When the interface between terrorism, extreme Islamism and violent conflict is mentioned, most people would think immediately of the greater Middle East. Many security experts will also be aware of the existence of groups in Central Asia that seem to fit into the same pattern. Much less well known, however, is the case of southern Thailand, where in three provinces collectively known as Patani an escalating and brutal conflict has claimed over 2000 lives since 2004. The violence has already had important political consequences—the failure of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s government to get a grip on it was one reason for the decision by elements of the Thai military to launch a—successful—coup in September 2006. Despite the military junta’s more conciliatory approach to the insurgents in the South, however, the violence has continued to escalate.
As is so often the case, the origins and motives of the Patani insurgency defy any simple explanation. Political, social and economic tensions—some linked with the Thaksin government’s drive for economic liberalization—are certainly present, as witnessed by the fact that officials, monks and teachers as well as government security forces have been among the targets of attack. The violence in Patani also seems to reflect a resurgence of long-standing separatist sentiments and a rejection of the centralized Thai state, which motivated earlier conflict in the same region, particularly from the 1960s to the 1980s. However, on this occasion there is also clear evidence of the influence of Islamist groups and perhaps of the same type of jihadist ideologies as have motivated the choice of terrorist tactics and indiscriminate violence in other, better-known ongoing conflicts. Another parallel with the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, among others, is that the approaches chosen by the official authorities have not always been well judged to contain the violence. The Thaksin government’s espousal of many tenets of the US-led ‘global war on terrorism’ may have helped to destabilize conditions in the Patani region in the first place, and the increasing use of local militia against the rebels seen in recent months is hardly likely to soothe inflamed religious feelings.
This paper is one of the products of a larger SIPRI research project, Conflict, Islam and the State-Nation: New Political and Security Challenges, kindly supported by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In it, Dr Neil Melvin seeks to unravel these different strands of the Patani conflict and to shed light on its dynamics. He warns that the insurgents are now gaining the upper hand and it will be hard to stop the conflict escalating still further. The case is strengthening, therefore, for the international community to intervene, over and above the expressions of concern that have already come from Thailand’s neighbours....
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