Army putsch in Thailand

Following the army putsch in Thailand the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) condemned the limiting of the freedom of the press by the new rulers. „The putsch is certainly a step back so far as democracy is concerned in Thailand, but it may perhaps help to stop the violence in southern Thailand“, said the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius. The head of the junta, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin spoke out in August 2006 in favour of starting talks to put an end to the civil war in the Muslim south of the country. The democratically elected government has up to now refused to start negotiations with the Muslim resistance organisations.

For three years the violence in the three provinces of Yala, Narithiwat and Pattani, which are to 80 percent inhabited by Moslems in the south of the country, has caused the deaths of more than 1,500 people since January 2004. On 16th September 2004, when shops and hotels were bombed by Muslim freedom fighters, four people were killed and 70 injured. The Thai army and police, which have stationed a security force of at least 30,000 men in the south, replied in kind to the attacks with terror. Massacres have been perpetrated against the civilian population and Muslims are being subjected to arbitrary arrest and torture. The Muslims have revolted as a protest against their discrimination in this country, which is predominantly Buddhist.

The head of the military junta, General Sonthi, was the first Muslim to be nominated supreme commander of the Thai armed forces. Following a new wave of bombings on 22 banks in the province of Yala at the end of August 2006 he had demanded that the government start negotiations with the rebels in order to put an end to the violence. The proposal was welcomed by the Muslim organisations in southern Thailand, but rejected by the Thaksin government. The reason given was that it refused to negotiate with „terrorists“.

In spite of the inflexible attitude of the Thai government the army took pains to start talks with the Muslim population. So at the invitation of the military some 1,500 Muslim representatives took part at a conference in the mosque in Yala in an attempt to find a joint solution for peace. „It is a sign of hope that the army is beginning to see that there is no military solution to this conflict“, said Delius.