Village, Headmen, Southern, Thailand, didn’t, care, about, death, anymore”

Deep South Watch have translated to English an interesting interview with a village headman in Rueso District in Narathiwat Province in southern Thailand - original in Thai here. By way of background, in 2007, there were on average 70 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Rueso. This compares with Australia 1.28, UK 2.03, US 5.9, and Thailand 8.47 - see here for the details).

His name is Dee. He is a Muslim. He is only 28 and took over the role of village headman from his father who was killed by insurgents. He lives in a near fortress with sandbags surrounding the house. He has been attacked four times, either been shot at or from an IED. Now, he seeks to fight back against the insurgents:

After 4 attacks against him, in which he betted on his own life, now, the village headman of Baan Salobukit has decided to openly fight against the people who wants to take his life. In general it looks like the target is the young village headman, but Leader Dee said if we carefully consider the incidents in the context of the three southernmost provinces conflict, all the village headman’s life is at a high risk. If the position of the village headman is torn down and destroyed, the village will be in chaos. The villagers will feel unsafe and confuse.

“They want to get rid of leaders that villagers respect and believed in. If the villagers have no such leader, the villagers will have no one to protect them. This way, they can put more influence and pressure to the villagers.” He commented to the clean up phenomenon of village leaders in the three southernmost provinces which he is also one of the targets.

He stated that “the villagers will follow the insurgents by, 1) The distortion of religious and 2) Villagers cannot choose. The villagers will listen to whoever won.”

Leader Dee commented that he believed everything can be solved if only the leaders show strength and leadership to protect everybody’s life. 

BP: In essence, he stands up and makes himself more of a target - as a symbol of authority, he is already a target. 

He also mentions on the root cause of some of the violence:

The conflicts occurring in the Deep South according to Leader Dee’s view is not 100% only about the separatist movement. He believes that the root cause of conflict is highly more related to local politics.   

“Frankly speaking, politics and elections are related to building its own mass for the vote and power. These people fuel more violence to the situation. They kill, shoot and raise gunmen. They share interest with the movement and they use the separatist to destroy their political rival. These people are building power for their own sake. I will beat them.”   

 He also dared to state that the separatist movement has a relationship with the illegal trade business group especially drugs business in order to gain money for supporting their struggle. Moreover, businesses that rely influence such as contractors, they will attempt to destroy their competitors. Leader Dee gave an example; the influential person will distort religious teaching to deceive the teenagers in using violence to its rival; burning schools or government office buildings is also related to the benefits from the budget of the new construction.

BP: An interesting interview. On the role of rival politicians and non-insurgent violence in the Deep South, see this post. One problem in discerning whether it is insurgent violence, as mentioned in that post, is that victims of insurgent violence receive state compensation - so whenever there is doubt pressure is placed on the authorities to label it as insurgent violence - and the overlap in the perpetrators:

BP thinks there is an overlap between insurgents and other criminal gangs. First, the same people who perpetrate acts of violence (usually young males under the age of 30) are also the same age group for people who are involved in criminal gangs and from what BP has heard privately some are involved in both (ie freelancing). Second, money to fund the insurgency doesn't grow on trees either so one way to make money is through protection rackets and smuggling.