These days, the term 'military/police intelligence' is beginning to sound like a joke - not least for the simple reason that in many of the so-called intelligence reports we hear of, there seems to be precious little intelligence in them!

The latest contribution to this world of non-letters is the so-called intelligence report that has been leaked by the Thai Nation newspaper, which purports to be a high-level document that has recently been left on the desk of Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The report claims that leaders of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) were somehow involved in helping or supporting the opposition groups in southern Thailand. The basis of this claim seems to be a meeting that PAS leaders were alleged to have organised in Malaysia, but PAS insists that such a meeting never even took place.

What seems to be absent from the report is the fact that the recent spate of violence in southern Thailand has attracted the concern and attention of people all over the world, and not the Islamists of Malaysia exclusively.

There are many ways that one can read and react to the Thai intelligence report. The cynical approach would be to simply state that this was nothing more than a feeble attempt at white-washing the recent killings of more than 80 civilian protesters at the town of Tak Bai.

Most of the protesters were killed when they were crammed into trucks and piled on top of one another, then made to endure a gruelling five-hour journey to a police detention centre. Along the way, nearly 80 of them suffocated or were crushed to death in the vehicles. (And the death toll appears to be rising, as reports of more deaths are being made public.)

Attempts to distract attention

Others might argue that this was just an attempt to distract attention from the general breakdown of law and order in Patani, a region that has witnessed long periods of violence and unrest since the 1960s and where the Thai security forces have been behaving with characteristic lack of finesse and even brutality at times.

No one would deny that there are indeed militant groups that now seem to be operating in the region, but for the Thai government to solve this problem it should begin by looking at its own record of uneven development, corruption among police and army personnel and the general neglect that Patani has suffered since the 1960s.

Despite the spectacular development of Thailand in the 1980s (which climaxed with its equally spectacular economic collapse in 1997), Patani remains one of the poorest and under-developed regions in Asean. Is it a surprise, therefore, if there is now a legion of young, angry Thais who feel that they have been cheated of their share of the nation's wealth?

And as for the bogeyman of 'Islamic terror', it should be noted that Thaksin was one of the first Asean leaders to embrace President George W Bush's discourse of the 'global war against terror' and who was subsequently labelled one of America's 'major non-Nato allies' in the world.

President Bush seemed less concern about Thaksin's authoritarian approach though: The violence that is being meted out in Patani is a continuation of the violent campaign against alleged drug dealers and criminal gangs in the country. This was a campaign that led to the loss of more than 2,000 lives and was widely condemned by Thai NGOs for its lack of transparency and disregard for the rule of law.

Sweeping comments

The latest fiasco to the sordid mess in Patani reeks of the same obfuscation and opacity. The so-called intelligence report that has been leaked to the press appears to have been the work of an intelligence officer whose own knowledge of PAS is shallow at best. To claim, as the report does, that PAS is somehow involved in the Patani disturbances as a result of its relative failure at the 2004 Malaysian elections is too simplistic to be taken seriously.

Apart from a host of unreliable statements and data which is clearly wrong, one suspects that its original aim was to find an external scapegoat to blame for Thailand's own internal problems that should have been addressed earlier and with more openness and honesty.

This is not the first time that members of the so-called intelligence community have tried to besmirch the name of PAS. A few years ago another sweeping condemnation issued from the writings of Rohan Gunaratna that other intelligence expert whose book on the al-Qaeda was full of information derived from local Asean intelligence reports.

Gunaratna's work hinted at the possible linkages between PAS and another Malaysian Islamist movement, Abim, to alleged Islamist militant groups in Southeast Asia. (Ironically his book also suggested a similar link to the ruling Umno party in Malaysia). Though the man was taken to task for his sweeping comments, the negative association that tarred the image and reputation of PAS persists.

It should be noted here that PAS despite its conservative neo-fundamentalist ideology is and has always been a constitutional party on the stage of Malaysian politics. There have been many attempts by the state-controlled media to link PAS to other alleged militant groups, ranging from the Persatuan Angkatan Sabillulah in the past to groups like the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM) recently. But in all these cases all we have seen so far are baseless accusations, hardly ever backed up by solid research and concrete facts. This latest attempt to dirty the image of PAS is but one in a long line of accusations.

Demonising PAS

This whole affair should be a warning to the intelligence agencies of Asean, all of whom have been working closely together in the past and all of whom remain equally secretive: No amount of paranoia or exaggeration will alter the fact that the rise of political Islam in Asean has been the result of the political, economic and cultural development of the region.

While some of these Islamist groups may have taken the route to violence, most of them have remained law-abiding and have always operated within the bounds of their country's constitution. Demonising parties like PAS and linking them to bogus militant groups does little to inform the public, erode their popularity, or solve the problem of religious militancy and intolerance.

If the governments of Asean truly wish to address the question of Islamic radicalism in a meaningful way, they will have to start by addressing economic, political and cultural concerns in an open, rational and adult manner.

The government of Thailand should look to its own record of uneven development, corruption, abuse of power and abuse of human rights in Patani before trying to pin the blame on others. While it is true that militancy may be on the rise in Patani today, Thaksin and the leaders of Thailand should ask themselves: What have they done (or failed to do) to allow the situation to get out of control thus?

And Thaksin should also remember that blaming others is not and will never be the answer to his government's own mistakes. Remember, Mr Thaksin: It wasn't PAS who killed those 80 boys in Patani, but your own security forces.