Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08CHIANGMAI154
2008-10-09 09:21:00
SECRET
Consulate Chiang Mai
Cable title:  

SOUTHERN VIOLENCE: CHAVALIT FOLDS; WHO'S DEALING NOW?

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PINR PREL PTER TH 
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VZCZCXRO1961
OO RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHCHI #0154/01 2830921
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 090921Z OCT 08
FM AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0860
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RHMFISS/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0932
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 CHIANG MAI 000154 

SIPDIS

NSC FOR PHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/9/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREL PTER TH
SUBJECT: SOUTHERN VIOLENCE: CHAVALIT FOLDS; WHO'S DEALING NOW?

REF: A. BANGKOK 3033 (CHAVALIT EXITS WITH EMPTY HANDS)

B. CHIANG MAI 141 (SEARCHING FOR WAYS AHEAD)

CHIANG MAI 00000154 001.2 OF 003


CLASSIFIED BY: Mike Morrow, CG, ConGen, Chiang Mai.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



-----------------------------
Summary and Comment
-----------------------------

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 CHIANG MAI 000154

SIPDIS

NSC FOR PHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/9/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREL PTER TH
SUBJECT: SOUTHERN VIOLENCE: CHAVALIT FOLDS; WHO'S DEALING NOW?

REF: A. BANGKOK 3033 (CHAVALIT EXITS WITH EMPTY HANDS)

B. CHIANG MAI 141 (SEARCHING FOR WAYS AHEAD)

CHIANG MAI 00000154 001.2 OF 003


CLASSIFIED BY: Mike Morrow, CG, ConGen, Chiang Mai.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



--------------
Summary and Comment
--------------


1. (S) Mark Tamthai, the RTG's point-man for secret talks with
southern insurgents, told CG October 8 that Deputy PM Chavalit
had resigned after being undercut by the Prime Minister, the
Army, and faction leaders inside his own party. Tamthai
expressed little regret over his departure and the accompanying
death of Chavalit's hastily announced plan to resolve the
conflict in the South. However, Tamthai lamented the likelihood
of continued RTG neglect of the southern conflict. Remaining
players include the NSC Secretary General who is more forcefully
speaking out against dialogue, the Army Commander-in-Chief who
favors a non-military solution but firmly defers to the civilian
government to lead the peace process, and the Prime Minister who
is besieged by domestic political crisis. Meanwhile, insurgent
exile leaders involved in the secret dialogue fear lack of
results could cause them to be eclipsed by hardliners.


2. (S) Comment: Political conflict in Bangkok has left the
secret dialogue on hold, and has caused the postponement of a
Parliament-sponsored conference on southern issues planned for
October 11. A pilot peace plan for Yala city that Tamthai has
championed is also in abeyance. Tamthai remains confident that
insurgent exile leaders engaged in the dialogue are ones who can
influence insurgent commanders on the ground - something he
thinks cannot be said for the variety of other channels that
have recently cropped up. However, he is concerned that
insurgent commanders inside Thailand are becoming more
independent from the exile leaders. End Summary and Comment.

--------------
Chavalit's Death by A Thousand Cuts
--------------


3. (S) CG met October 8 in Chiang Mai with Mark Tamthai,
Director of Payap University's Institute of Religion, Culture

and Peace and point-man for the RTG's secret dialogue with
southern insurgents. Tamthai had just returned from Bangkok,
and said Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyuth had quit
after being undercut by Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, the
Royal Thai Army (RTA),and governing People's Power Party (PPP)
heavyweight Newin Chidchob (see Ref A for more).

-------------- ---
So Who's Handling the South for RTG?
-------------- ---


4. (S) Although Tamthai expressed little regret over Chavalit's
departure, he continues to lament the RTG's neglect of the
southern conflict since interim, coup-appointed Prime Minister
Surayud Chulanont left office early this year. Tamthai provided
a quick snapshot of various RTG players still in the picture:

-- NSC Secretary General Surapon Puanaiyaka is reasserting
himself into the picture, and in unhelpful ways. He recently
addressed a gathering of Thai intelligence officials and spoke
out against empowerment or autonomy for southern Muslims,
asserting that Muslims were violent by nature and incapable of
governing themselves peacefully. Moreover, Surapon continues to
freeze funding for the NSC-led secret talks, as he has done
since taking office last spring. Furthermore, Tamthai worries
that Surapon has the ear of RTA Commander Anupong, as they were
pre-cadet school classmates (along with former PM Thaksin) and
Surapon has academic credentials that Anupong lacks.

-- RTA Commander Anupong Paochinda remains cautious in his
approach to the South, believing firmly that leadership of the
peace process must come from the civilian government, not the
Army. Some interpret Anupong's refusal to push the peace
process as evidence that he is taking an increasingly harder
line toward the South. Tamthai, however, believes Anupong is
committed to the peace process and the need for a non-military
solution.

