A POWERFUL new committee has been created to deal with the conflicts in the predominantly Muslim South under the latest order from the National Council for Peace and Order.

Promulgated in the Royal Gazette yesterday, the order prescribes the establishment of the Steering Committee for Solving Southern Border Provinces’ Problems.

The order does not name any members to sit on the committee, but says the panel will handle the budget for the southern border provinces as well as related policies.

Under the order, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha can also appoint special government representatives to coordinate with the committee, and other agencies such as the Internal Security Operations Command and the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre.

For over a decade, the southern border provinces have been struggling with violence. Bloody incidents take place on an almost daily basis and more than 6,500 lives have been lost so far.

Many agencies including the Fourth Army Region, police, marine, military-led Internal Security Operation Command and the civilian-run Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre sometimes do overlapping jobs and even contradict each other.

The new body is expected to integrate the work and bring the agencies under one unified command.

However, Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan, who is also defence minister overseeing security affairs, said yesterday that there was an improvement in the deep South situation, with statistics suggesting that the number of attacks in southern border provinces had dropped by 60 per cent over the past year.

He insisted that the August 11-12 bombings and arson attacks in upper South were in no way connected to the South unrest.

“There is no link between the two,” Prawit said, although he admitted that some of the perpetrators had come from southern border provinces.

He added that two of the seven suspects wanted for the August attacks had already been arrested.

Prawit was highlighting the situation in the deep South as part of the government’s performance report presentation yesterday.

Security issues will prove to be more relevant to people’s lives in the future, as apparently the issues are not just related to protecting the country’s sovereignty, he said. Security work also covers the battles against drug trafficking, illegal workers, terrorism and transnational crimes, he added.

Drugs, logging and trafficking

Over the past year, the authorities have successfully confiscated 14 million methamphetamine tablets and arrested 2,746 drug suspects. In addition, 44,784 illegal migrants have been deported during the period, he pointed out.

Prawit said security agencies have also fought against illegal logging, arresting many suspects and bringing them to justice.

Authorities successfully seized 27,863 logs and arrested 531 illegal loggers over the past year, he said.

Prawit said Thailand was also working hard on the anti-human trafficking front, with its efforts finally being recognised in the latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. Earlier this year, Thailand was upgraded from the lowest Tier 3 to Tier 2 Watch List.