Cabinet extends emergency rule in restive South by three months

BANGKOK, Jan 18 (TNA) - A plan to extend enforcement of the government's Executive Decree on Administration in Emergency Situations in Thailand's three insurgency-plagued southern border provinces won Cabinet approval on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said that it was agreed to extend emergency rule after hearing the views expressed by law enforcement representatives from the region.

Effected by executive order of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in July 2005, emergency rule has been enforced three months at a time, and then renewed, ever since.

The former extension was to expire on Wednesday (January 20) but the Cabinet action means it will be enforced through April 19.

The decree gives Thailand’s security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention in the three southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.

Mr Abhisit said he would propose implementation of Article 21 of the Internal Security Act (ISA) at the next National Security Council in February.

Article 21, if implemented, would grant an amnesty to insurgents in the south, so they could voluntarily turn themselves in to the authorities, who in turn would not impose any charges against them.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the Department of Provincial Administration Wongsak Sawadpanich on Tuesday met with the deputy director of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) at Pattani City Hall.

The department will spend Bt263 million to hire 1,140 defence volunteers assigned to the southern border provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and the four affected Songkhla districts, he said.

The Cabinet has already approved the budget. The new volunteers will help provincial officials to provide security in violence plagued areas. (TNA)