BANGKOK, 20 July 2005 — Thailand’s Cabinet yesterday imposed the highest state of emergency across three Muslim-majority provinces, despite fears that the draconian powers it authorizes could worsen the insurgency in the deep south.

The decision allows authorities to use tough new emergency powers — including wiretaps and detention without charge — to combat the violence.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the Cabinet had declared a “serious emergency situation” in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces.

“The Thai Cabinet today endorsed the declaration of three southern provinces as being at the highest level of emergency,” he said, adding that only some of the emergency powers would be invoked.

Among the measures now in force are allowing detention of suspects without charge for up to 30 days, as well as searching for and seizing weapons and other materials without a warrant, he said.

The Cabinet would have to approve requests from a security committee to invoke other emergency powers, Wissanu said.

The strict new measures were allowed under an emergency decree hastily approved by Cabinet without parliamentary approval Friday, in the wake of a carefully orchestrated attack on the town of Yala the night before.

Respected former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, who heads a commission set up to restore peace in the south, said the emergency powers threatened to spark an even deeper crisis.

“What I am concerned about is not the wording (of the emergency decree) but its implementation by local officials. In many cases the violence has been triggered by inefficient government officials,” Anand said.

The new powers meant little if authorities did not arrest those responsible, he said, adding that southern residents already mistrust the government.

“The most crucial thing is that authorities must arrest the real killers, not the scapegoats, and bring them to justice,” Anand said, according to a transcript of his remarks released Tuesday.

“In 85 percent of murder cases, the government does not know who the perpetrators were, which shows the government has failed to find the real wrongdoers,” Anand said after his National Reconciliation Commission met late into the night Monday.

A coalition of four media groups swiftly condemned the decision.

“The new powers could create a further crisis which could not be solved,” said the Thai Journalists Association and other groups representing print, radio and television media.

Acknowledging fears that the government could abuse its new powers, the cabinet set up a committee that will accept complaints from residents who believe they have suffered unfair treatment by authorities, Wissanu said.

The Cabinet also set up a fund to compensate victims of violence in the three southern provinces but said it would not receive any government money, only private contributions.

The government has blamed separatists for much of the violence. But others, including Anand, have said the unrest is a deadly mix of separatists, black marketeers, narcotraffickers and official corruption.

At least 820 people have been killed since the insurgency flared up again in January 2004.

In the latest violence five more people were killed, including a rubber farmer who became the first Muslim to be beheaded in the insurgency, authorities said.

Sorma Jaehani, 50, was beheaded early Monday in Yala province, the military said.

This brings to 10 the number of decapitations since early June in the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia.

Four other people were shot dead, including a principal and a janitor at two schools, authorities said.