates of 94 percent, Cambodia is 74 percent, India is 63 percent and Bangladesh just 57 percent, according to the UN.

 

Humanitarian crisis looms as Kachin conflict intensifies

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 12:43 AM PDT

Burmese Army's 223rd Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) troops have launched another offensive on Wednesday at 5am against KIA's 1st Battalion post located near Chyari- Dagaw in Momauk Township. Burmese Army troops fired several rounds of artillery shells, followed by ground offensive on KIA positions at around 10:30 am, said a KIA frontline source.

KIA's 1st Battalion troops had withdrawn on Wednesday from its Dagaw Mada Post located about a half mile away from Chyari- Dagaw where the current fighting is taking place. The KIA source says a combined force of Burmese Army's 223rd LIB and 601st LIR launched a joint attack against KIA to occupy Dagaw Mada Post.

KIA's 9th Battalion troops engaged in a battle against an unknown Burmese Army unit at Hka Hkip village in Kutkai Township in northern Shan State on 15 April. No casualties on either side have been reported so far.

A local source says Burmese Army troops stationed at Lawdan, located between Bhamo and Lwe Je, have randomly fired several rounds of artillery shells into surrounding area to expand territory under their control.

Local villagers from Awng Nan, Awng Ra, Hkyet Wa Hkan and other smaller villages have to flee their homes due to ongoing bombardments by government troops and fighting between KIA and Burmese Army troops.

Mary Tawm, coordinator of local Kachin aid group Wunpawng Ninghtoi (WPN) said, "I am very worried about the villagers and it seems that there will be more IDPs in Mansi Township and Momauk Township."

"There has been fighting every day in different parts of Mansi and Momauk townships and the conflict area is not very far from the over 10,000 IDPs living in six different camps," she said. "If the situation continues like this, more people will be forcefully displaced."

The Joint Strategy Team (JST) for Humanitarian Response in Kachin & Northern Shan States, a group which is comprised of major local NGOs and faith-based organizations like BRIDGE, Kachin Baptist Convention, Kachin Relief and Development Committee, Kachin Women's Association, Kachin Development Group, Karuna Myanmar Social Services, Metta Development Foundation, Shalom Foundation and WPN, on Monday issued a statement on current massive displacement of over 3,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees.

The JST urges warring parties to immediately cease fire, and to implement and fully abide by the agreements previously made between the two sides. The JST said it requests both Burmese Army and KIA to ensure full compliance of international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles. The group also said the safety and protecting the security of the IDPs, especially children and more vulnerable ones, is the first priority for both parties involved in the current conflict.

The group asks Chinese government to keep with the principle of non-refoulement for refugees and international donor organizations to help IDPs with their basic needs for food and shelter.

Aid workers say local Chinese authorities asked refugees living at a temporary makeshift camp at Lung Krawk on the China side of the border not to stay in the camp and told them to stay at friends' and relatives' houses.

Lung Krawk was a temporary camp for Kachin refugees fleeing the war until Chinese authorities sent them back in August 2012.

This article was originally published in Kachinland News on 17 April 2014.

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine


Yangon Switches On

Posted: 16 Apr 2014 10:21 PM PDT

Myanmar, Burma, Yangon, Rangoon, power, electricity, gas, drought, power cut, generator, hydropower

Power to the people: Providing affordable electricity for ordinary people and businesses is a fundamental step in Myanmar's drive to catch up with other countries. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

YANGON — On the industrial outskirts of Yangon, a rusted chimney exhales wisps of white smoke as a three-decade-old gas-fired power station chunters on.

Just meters away on the same compound in Thaketa Township, a low mumble, but nothing in the way of visible emissions, is coming from a row of 16 boxed-up gas-fueled engines—Austrian-produced Jenbacher machines from US firm General Electric.

With new technology like this, there are signs Myanmar is gaining ground in its struggle against the chronic energy crisis that held back its people, and its economy, for years. Less than a quarter of the estimated 60 million population has access to electricity, and those businesses brave enough to set up here despite an unreliable power supply are forced to buy and run their own generators.

The new 50-megawatt power plant is run by Maxpower Thaketa—a local subsidiary of Indonesia-based Navigat.

"You can see that the engine color is green, so you can see we are environmentally friendly," jokes U Henry Zaw Tun, Maxpower Thaketa's business development manager, on a visit to the plant in March.

