Word: hassam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...will these initiatives be enough to douse the southern fires, which have burned sporadically since Thailand annexed the independent Pattani sultanate a century ago? Ma-ae and Hassam suggest otherwise. In modern times, the insurgency has been driven by groups such as the Pattani United Liberation Organization (P.U.L.O.) and Barisan Revolusi Nasional (National Revolutionary Front, or B.R.N.), set up in the 1960s. The new militants are more ruthless and, while their youthful ranks overlap with P.U.L.O. and B.R.N., they refuse to publicly align themselves with any insurgent outfit. Their leaders are unknown. In the local Malay dialect, the new militants...
...relates all this in a hotel room, out of public view, fearful of meeting the same fate as his father. Militant leader Hassam is different. A doleful-looking man with an ill-concealed revolver in his anorak, Hassam chooses to meet with TIME in a open-air teashop in the southern city of Yala?a measure of how confident the insurgents have become...
...While most new militants are under 30 years old, their commanders are often veterans like Hassam, who has fought with both B.R.N. and P.U.L.O. and is now in his 50s. Like other old-school insurgents, Hassam accepted a government amnesty in the 1990s, but rejoined the insurgency after Thaksin rose to power in 2001. In the past, he explains, militants camped out in remote hills along the Thailand-Malaysia border; now they live among the people. "Our men in the city have to be smarter to avoid arrest," he says. "But here it's easier to track the movements...
...Hassam says he doesn't want an independent Islamic state?just more Muslims in local government and a cutback of troops and police in the area. But while the fighting continues, says Hassam, anyone suspected of feeding information to the police or military?men, women, teenagers like Ma-ae, even Muslim religious leaders?is a legitimate target. "It doesn't matter who you are," he says. "If you spy on us, we'll take you out." In one district, he adds, his brothers-in-arms have vowed to murder 10 Buddhists for every Muslim death. Such tactics unsettle some veteran...
...future I'm not sure," says the B.R.N. commander. This raises a key question, says Joseph Liow of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore: "How much control do groups like P.U.L.O. have over the violence on the ground?" Not much, suggests Hassam. "We don't talk to the older generation," he says. The juwae, says the B.R.N. guerrilla, "aren't interested in dialogue with anybody. They just want to fight." Such divisions will complicate government efforts to negotiate a cease-fire encompassing all parties. "There are many groups so it's hard to hold talks...