BANGKOK, 3 July 2013 The Civil Society Council of the Southern Border Provinces has called on the government to continue the same policy for the restive region with more unity while asking the prime minister to visit the area by herself to learn about the problem first-hand.
Chairman of the Civil Society Council of the Southern Border Provinces Prasit Meksuwan said if it was possible, he wanted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is the new defense minister, to travel to the Deep South and take care of problems in the area by herself. It would be a waste of time if the government changed its policy on the southernmost provinces, he added.
As for the BRN insurgent group’s demands, the chairman admitted that many of them were hard to accept but he did not rule out the possibility that the demands might have been misinterpreted. All in all, he said most civil societies in the region had agreed that the peace process would have to go on.
The council chairman also urged the government to step up security during the month of Ramadan, a period when the number of violent incidents often peaked in recent years.