The machines are state of the art. Their vital signs are watched over on a single computer monitor. To catch problems in their workings before they occur, engineers in blue jumpsuits peer at the screen of a small digital camera, which projects an image from an endoscope inside one of the engines' bowels.

To produce about the same amount of power as the new plant, the old Thaketa plant, a gas-powered turbine generator run by the state-owned Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise, burns twice as much gas, U Henry Zaw Tun says. "And we only use 10,000 gallons of water per year for cooling. They use 300,000 to 400,000 gallons per day!" he says.

With an investment of US$35 million, work was completed in August 2013. In February, Maxpower was rewarded with a power-purchasing agreement under which the Myanmar government provides the gas and buys back the power produced.

The build-operate-transfer agreement, the specific details of which have not been disclosed, will see the site handed over to the government in 30 years. Earlier reports said the contract was drawn up with the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), but it was in fact drawn up bilaterally with the government, although it meets World Bank standards, according to Maxpower.

In a statement to The Irrawaddy, the company said the contract terms had been approved by President U Thein Sein's cabinet and that the government planned to use it as a "template for future power projects" as a new generation of power plants arrives.

Yangon currently sucks up about half of the country's total supply of about 1,850 MW of energy, and demand in the former capital is met by a mixture of hydropower and existing gas generation. In the hot and dry months from March to July, however, demand is driven up by air-conditioners, and supply is shorter as lower water levels mean hydropower can contribute less energy to the grid.

While the government in the long run is looking to exploit the country's huge river network for more hydropower to fuel development, those projects are politically sensitive and take a long time to get online. Two years ago, when the hot season caused widespread blackouts in the country's commercial capital—sparking candle-lit demonstrations—the government put out an open invitation for companies to come forward with fast-track solutions to meet fast-rising energy demand.

Cooking with Gas

Alongside the new Thaketa plant, a new 240-MW gas plant is about to begin producing power at Ywama, with turbines donated by the Thai government.

According to Yangon's state-run provider, the Yangon Electricity Supply Board (YESB), gas generators—one at Ywama in Insein Township, one run by Toyo-Thai Corporation Plc in Ahlone, and another at Hlawga in Mingaladon—are at present producing about 230 MW of power combined. Nationwide, gas accounts for about 550 MW, compared to 930 MW from hydropower, according to the YESB.

But gas is set to contribute more to Myanmar's energy mix, especially as the amount of gas coming onshore increases.

Although existing projects controversially send the majority of the gas extracted from Myanmar's seabed abroad, a proportion stays in Myanmar. The government has promised to keep more of the gas from future developments for domestic use.

The Yangon gas generators are being fueled by Total's Yadana project in the Andaman Sea. The Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal is also now sending gas ashore, and the Zawtika field, developed by Thailand's PTTEP, was expected to start producing this hot season.

The World Bank is funding the upgrade of an aging gas power plant in Thaton, Mon State, which is expected to reach 106 MW. Also in Mon State, Singaporean company Asiatech Energy has announced it has secured funding for a 230-MW gas-fired plant in the state capital, Mawlamyine, to be completed in late 2015.

Also on the horizon is a short-term power-supply project that will see Florida-based company APR Energy install a 100-MW gas-powered plant in Kyaukse, Mandalay Region, to burn gas from the Shwe project. The company lauded its deal to bring a "turn-key" power plant—beginning sometime between April and June and running to late 2015—as a "bridging solution for the medium term while the country develops its long-term power generation infrastructure."

Both APR and Maxpower told The Irrawaddy they were looking to take on more power supply projects in Myanmar.

"We would like to invest further in Myanmar," said Clive Turton, APR Energy's head of business development for the Asia-Pacific region, declining to give details of "several" other projects the company was looking at.

Demand for power is rising nationwide by 12 percent per year, said Mr. Turton, who said he believes natural gas will be an important tool as the country's energy demand grows.

"I absolutely think [natural gas] should be a major part of the solution," said Mr. Turton.

Alongside natural gas developments, the government has numerous hydropower and coal plans, but it is a challenging task to meet rising demand, which could reach 5,000 MW by 2020, according to a 2012 energy sector assessment conducted by the ADB.

The Summer Shortage

U Maung Maung Latt, the vice chairman of YESB, said that despite an expected annual increase in demand of 15 percent, the city would not this year see the rolling power cuts residents are used to. As of early March, infrequent power cuts had begun in downtown Yangon, but not on the scale seen in previous years.

