In Thailand's southernmost provinces, violence that represents one of Asia's most opaque and intractable insurgencies appears to be entering a new phase. Separatist militants have killed more than 6,000 people in attacks in the Malay-speaking, predominately Muslim region historically called Patani. On Aug. 9, despite failed attempts to negotiate, Thai National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri announced that Malaysia-brokered peace talks with insurgents would resume this month. Militant leaders from the National Revolution Front, or BRN, had requested just days earlier that the dialogue be renewed. Though the Thai junta may be better positioned than previous governments to negotiate a shift in tactics or a temporary decline in violence, talks will be constrained by familiar underlying issues.
A resolution seemed close in 2013 when former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's administration agreed for the first time to talk publicly with separatist leaders. The talks failed, leaving Yingluck's government clinging to power amid renewed unrest in the capital. Since then, violence has surged. In May there were more improvised explosive device attacks than any other month since 2004. In multiple locations, militants demonstrated increasingly sophisticated tactics and capabilities. They staged coordinated assaults involving diversionary tactics and have scores of fighters as well as IEDs with advanced trigger mechanisms. The majority of attacks have targeted security forces patrolling rural areas, but the militants have also targeted police stations, hospitals, businesses, power and railroad infrastructure, and civilians. Teachers have been particularly targeted because militants see them as an extension of the Thai state's attempts to eradicate Patani Malay culture.
Nonetheless, the Thai military, which historically has refused to sit down with the separatists, appears willing to give talks another try. Still, no matter how much lenience the Thai military brings to the negotiating table, it is unlikely to budge on the insurgents' core demand for self-rule. The military will also likely oppose the creation of a semi-autonomous administrative structure akin to those that helped quell separatist movements elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Historically, controlling the borderlands to protect the Thai heartland was a core geopolitical imperative for Thai leaders. Today, the junta's foremost concern remains the threat of unrest in northern and northeast Thailand, and it does not want violence in the southern regions to inspire violence in the north.
