NARATHIWAT — Thai officials say they have repealed the arrest warrants of 22 former suspected members of the separatist movement in southern Thailand in an effort to promote reconciliation during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Chamnan Muendam, the deputy governor of Narathiwat, said the 22 men were wanted by authorities for their suspected connections to local insurgent groups that have been waging a violent campaign to secede the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani and form a breakaway Islamic state.

The former fugitives surrendered to authorities and have abandoned their armed struggle in favor of a peaceful solution to the conflict, he said.

"[We] are proceeding with the government's policy of opening opportunities for those who think differently from the state or those who took up violent methods, and allowing them to return and solve the problems with peaceful methods," Chamnan said. 

Yesterday Thai army officials explained that suspected insurgents charged with crimes under the Emergency Decree, which has been in place in the region for a decade and grants security officers sweeping powers to detain and arrest suspects, will have their warrants revoked if they can prove their innocence.

Speaking today, Chamnan explained that members of the insurgent movement may also be granted legal amnesty if they prove their "innocent intention" by disavowing the violent campaign.

Thai authorities say the program is an effort to promote reconciliation during Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims that began today.

The deputy governor also handed over certificates to the 22 former suspects, confirming that their previous arrest warrants issued under the Emergency Decree have been formally revoked, and they are now free to return to their normal lives. 

The secessionist campaign in Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani – a region known as the Deep South – has claimed the lives of more than 6,200 people since the most recent waves of violence broke out in January 2004, according to data compiled by rights groups.

Thai authorities have responded to the insurgency by deploying at least 60,000 security officers in the Deep South, and maintaining martial law and the Emergency Decree for more than nine years.

BANGKOK (DPA) — When Myanmar began a gradual reintegration into the international community in 2011, after decades of isolation under a military regime, some saw it as a reward for the patience of the regional grouping called ASEAN.

The Association of South-East Asian Nations has a long-established, unspoken agreement not to interfere in members' internal affairs, which observers said allowed it to keep Myanmar on board through years of criticism and pressure from other parts of the world.

The military regime was isolated by Western sanctions, "but as an ASEAN member, it was part of the economic cooperation process," said South-East Asia diplomatic expert Chayut Setboonsarng.

"This regional environment of non-interference and acceptance created an atmosphere of comfort" that encouraged Myanmar to move forward with its reforms, said Chayut, a consultant at government affairs advisory firm APCO Worldwide.

The bloc did take some measures, including barring Myanmar from the rotating chairmanship, but stopped short of threatening expulsion, or commenting openly on its internal politics.

Myanmar's leaders were therefore able to "make credible commitments about their intentions in relation to liberalization and democratization," Catherine Renshaw wrote in the Journal of Southeast Asian Affairs.

Four years on, as ASEAN contemplates ever-closer integration, that non-interference principle has been put to the test by a crisis which many see as having originated in Myanmar itself.

Thousands of Rohingya migrants from Myanmar made global headlines in June, stranded on fishing boats operated by human smugglers, trying to migrate to Malaysia and Indonesia through Thailand, and sometimes abandoned at sea.

Human rights groups say the Rohingya face "desperate" conditions in Myanmar, which does not recognize them as one of its ethnicities and considers them Bengali immigrants opening them up to institutional discrimination.

Indonesia and Malaysia agreed at a conference near Kuala Lumpur last month to temporarily shelter the migrants, but observers said that any durable solution requires the problem to be addressed at its Myanmar source.

Attempts to solve it "without seriously pressing Myanmar to deal with the Rohingya" would be "useless," a member of the Thai delegation to a subsequent regional conference in Bangkok said, on condition of anonymity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first voices to speak out on the record have been from outside ASEAN, in particular Western NGOs and the United Nations, with the bloc's members themselves carefully avoiding the term "Rohingya" during their meeting.

"Citizenship must be the ultimate goal" for the Rohingya, said Volker Turk, assistant high commissioner of the UN refugee agency, adding that Myanmar must accept "full responsibility."

Richard Bennett, Amnesty International's Asia Pacific Director, slammed Myanmar for its "denial that the Rohingya even exist. This cannot be the basis on which to proceed."

Former ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said after the conference that there had to be some change in the status quo.

"The idea of non-interference should have its limitations, or the Rohingya problem will turn out worse for all of us," Surin said.

The problems of the Muslim Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar are "probably internal, but no country in this world has the right to treat people like Myanmar does," said Surin, a Muslim himself.

"ASEAN leaders need to recognize that it's time for the regional grouping to evolve by doing away with its archaic non-interference rules that are not compatible with today's challenges," said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch's Asia deputy director.

"Myanmar's systematic rights abuses against the Rohingya and their absurd denial of those abuses are the rock that ASEAN's so-called 'non-interference' principle may ultimately break on."

Within ASEAN, some have started calling for some revision of the principle.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad went as far as calling for the expulsion of Myanmar from ASEAN.

"Countries like these only give [ASEAN] a bad name," he said.

"If you want to commit genocide, leave ASEAN," he said at an international conference in Oslo in May.

"The fate of the people there needs to be defended from the outside."

(Reporting by Cod Satrusayang)

RAYONG — A 28-year-old man has died in the hospital after being pierced by an elephant's tusks on a beach in eastern Thailand this week.

Weeranat Yoodee passed away on the night of 16 June, twenty-four hours after he and 30-year-old Thongpoon Boonraksatrakul, who remains in the hospital, were attacked by the male elephant in Rayong province’s Noen Phra district.

According to witnesses, an elephant handler, known as mahout, was asking the group of friends to buy sugar cane for the animal when the 5-year-old elephant suddenly struck Weeranat with its tusk and kicked Thongpoon.

"I and other tourists in the area ran for our lives," said Kusuma Laopan, 32, who was with the pair at the time. "Luckily, the mahout stepped in and stopped the elephant, so it stopped harming other people. The mahout then led the elephants away to the other side of the road."

Witthawat Uanduangdee, the 21-year-old mahout, told reporters that he brought two elephants to Rayong from Buriram province last week, and was shocked by the incident.

"I think [the elephant] might have been startled by car headlights and engine sounds," he said.

Police say Witthawat has been charged with violating Thailand’s animal welfare law and negligence leading to death.

Elephants are routinely brought to beg for money in urban areas and tourist attractions around Thailand. Animal rights activists have long-criticized the practice, which was recently outlawed by new animal welfare legislation.

Under Thailand’s Animal Cruelty Prevention Act, which was passed by the interim parliament in late 2014, those caught "causing unnecessary cruelty" to animals face a 40,000 baht fine and two years in prison. Thai authorities have said the law applies to people who bring elephants to beg in cities.