"This summer, both the production rate and the consumption rate will be up in Yangon. Normally consumption is about 800 MW, but in this dry season it could rise to 1,000 MW in Yangon alone," he said. "But the recent situation is that production and consumption are balancing."

Unsurprisingly, given the protests of the past, YESB makes sure residential power demand is met before sending power out to industrial zones. U Maung Maung Latt was hopeful, however, that the city's factory districts would see some benefit from the city's newly bolstered power supply.

"For certain, it won't go back to zero hours of power for industrial zones, like last year," he said. "I can say this year there will be more electricity not only in residential areas, but also in industrial zones. We are receiving more power from gas turbines and dams are saving water through new technology. Also, we're upgrading the national grid and other related power lines."

He said industrial zones would get at least 18 hours of power a day—with power cuts timed during the peak evening hours. That is good news for manufacturers, whose alternative is to run diesel generators.

Industrial Growth Stifled

U Myat Thin Aung, the chairman of Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone, which houses almost 600 factories in western Yangon, said using generators was more than four times as expensive as the state-subsidized power from the grid—costing just 75 kyat ($0.08) per kilowatt hour.

When cheap power is not available, some factories simply close their doors, he said. "If production costs increase, sales profits go down. Eventually, factories have to shut."

Hlaing Tharyar is one of 20 mostly small industrial zones in Yangon that altogether demand about 165 MW of power.

Myanmar's planned large special economic zone projects in Thilawa, Dawei and Kyaukphyu will have their own off-grid power sources. U Myat Thin Aung said some factories were keen to run their own gas-fired power generation, but the government had not come forward with a reliable source of cheap gas for this.

The country's low-cost labor partly offsets the high cost of powering a factory and other infrastructure bottlenecks. Investment in simple, labor-intensive garment factories is reportedly rising, with investment coming from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But investment in heavy industry is yet to take off.

"The electricity shortage in Myanmar is one of the biggest challenges for foreign heavy industry to invest here," said U Myat Thin Aung. "[Heavy industry investment] will stay away as long as the government can't supply enough electricity for local industrial zones."

A Little Help

Since Western countries began embracing Myanmar and its reformist government, the country's power shortage—in the face of abundant resources—has become a favorite cause for foreign donors.

In January, the visiting World Bank President Jim Yong Kim pledged $1 billion in aid and investment over a number of years to help expand electricity provision. Japan's international aid agency, JICA, is developing a nationwide master plan for power in Myanmar.

"All the development agencies spent the large part of 2013 talking to the government about areas of support. They have divided up all the areas that the government asked for help with," said Grant Hauber, the ADB's principal public-private partnership specialist for the Asia-Pacific region.

Donors were setting up as many as 25 projects on power in Myanmar as part of a "divide and conquer" approach to tackling the numerous problems in the power sector, he said.

"A lot of the projects are going to be implemented simultaneously so there will be a fairly significant uptick in grid capacity," he added.

There is also work underway by the ADB and others on improving the national grid to reduce power losses, and to upgrade the national grid's "backbone" to a 500-kilovolt line that can transfer power without losses between Myanmar's north—where the larger hydropower projects will be—and the south—where thermal generation is planned.

This work "will reduce power losses by tens of megawatts," said Mr. Hauber. "It's like getting a new power plant."

This article first appeared in the April 2014 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.

The post Yangon Switches On appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

In Thai Peace Talks, a Challenge to Military Dominance

Posted: 16 Apr 2014 10:07 PM PDT

Thailand, Muslim, south, insurgency, Malay,  Thaksin, Yingluck, Shinawatra

A Thai soldier in the southern province of Narathiwat holds his weapon as people cross into Malaysia on March 8. (Photo: Reuters)

PATTANI, Thailand — At a recent event to mark the first anniversary of a landmark peace dialogue in Thailand's troubled south, the mood was more uncertain than celebratory. The conflicting views of the main parties at the talks—the National Security Council (NSC), heading the Thai government's delegation, and exiled members of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), speaking on behalf of the strongest Malay-Muslim insurgent movement in Thailand's southernmost provinces—were one obvious source of this unease. But beyond this, there were also worries rooted in the attitude of Thailand's powerful military toward such a dialogue.

