Has internal security become indefensible?

An important conversation was set off this week when the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council, former house speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, called for the dissolution of the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), questioning not only its purpose but its massive and opaque budget and chequered record.

The pointed recommendation was predictably met with assertions, including from the prime minister, that Isoc remains a crucial and effective force for national security.

Where Mr Wan pointed out highly questionable overspending, grave suspicions of intimidation and violence, and the dubiousness of a military outfit handling domestic issues, the responses he received have mostly remained in the realm of vaguely explaining how Isoc “integrates efforts” for the security of the Thai public.

The respected veteran politician from southern Thailand raised the dissolution idea during a review of the National Security Council’s budget, where he was speaking in his role as a member of the committee scrutinising the 3.8-trillion-baht budget bill for the 2027 fiscal year.

He arrived at the proposal following an examination of spending to tackle the southern border insurgency.

After a measured start, saying “I believe it is time to dissolve Isoc. It has been allocated billions of baht over many years, and we must ask whether that spending has been worthwhile,” Mr Wan dispensed with the niceties.

“I haven’t seen any outstanding achievements by Isoc. It gained attention two or three months before for allegedly shooting an MP.

“Is shooting an MP part of Isoc’s mission? I don’t know. They may deny it, but the suspects have already been arrested, and the case is now before the court. It involved an Isoc vehicle, an Isoc firearm and Isoc personnel,” he asserted.

He was referring to the shooting of fellow Prachachat party member and MP for Narathiwat, Kamolsak Leewamoh, a lawyer known for coming to the defence of southerners allegedly wronged by the state.

The investigation of the failed assassination attempt uncovered a range of suspected links to the security services. The cause was not helped by Lt Gen Narathip Phoynork, the 4th Army Region commander and director of Isoc Region 4, who declared in a hot-mic moment: “If it were me, I wouldn’t let him survive.”

Just as plainly as Mr Wan stated his desire to see Isoc retired, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul bluntly shot down the possibility.

“I made it clear yesterday that Isoc will not be dissolved,” he said when questioned on a visit to the Ministry of Defence on Wednesday.

“It is an important mechanism that enables the government to implement national security policies effectively.”

“Some people see Isoc only as a security organisation, but it also helps improve people’s well-being and daily lives, it is an important bridge between the government and the military in delivering services and assistance to citizens.”

Joining the defence, Isoc secretary-general Gen Chaipruak Doungprapat, who is also the army chief of staff, argued that the command is a necessity, going as far as comparing its function to that of the US Department of Homeland Security.

His justification for the analogy was that Isoc, like Homeland Security, coordinates disparate security agencies and achieves the integration needed for effective domestic stability.

In fairness, Gen Chaipruak assured Isoc is willing to accept criticism but nonetheless brushed off talk that it had duplicate personnel payments. Most of the officers employed by Isoc are seconded from the army and the police.

Nantiwat Samart, a former secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who also served as deputy director of Thailand’s National Intelligence Agency, reacted to the idea in a post reminding that Isoc was first established to serve as the main apparatus to counter the communist insurgency in the 1970s.

Due to its foundations, he argued, the body has an expertise in defending internal stability and is well-equipped to address different types of domestic threats.

Central to his argument was that Isoc has been a “thorn in the side” of the separatist movement in the southern border provinces.

“Politicians are always trying to sever the limbs of state units that stand in the way of their benefits without care towards the interests of the nation, or trying to water them down to the point of being meaningless,” he complained.

“We must not dissolve Isoc. We must not provide a loophole with which separatists can gain a foothold.”

It is possible that Mr Wan is trying to “sever the limbs” of this military apparatus, but it is the same one that just a few weeks ago, was ordered by a court to pay damages to human rights activists smeared by an Information Operation that actively sought to destroy their reputations.

It is the same organisation that has acknowledged compiling a list of “high-value target” Thai citizens, including Mr Anutin himself, for monitoring and scrutiny.

It is the same organisation that regularly requests annual budgets exceeding 7 billion baht to conduct operations that overlap with other state agencies, and to continue a counter-separatist effort that has not seemed to make any significant progress in over two decades.

The arguments may be that Isoc carries out a variety of useful functions, but none address whether it is specifically needed for those functions when other specialised entities exist.

Perhaps more importantly, what needs to be addressed is whether Isoc’s perceived good outweighs the many serious and credible accusations made against it.

That is, unless its actual justification is somewhere within those less than savoury activities?