South attacks cost insurgents B85m a year.Locals, businesses are 'coerced' to 'd

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South attacks cost insurgents B85m a year
Locals, businesses are 'coerced' to 'donate'
Published: 12/04/2011 at 12:00 AM
Bangkok Post: Newspaper section: News
 
An umbrella insurgent group in the deep South spent more than 85 million baht on violent actions last year, an intelligence source in the Region 4 Internal Security Operations Command says.

The source said spending by the Barasi Revolusi Nasional (BRN) last year had been assessed by the intelligence unit and amounted to more than 85 million baht. The money came from contributions by drug trafficking rings, local businesses, individual residents and local government agencies.

Residents in certain areas were required to pay one baht protection fee a day, while owners of para rubber plantations were required to pay a 3,000 baht protection fee each month, the source said.

The BRN even has a revenue department. It keeps part of the money for activities in the provinces with the rest going to the group's headquarters. The core leaders also sought financial support from non-profit organisations in Europe and other countries.

Donations from non-profit organisations was intended to support Islamic education in some pondok schools, but the BRN had managed to get a share of the money and spend it on insurgent activities.

As for the Pattani United Liberation Organisation, or Pulo, it had provided the BRN with social support, but was not playing an active role in insurgent actions in the South recently, the source said.

The military intelligence unit also found some signs that southern insurgents could be preparing for violent attacks from mid-April to May because they knew the government was planning to dissolve the House during that time and government officials might not bother to fulfill their duties properly. That would leave the government weak and its policies towards the South would be unclear, he said.

Insurgent groups might grab the opportunity to turn insurgent violence in the deep South into an international issue, the source said.

Meanwhile, Thawil Pliensri, secretary-general of the National Security Council (NSC), said the council would today ask the cabinet to extend the enforcement of the emergency decree in three southern border provinces, except for Pattani's Mae Lan district, for another three months, from April 29 to July 28.

It would also ask the cabinet to extend the enforcement of Section 21 of the Internal Security Act (ISA) in four districts of Songkhla - Chana, Na Thawi, Saba Yoi and Thepha - and Pattani's Mae Lan district for another three months, Mr Thawil said.

Section 21 of the ISA allows suspects to surrender to avoid criminal prosecution. It was similar to the leniency granted communist party members in years past to win them over.

Mr Thawil said security authorities believed the emergency decree and the ISA were still necessary even though Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had said earlier he wanted them lifted.