It should have been the routine of any normal day for the family of Mrs Rohima Seedeh. Her husband, Ishoh Seedeh, would ride a motorcycle and she sat on the pillion to pick up their two sons, one of them 5-year old Isfan, who studied the Koran at a religious school Muang district of Pattani.

A former core member of the BRN (Barisan Revolusi Nasionale) separatist movement believes that the creation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in the next three years will help ease the unrest situation in Thailand’s Deep South as Muslim youths in the region will turn more attention to education issue than to separatism issue.

Nation Television reporter Sathien Viriyapanpongsa spent his childhood in Pattani. Of late, he wrote a commentary offering his perspective on the unrest situation which has beset the region for nine years since January 2004 with no end in sight.

The government’s decision to invoke the Emergency Decree to deal with protests in Bangkok led by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee has been subjected to heavy criticism from the Opposition, the protesters and human rights advocacy organizations such as Human Rights Watch alike.

The joint meeting at the Government House on September 18 between government and Democrat MPs to exchange views on the government’s handling of the unrest situation in the deep South represents a new chapter in Thai politics that the country’s two opposing political camps have joined hands to tackle the southern violence which has dragged on for almost nine years.