By Max Constant
BANGKOK
An expert on Thailand's southern insurgency has underlined that Muslim insurgents frustrated by the lack of progress in creating a Muslim homeland in Thailand's south may now be looking to expand their fight outside of the traditional conflict area.
The suggestion follows the release of a report by Matthew Wheeler, a researcher in Thailand for the International Crisis Group, which detailed bomb attacks July 8, 2013 in Bangkok and in April 2015 on the southern island of Koh Samui in which Malay Muslim insurgents were involved.
“Considering that most militants have been engaged in the insurgency for a decade or more and that they are not much closer to achieve their goal, they could look for alternative tactics to put pressure on the government in Bangkok,” Wheeler told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.
“After a decade of violence in the southernmost provinces, the diminishing returns of the militants’ standard repertoire could encourage a quest for more leverage through ‘out-of-area’ attacks,” the report said.
But the author, who insisted that the hypothesis of a tactical change was still speculative, said that the move - if confirmed - would be fraught with risks.
“These kind of attacks would certainly attract the attention of western powers who are observing very closely the rise of the Islamic State [Daesh],”he said.
“The Malay Muslim insurgents may be anxious to avoid this. Up to now, they have been attempting to keep the moral high ground by showing that they are fighting in their ‘homeland’.”
The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between the Malay Muslim living in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and some districts of Songkhla, and the Thai central state where Buddhism is de facto considered the national religion.
Armed insurgent groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but went quiet from the end of the 1980s, but in 2004 a rejuvenated armed movement – composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) or National Revolutionary Front – re-emerged.
Since then, the 6,400 people have been killed in the conflict and over 11,000 injured, making it one of the deadliest low-intensity conflict on the planet.
Wheeler underlined Monday that a number of positive outcomes had arisen from a 2013 dialogue engaged by the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra.
Unfortunately, it was suspended in December of that year because of the political tensions in Bangkok.
“The fact that the [then] Thai government declared publicly that it was in favour of a negotiated settlement is an important step forward. Also, the insurgent side was forced to articulate a political agenda,” he added.
The May 22 coup, however, has added more uncertainty to a possible peaceful solution to the conflict, even if the military has claimed that its is committed to pursuing talks.
But an approach analysts see as narrow and nationalistic by the regime - along with its rejection of all forms of devolution of power for the southern region - has dampened hopes of rapid progress.
Wheeler agrees, saying “Is a difficult environment to talk about substance."
"But there is scope to talk about procedure,” he adds.
“For instance, there can be progress on how the parties should refer to each other, in a way that both sides could accept. It would help for future talks when the environment is more favourable," he said.
In last week's ICG report, one of the groups' many recommendations was that the Thai government “recognize an official dialogue process with Malay militant groups as a national-agenda priority, endorsed by the National assembly.”
It also called for militant groups to “recognize that self-determination is compatible with preservation of Thailand’s national integrity.”
