Police serving in the South

Police serving in the South

Events in Thailand's far South have effectively have come full circle. With a Royal Thai Police decision to hold a lottery and assign losers to the deep South, the situation in important ways returns to the 1970s. That was when police and other civil servants were sent to the South unwillingly. The result was incompetence and poor job performance, followed by resentment by southerners for becoming Bangkok's "dumping ground", followed by violence and terrorism _ a situation pretty much repeated today.

This pretty kettle of fish arose for understandable reasons. The Royal Thai Police headquarters has to come up with 150 investigators to begin service tours in the deep South in coming months.

There are 30 volunteers. National police chief Adul Saengsingkaew plans to choose the rest by lottery. He figures he will have 4,000 names of qualified detectives available for the "lucky" draw on Jan 7. In this case, the lottery "winners" will get the decidedly undesired assignments to Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani provinces.

Pol Gen Adul claims the lottery is fair to his men because it is entirely random. This seems sensible; there are no favourites played.

A rapidly growing group of police officers who oppose the plan maintain the lottery is unfair because it is so random. They are right, too. Specific qualifications and experience of investigators will not be considered, nor will special circumstances such as family responsibilities.

While this personnel battle escalates inside the police force, no one is mentioning what is important. This public reluctance to serve in the South deepens distrust of the central government among those in the region. Forcing police and other civil servants to take postings in the South creates resentment by those forced to serve, and by the residents whom they are supposed to help.

Next week will mark the ninth anniversary of the outbreak of violence by the gangs in the deep South. As killings, bombings and atrocities have multiplied, it is often forgotten that the 1980s also saw years of terrible murders and barbaric acts. As now, they were carried out in the name of misplaced nationalism and warped religious teaching.

But then, as now, the armed gangs and bandits and self-styled separatists played on real problems and grievances. Thirty years ago and more, a posting to the deep South was considered by the establishment as unpleasant duty, carrying little personal reward. Then, as now, senior officials had to coerce and order reluctant police and civil servants to take up tours of duty in the South. Those with friends in high places never had to go.

The perception rapidly grew that assignment to the deep South was punishment. Residents of the far South believed they ended up with the worst qualified, least motivated and most poorly connected national policemen. Unfortunately, they were often right.

There is a clear connection between assignment and performance. This is especially true for police sent to high-tension, dangerous areas. Yet if there is any chance for proper justice and rule of law in the South, it will come from the best law-enforcement officers of the country.

Pol Gen Adul must sort out the southern assignments better. Senior investigators serving in the South must be both motivated and qualified to help southerners end the violence and build safe lives and communities.

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