A peace dialogue process between the government and Malay-Muslim dissidents to bring about peace and unity in the deep South must be fluid and ongoing, says an ex-member of the Thai negotiating team, Gen Nipat Thonglek.
A former deputy permanent-secretary for defence, Gen Nipat was appointed a member of the Thai negotiating team under chief delegate Lt-Gen Paradorn Pattanathabut, then secretary-general of the National Security Council (NSC), in 2011.
He was optimistic the peace process in the deep South was moving forward once again under the current negotiating team chief Gen Wallop Raksanoh, former NSC secretary-general.
"To accomplish the task, rounds of peace dialogue must be held until all the parties concerned are satisfied with the resolutions and agreement on their talks.
"From my experience when I had the opportunity to attend meetings with these dissidents..... all want to see their people in the deep South enjoy a good quality of life and strong health so they will be better able to spend their lives normally.
"All want to see their people in the deep South enjoy a good quality of life and strong health so they will be better able to spend their lives normally." -- Gen Nipat Thonglek, an ex-member of the Thai Negotiation Team
"They want to see their children have a better education and their people get the sleep they need each night and have enough food to eat," he said.
Gen Nipat was recently invited to share his experiences as a former vice chairman of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) after it was launched in September 2005. He was speaking via an online forum to Class XI students on a peace building course from the King Prajadhipok's Institute (KPI).
The AMM was deployed by the European Union after the "Memorandum of Understanding between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement" was signed on Aug 15, 2005 in Helsinki, Finland. The AMM is one of many missions under the European Union (EU)'s Common Security and Defence Policy.
The AMM was formed to monitor the peace agreement set out in the MoU. The EU and five contributing countries from Asean (Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Singapore), Norway and Switzerland, provided monitors for the peace process in Indonesia's Aceh. The AMM undertook the mission to contribute to a peaceful solution to the conflict in Aceh until December 2006.
At the online forum, Gen Nipat was also asked to present how he had used his experience working with the international mission to help bring about improvements in the far South when he was a member of the Thai negotiating team, to hosting talks with southern separatists, and how Malaysia as the facilitator had performed its duty.
Gen Nipat said his team led by Lt Gen Paradorn had laid foundations for the government's current peace negotiating team. Some methods to help return peace to Aceh were raised for talks at the meetings with the southern rebels such as the introduction of a safety zone project, de-escalation of violence and withdrawal of military officers.
Gen Nipat said he asked Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) to help design such a safety zone which would be free of violence for a period of 15 days and asked the BRN to tell the separatists to scale down their attacks.
He said the idea was the basis of the government's current peace negotiating team declaring safety zones in the deep South while the government has withdrawn about 50,000–60,000 soldiers. "I see the number of attacks and casualties is falling when compared with past years," he said.
Gen Nipat attributed this success to the government's decision to bring state officials and southern separatists to the negotiating table. Malaysia had performed well as the talks negotiator, largely thanks to former prime minister Najib Razak, who threw his support behind the talks.
He said the former Malaysian premier had agreed with a proposal by then Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to establish peace talks between the Thai government and southern separatists. The talks, launched a decade ago, now involves the government and MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation of Malay-Muslim separatist fronts from southern Thailand.
According to the Deep South Watch Database, the conflict in the deep South claimed 7,224 lives and 13,427 injuries since the separatist movement re-emerged in early 2004 to February 2021.