-- Ministry of Justice Permanent Secretary Kittipong Kiyayarak
was praised by Tamthai as creative and not in the overly
cautious mold of most Thai governing officials. He praised

CHIANG MAI 00000154 002.2 OF 003


Kittipong as pushing hard for judicial reform in the South.

-- PM Somchai is obviously preoccupied with the country's
ongoing domestic political crisis. The three players listed
above all have his ear on the southern issue, with their
conflicting views vying for his attention.

-------------- --------------
Multiple Tracks Lead in Different Directions
-------------- --------------


5. (S) Tamthai pined for the RTG's previous, more coordinated
approach to the peace process under former PM Surayud. At that
time there were three separate but coordinated tracks of peace
talks:

-- Tamthai's RTG-insurgent secret dialogue facilitated by the
Henri Dunant Centre (HDC);

-- a Malaysian-sponsored track focused on economic development
and education, which lost steam after PM Badawi announced he
would step down next March; and

-- an Indonesian-sponsored track that got hijacked by Vice
President Kalla (see para 6).


6. (S) After Surayud left office and RTG neglect of the peace
process set in, new and uncoordinated channels have sprung up,
mostly led by individuals seeking to boost their political
standing with various audiences:

-- a self-serving, feckless "cease-fire" initiative sponsored
by former Thai Army Commander CHETTA in July;

-- the September 20-21 talks hosted by Indonesian VP Kalla,
which Tamthai said mainly involved an old Pattani-based group
that was no longer operationally relevant; and

-- Chavalit's ill-fated effort that was part self-promotion and
died quickly due to lack of support by the Thai army and
government. Tamthai said this also mainly involved a group of
southern leaders who had little or no influence over operations
in the South.


7. (S) Tamthai observed that the insurgent exile leaders
involved in the RTG secret dialogue initially jumped at each of
the initiatives launched in recent months. He read this as a
"sense of urgency" on their part to make progress in the peace
process. He cited three possible motivations for this urgency:

-- the insurgents want to talk to "people who matter" in the
RTG and were trying to figure out who was who in the various
free-lance efforts;

-- they participated merely to scoop up the generous "per diem"
handouts associated with each of the new channels (in contrast,
Tamthai said, the RTG secret dialogue does not provide cash
payments; instead the HDC provides plane tickets and hotel
accommodation for insurgent participants); or

-- insurgent exile leaders involved in the secret dialogue fear
that if they don't deliver tangible results soon, they could get
eclipsed by more hardline members of their groups (one such
group, PULO, has leadership elections soon, Tamthai said).

--------------
Pilot Yala Peace Plan Put on Hold
--------------


8. (S) Despite the sense of urgency Tamthai detects on the part
of the insurgent exile leaders, he admitted that they have
cooled to the pilot peace zone plan for Yala city (Ref B).
Although new RTA Fourth Army Commander Pichet Wisaichorn is
reportedly ready to move forward with the plan, the insurgents
have gotten cold feet because they sense that neither General
Anupong nor the RTG leadership is on board. Thus implementation
is in abeyance. (Comment: The insurgents may also be put off
by the fact that the prisoner release element of the plan has
been dropped, per Ref B).

--------------
Mid-October Meeting Also on Hold
--------------


9. (S) A large conference in the southern city of Narathiwat
planned for October 11 by the Parliamentary Subcommittee on the

CHIANG MAI 00000154 003.2 OF 003


Reduction of Southern Violence has been postponed, Tamthai
reported. The meeting was supposed to have brought together
government and military officials, academicians, and local
leaders to discuss topics such as special administrative zones
and judicial reform. But Parliament has postponed the meeting
for at least 10 days due to political strife in Bangkok, though
the publicly stated reason will be budget issues.

--------------
Secret Dialogue on Hold, Too
--------------


10. (S) No date is set for the next round of RTG-insurgent
talks, Tamthai said. This is mainly due to domestic political
uncertainty in Bangkok, but the funding freeze imposed by NSC
SYG Surapon is also an issue. Tamthai remains confident that
the exile leaders involved in the dialogue are those who can
influence insurgent commanders on the ground. "We've been doing
this for two years now," he said, and the participants have been
thoroughly vetted by the Thai, Malay and Indonesian intelligence
services, all of which "tell us these are the right guys."
However, later in the conversation Tamthai observed that the
insurgent commanders inside Thailand were becoming more
independent from the exile leaders. He would like to get the
"insiders" involved in the dialogue, but admitted that the risk
of exposing themselves made this unrealistic.


11. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassy Bangkok.
MORROW