The words of Maj.-Gen. Nakrob Boonbuathong, a ranking member of the Internal Security Operation Command (ISOC), an influential branch of the military, went some way toward allaying these concerns. "The security community supports the peace process and for the dialogue to find a solution," he told a panel discussion held in a packed lecture room at Pattani's Prince of Songkhla University.

Such words from a general known to be a hawk were not lost on analysts of the insurgency that has bloodied the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, home to predominantly Buddhist Thailand's largest minority, the Malay-Muslims. "It is a good sign, at least verbally," remarked one Pattani-based analyst. "The military seems to have accepted that this process will go ahead and it wants to have a role."

Yet, even such analysts prefer to be guarded, given the military's dominant role in combating the BRN-C-led insurgency and the sway it enjoyed during four previous efforts at peace talks since this latest cycle of violence erupted in January 2004. The latest talks have exposed the manner in which the military has wrested control from other arms of the Thai state to determine the political agenda in this region along the Thai-Malaysian border, making the question of whether it is on board with the current peace process the focus of much fraught speculation.

The turf war over who sets the agenda in the south has come increasingly out into the open since the signing of the "General Consensus on the Peace Dialogue Process" on Feb. 28, 2013, between Lt.-Gen. Paradorn Pattanatabut, head of the NSC, and Hassan Taib, an exiled political representative of the BRN-C. According to Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, the author of reports about the insurgency for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2008-2012, "The military sent a message to the government not to sign the Feb. 28 'General Consensus' with the BRN-C. Gen. Nakrob often said that the army was being kept at a distance by Paradorn and [other allies] of the government."

The extent of this tussle was exposed by a security establishment insider nearly two months after the pact for talks was signed. His timing lent weight to his words, coming as they did just before Paradorn and Taib met for the second round in Kuala Lumpur in April of last year.

In an interview with a local newspaper, Thawil Pliensri, Paradorn's predecessor, decried the lack of a consensus among Thai state actors that matter—the NSC, the Foreign Ministry, the National Intelligence Agency, ISOC, the Justice Ministry and the armed forces.

"All state organizations must be united and adopt the same stance before negotiations," he said. "We have seen that [the] insurgents have made demands about prosecutions and arrest warrants but Army Chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha has dismissed them. This reflects disunity on our side. Such an issue rattles the confidence of negotiators."

That questions over the military's willingness to sustain Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's peace gambit still continue is hardly surprising. It was marginalized by Yingluck's elder brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who, despite living in self-imposed exile after his elected government was overthrown in a September 2006 military coup, continues to advise his sibling from abroad. For peace in the south, the elder Shinawatra turned to his allies within the civilian arm of the security establishment and the police to launch the peace dialogue with the BRN-C. This move challenged the military's preeminent political role in solving the ethno-nationalist conflict in the south.

Two significant benchmarks emerged after Paradorn met the goatee-sporting Hassan in Malaysia, chosen to fill the role of an international facilitator. The first was that the BRN-C was elevated to the status of equality with Bangkok. That dealt a blow to a goal long held by the hawks in the military: to deny the BRN-C or other Malay-Muslim insurgent groups the status of equality with the Thai government. The latter strategy had resulted in the military dealing with the militants in "informal dialogues," often with the aim of reducing violence being a key driver.

Equally significant was the Thai government's public affirmation in the February 2013 pact as to who its armed forces was locked in a battle with, and who Bangkok should negotiate with: the BRN-C, a well-armed insurgent movement that had a political agenda. This broke the wall of silence that the military had maintained to determine the nature of the conflict that, currently, has accounted for 6,000 deaths and 10,700 people injured.

"The past year has offered clear evidence of the existence of a Malay-Muslim rebel movement," a Bangkok-based diplomat told The Irrawaddy. "The narrative of the conflict that the army controlled—about attacks by ninjas, drug networks, criminal groups and unknown militants—has been blown apart."

Such a turn of events marks a rare institutional setback for the most powerful pillar of the Thai state. The military's influence here is not limited to protecting this Kingdom's international boundaries and being on hand when national security is threatened. It also wields power in shaping Thailand's foreign policy towards neighboring Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia.

"Thailand lacks civilian control over its armed forces. During the Cold War, the military became the strongest political institution in Thai politics," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "The friction between the military and elected governments is entrenched. Because democratic institutions are weak, the military in recent years has assertively retaken policy reins in key areas, particularly border conflicts and the Malay-Muslim insurgency."

The post In Thai Peace Talks, a Challenge to Military Dominance appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.