No peace soon in Thai south despite new agency

BANGKOK, Nov 1 (Reuters) Peace will not be restored in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south soon despite the revival of a multi-agency body once credited with keeping stability there, coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin said today.

''Do not set a timeframe yet when the situation will improve,'' Sonthi replied when asked by reporters when the violence would abate after the revived Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC) began work today.

''The area has been left deserted for a decade and it is not easy to restore it in one go because people's mindset has been changed a lot. But I will do my best,'' said Sonthi, the first Muslim to lead the army of the predominantly Buddhist country.

Sonthi was due to travel tomorrow with Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to the region, where more than 1,700 people have been killed in daily drive-by shootings and bomb attacks on both security forces and civilians since 2004.

Surayud told reporters today his one-day tour of the Muslim south, an Islamic sultanate until Bangkok annexed it a century ago, was aimed at hearing people's complaints.

The revival of the SBPAC, dissolved by deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2002 after 21 years of work on rural development and probing complaints of graft and injustice, has been generally welcomed.

Thaksin, now in self-exile in London, said the body was no longer necessary to deal with ''petty thugs'' and disbanded it.

Shortly afterwards, the latest rebellion erupted against rule by predominantly Buddhist Thailand in January 2004.

Analysts said the dissolution of the agency was a serious mistake because the government had cut its link with local people who trusted it.

But they said the new SBPAC would have to be modernised to deal with an insurgency radically different from the jungle-based guerrilla rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s.

Now, the militants, who have never claimed responsibility for acts of violence in which Buddhist and Muslim civilians and civil servants are also targets along with security forces, or set out their aims in public, are based in villages.

Pranai Suwannarath, a senior civil servant appointed to head the SBPAC and whose last director was his brother, said development and ensuring justice were his priorities.

''I will spend most of my time creating better understanding among locals and providing justice,'' the Bangkok Post newspaper quoted him as saying.

REUTERS MS KP1331