Peace Building in Southern Thailand

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Peace Buildingin Southern Thailand

• Abdulghani Suetair
• Asst. Director of
• College of Islamic Studies
• Prince of Songkla University

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Conflict area of Southern Thailand
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The situations in Southern Thailand

• Southern Border provinces
• There are 33 districts in Pattani, Yala and
  Narathiwas provinces
• 10,927 Square Kilometers
• Total Population is 1,748,682
• Muslim 1,386,880 (80)
• Buddhist 351,367 (20)

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• The Southern Border provinces defined by the
  government is consisted of 4 border provinces
  namely, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwas and Satun and
  including some districts of Songkhla province
  namely Thepa, Sabayoi, Nathawi and Chana
• 44 districts and 16,409 Squarekilometers
• Muslims 62

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• The popular needs of the Muslims in the south is
  right and freedom to practice their own religion
• The problems facing by the Muslims 80-90 goes
  to
• Poverty
• Injustice
• Communication with Thai officials
• Problems caused by the Thai officers

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Statistics of the violence

• From January 4, 2004 February 16, 2007 violence
  happened 6,272 times in 293 villages (78 of 4
  provinces)
• Injured and dead 5,285 persons Buddhist 3,134
  (59.14) Muslims 2,054 (38.76)

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• General Situation in 2007
• The violence happened in 3 provinces 1,228 times,
  average 3.4 times /day
• Injured 2,362 persons or average 6.5 persons /day
• More than one forth of this number dead, average
  1.7 persons/day
• - The most critical area is Muang Yala District
  where most of the incident happened on the local
  road during 7.00 am -9.00 am and during 8.00
  pm-9.00 pm
• - Two third between 15-44 years and more than
  80 male
• - Buddhist 57 and Muslim (63)

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Possible Root Causes
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Conflict Actors
People
Insurgents
State/ Government
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Challenges for peace building

• Prevent newly emerging minor armed conflicts from
  becoming full scale wars
• Prevent all types of conflicts from becoming
  violent
• Socialization and Institutionalization of
  peace and peaceful ideals
• consultation?

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Actors approaches to peace building
Elite
Top leaders
High-level negotiations
Middle-level leaders
Problem-solving workshops
Grass-roots leaders
Local peace commissions
Society
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Peace building strategies

• Developing a peace inventory
• Who is doing what kind of peace activities? By
  doing joint research convening a conference
• Creating better channels coordination
  vertically horizontally
• Organising peace donors conference
• Relay / share information
• Coordinating activities

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Southern Thailand Peace Network(STPN)

• Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani Campus
• Prince of Songkhla University, Hadyai Campus
• Yala Islamic University, Yala Province
• Thaksin University, Songkhla Province
• Hadyai University, Songkhla Province
• Yala Ratjaphat University, Yala Province

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STPN ACTIVITIES

• Establishment of Student Peace Club in every
  university
• Training student leaders in peace studies and
  conflict management
• Development of peace curriculum among STPN
  members
• Organizing peace national and regional seminars
  and conferences

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Role of Collage of Islamic Studies, Prince of
Songkhla University in Peace Building
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Students activities for peace building,jointly
organized with STPN members from various
universities

• Teaching and encourage for prisoners
• - Youth under 15 years old who involved with
  drug and violence
• Programs of interfaith dialogue
• - Muslim - Buddhist student interfaith dialogue
  within university
• -Between Muslim and Buddhist student leaders
  from Thailand and student leaders from Malaysia

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• Lecturers Activities for Peace Building
• - Project Thai-Malay intellectual dialogue
• - International peace seminar
• In 2007 seminar on Peace Building from
• various experiences
• - Project joint research working between CIS
  (Thailand) and UUM (Northern University of
  Malaysia)
• -Teaching and workshop for conflict
  resolution conferences and seminars

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• CIS Executive Committee Activities
• - To advice and give attention to every
  government policy which dealing to the conflict
• - To be representative of Muslim community in
  Thai parliament
• - Establishment of grassroots leader network

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Grassroots Activities

• Understanding the pure teaching of Islam
• Youth Training Camp
• Children Training Camp
• Women Short Course Training
• Religious sermon Friday and Eid al Fitri and
  Eidil Adha

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Thank you for kind attention

• Please feel free to contact me at
• Abdulghani_suetair_at_yahoo.com