Thailand not yet decides on Muslim insurgents' demand

The leading Muslim insurgent group should formally submit their demands to Thai authorities on the negotiation table, not on Youtube, the Thai authorities said Friday. Thailand cannot agree on any demand since the demands have never been raised and discussed in details during the peace talks before, said Gen Prayuth Chanocha, Thai army commander-in-chief, representing Thailand's security agencies concerned with the southern insurgency at the press briefing Friday evening. After several months of peace talk between Thailand and The Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), a leading insurgent group representing militants in violence-plagued restive southern border provinces of Thailand, the BRN in early August announced on video sharing website Youtube that it would halt the peace talks until Thai authority showed a clear stance toward its five-point demand, earlier posted on Youtube. The demand includes: the Thai government must accept the role of Malaysia as mediator, not just facilitator, the talks will be attended by representatives from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will be allowed to witness the talks and the Thai authorities must release all detained insurgent suspects. In the next peace talk in September, Thai authority will raise the issue of the five-point demands with the BRN, discuss in detail and will later decide what can and cannot be agreed, Prayuth said. "We see the need to pursue the peace talk with the BRN," said the army commander-in-chief. "We insist that we have leverage over the BRN on the peace talk. They want to talk with us as they know they cannot achieve their goal because they are losing acceptance from local people," he said. More than 5,000 people have been killed and more than 9,000 injured in over 11,000 incidents, about 3.5 incidents a day, in Thailand's Muslim, ethnic-Malay dominated three southern border provinces -- Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla since separatist violence erupted in January 2004, according to Deep South Watch, which monitors the regional violence.