New Government in Thailand Struggles to Defeat the Insurgency
FEBRUARY 2009 . VOL 2 . ISSUE 2 New Government in in 2007. In July of that year, the Thai monarchy, he pledged to implement army chief, General Anupong Paojinda, greater civilian oversight. Abhisit spoke Thailand Struggles to launched his own “surge” in order to of the Democrat Party’s deep ties to the Defeat the Insurgency suppress the violence. Following the south, their traditional stronghold. drafting of a new constitution and the He reiterated the failed pledges of the By Zachary Abuza restoration of democracy in December Surayud regime to engage in samanchan, 2007, a government comprised of or reconciliation. “My basic assumption since the september 2006 coup in Thaksin’s former Thai Rak Thai Party is that you will never have reconciliation Thailand, attention has been focused on emerged under Samak Sundaravej, re- unless there is justice,” he said before the country’s rapid political turnover branded as the People’s Power Party his one-day trip there in mid-January. and instability. Yet the Malay-Muslim (PPP). Fearful of another coup, Samak “The same principle applies to the insurgency in the country’s three and his successor, Somchai Wongsawat, south.”3 This does not bode well for the southern-most provinces of Pattani, had a completely hands off policy in south and suggests that little progress Yala, and Narathiwat has continued the south, letting the military have full will be made under the leadership of unabated. The new government in control. Both offered no resistance to not the Democrats in the coming years; Bangkok has stated that resolving the only the military’s massive budgetary they still fail to see the insurgency insurgency is one of its top priorities, expenditures, but two waves of major for what it is, not acknowledging the and it has spoken of the need for weapons acquisitions, the vast majority goals of the insurgents to establish an reconciliation and social justice.
[Show full text]