BANGKOK, Dec 14 – Village and community leaders in insurgent violence-affected provinces in Thailand’s far South will be asked to lend their hands to the government’s counter-insurgency response, Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung said today.
He said he instructed governors of the four southernmost provinces – Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla – to meet with subdistrict and village leaders to relay his message with a promise of extra rewards if they are successful.
Mr Chalerm has quite publicly only reluctantly assumed directorship of the Operations Centre on Strategic Policy and Solutions to Problems in Southern Provinces, a position assigned to him by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Since taking his cabinet post in the present government, he has avoided travelling to the insurgency-plagued southern region. He said Thursday that he would have turned down the new assignment if the premier had informed him in advance.
The deputy premier said he will meet with Asis Pitakkumpol, a Muslim spiritual leader, on January 7 to discuss the southern quagmire. He also plans to appear on television to address the public on the southern situation
“The Foreign Ministry will be asked to inform the Muslim world about the brutal shootings of teachers in the South so that financial support to the southern insurgents are suspended,” Mr Chalerm said.
He said he will travel to Malaysia and Indonesia to “solve the southern problem externally since tackling it internally alone is not successful.”
