More concerned about the South than about protecting his job

General News : Monday December 10, 2007

IN PERSON

ARMY CHIEF SPEAKS OUT

More concerned about the South than about protecting his job

Story by SARITDET MARUKATAT

Army leader Anupong Paojinda is more concerned about finding a workable strategy to end the daily violence in the restive South than protecting his own position.

''I take it easy,'' he told editors and senior journalists during a meeting at the Army Auditorium on Nov 28. The possibility of being army chief for only another day or so did not bother him.

The general has not said much since succeeding Sonthi Boonyaratkalin in October and prefers to keep a low profile.

He lets his actions do the talking for him. ''Being Mr Everything doesn't suit me,'' he said.

While those close to him are worried about his future given the rising popularity of the pro-Thaksin Shinawatra People Power party in opinion polls, the number one man in the army is not.

Instead of the PPP, it is the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) extremist group operating in the deep South that worries him the most.

''This group is very influential,'' he admitted.

But the RKK is not the real brains behind the unrest. It is a militant wing of the BRN-Coordinate, the main group causing all the problems in Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and part of Songkhla since 2004.

The BRN-Coordinate masterminds the moves and the RKK executes the destructive strategy and does all the killing.

Gen Anupong has made his intention clear from the start. He went down to the area within days of being named Gen Sonthi's successor.

It is also reflected in the 16-page report distributed at the Nov 28 meeting. It devotes considerable space on how to tackle the instability in the southern border provinces.

What he is trying to do is to create better unity in the command line for soldiers deployed in these highly dangerous areas.

His initial tactics to fight the insurgency call for the rearranging of troops by assigning each army region to one troubled province.

The First Army has been given the responsibility of looking after Narathiwat, the Second Army must take care of Pattani, the Third Army oversees Yala and the Fourth Army's area of jurisdiction is Songkhla.

''The changing deployment strategy gives each army region a specific area of responsibility and will lead to better control of the area, and deter those involved in creating instability,'' he says in the report.

He accepts that there have been shortcomings in the government's fight against the insurgency over the past four years. Troops and police were always told to be on the defensive and that allowed the RKK fighters to hold sway over the fearful villagers.

That has now changed, he said.

Since insurgents also live in villages, they can intimidate the villagers and force them not to cooperate with the authorities.

''Villagers fear them because it's mainly about survival,'' the 58-year-old general said. Soldiers and police come and go, but the insurgents are always there in the villages.

A solution for this, according to Gen Anupong, is to order soldiers, border patrol police and local police to frequently visit villagers and even set up kiosks close to the villages to boost the residents' confidence, encouraging them to turn their backs on the insurgents.

Still, he asked his critics for more time to prove that this strategy will ''cure the cancer'' in the long run.

By : Bangkok Post