Don Pathan
Prachatai English
For a brief moment, there was a real fear that the insurgency in Thailand’s southernmost border provinces would relive its bloody past where tit-for-tat violence by government forces and rebel combatants turned the conflict into a bloodbath marked by heavy-handed responses and vigilantism.
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| Insurgents attack Sungai Kolok District Office on Mar 9, 2025 (Narathiwat PR) |
Abdulroning was known as a battle-hardened mentor who helped groom the current generation of combatants who resurfaced in January 2004 in Thailand’s Malay-speaking South after a decade of calm. More than 7,600 people have been killed since the insurgency resurfaced just over two decades ago and the end is nowhere in sight.
Combatants on the ground responded viciously to his killing, going beyond the unwritten rules of engagement, hitting civilian targets and security officials seemingly at will.
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| (Credit: ISOC4) |
The low point came on 2 May in Narathiwat when gunmen killed four, including a 9-year-old girl in Tak Bai District and a 76-year-old blind woman in Chanae District. The elderly women was riding on a motorbike with her son, who suffered a bullet wound, while the young girl and two other residents were shot dead by a group of six gunmen who fired multiple rounds into their house as they were riding by on their motorbikes.
Two days later, a group of activists from the far South crossed the border into Malaysia to meet with BRN leaders to remind them of the commitment and obligations the movement had made to the local people and members of the international community about embracing international norms and humanitarian principles. In fact, the group even signed a deed of commitment with the INGO Geneva Call, in January 2020, vowing to respect children’s rights.
The BRN is one of the long-standing Patani Malay Muslim separatist movements and today controls virtually all of the combatants on the ground.
This latest spike in violence did not come out of the blue, however. In a way it was a reaction to the dismissive nature Bangkok had given the movement when the head of BRN technical team, Nikmatullah Bin Seri, issued a statement on video in December 2024, saying the group is ready to walk away from the peace process and ditch its commitment to negotiate under the Thai Constitution if the government is not interested in talking.
The BRN was led to believe that the talks would resume after the 2023 General Election. But national security issues took a back seat to economic programmes that the Pheu Thai Party-led government was hoping to use to win back the constituency they had lost following the post-election Faustian deal with the political parties they vowed to stay away from.
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| Abdulroning Lateh, 60 (Credit: ISOC4) |
In January, Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai instructed all relevant ministries and agencies to draft an “actionable solution” for the government’s counter-insurgency strategy. He gave them 30 days. Days later, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra made a trip to the far South, visiting Thamavitya Mulniti, a high school in Yala where a number of BRN political leaders had taught and where the late spiritual leader, Sapae-ing Basor, was the principal before fleeing abroad to escape arrest.
Phumtham’s order and the PM’s visit to the far South were wrongly understood as a gesture of goodwill. In fact, Phumtham was already committed to a position that there would be no talks until the BRN ceases its military operations on the ground. Observers said it was like putting the cart before the horse.
In mid-February, the Thai National Security Council sought help from the Malaysian government to facilitate talks with BRN negotiating team about a possible ceasefire for the upcoming Ramadan that runs from 1-30 March. The BRN counter-proposal included demands calling for the release of unspecific number of prisoners, international and local observers of the ceasefire, a reduction in the number of days for the cessation of hostilities be dropped from 30 to 15 days and that Thailand designated a negotiating team.
On 5 March, Phumtham rejected the BRN’s demands and reiterated his position that there would be no talks until the BRN abandoned their campaign of violence. He later added that the government will only talk to those who have command-and-control of forces on the ground. He argued that past talks had been a failure. If the BRN representatives at the negotiating table were legitimate, they would curb the violence on the ground, Phumtham argued.
For the BRN, coming to the table does not mean an end to military options. Reduction of violence has to be negotiated under an agreed baseline. Moreover, the peace talks is the beginning of a very long process, not an end in itself. Last but not least, Bangkok doesn’t get to decide for BRN who comes to the negotiating table.
When it was clear that the political dialogue had exhausted itself, the BRN military wing took over the course of direction and turned up the heat. On 9 March, a ten-strong BRN unit attacked Narathiwat’s Sungai Kolok district office, killing two Defence Volunteers (security details for Ministry of Interior staff) in the gunfight; eight others were wounded. A car bomb set off moments after the combatants retreated ripped through the compound of the district office, sending a brutal message to the Thai government in Bangkok that it doesn’t get to decide who represents the BRN at the negotiating table.
The same evening also saw a double-tap operation in Pattani’s Sai Buri District in which a smaller bomb drew a group of ordinance officers to the scene only to be hit by a much bigger explosive. One officer died and two were wounded.
The already tense situation became even deadlier after the shooting death of Abdulroning. As expected, the Thai Army blamed the BRN for his killing.
Two days later, on 20 April, an 80 kg explosive rigged inside a gas cylinder was hidden in a motorcycle sidecar parked next to the fence of police flats in Khok Khian Subdistrict, Mueang District, Narathiwat Province. It exploded as the officers lined up in formation, a daily routine. A passenger vehicle full of Islamic religious students was approaching. Nine people, including seven children aged between seven and 15, all of them students at a local Islamic school, were wounded by shrapnel.
Separately, on 22 April in Saba Yoi District of Songkhla Province, assailants fired on a pickup truck driven by a police officer who was transporting a group of Buddhist novices and monks. A 16-year-old novice, the son of the officer, succumbed to his injuries in hospital, while a 12-year-old novice, as well as the 70-year-old senior monk, suffered injuries.
On 28 April, two separate attacks in Yala Province resulted in the shooting death of a Defence Volunteer whose vehicle was set on fire in Banang Sata District. On the same day in nearby Tan Tho district, two Border Patrol Police were killed from a roadside bombing that flipped their armored vehicle into an upside down wreck; one other colleague inside the vehicle was wounded.
Another disturbing trend is the BRN’s expansion of its hit list to include the MOI’s Defence Volunteers following recommendations that they take over some of the security duties of regular army units in the region. For the past seven months, the BRN has stepped up its public campaign with roadside graffiti calling on DVs to leave their job.
Defence Volunteers are locally hired security details for provincial governors and district chiefs. They survived two decades of conflict and insurgency by not seeing anything or saying anything. Today, they are called on to provide intelligence to the government’s security apparatus.
All the while, pressures and criticism were pouring in, condemning the BRN for the attacks on civilians. In line with past practice, the BRN does not publicly confirm or deny specific operation or incident; the movement has no identifiable political wing to engage the public and the media. The group lacks a sound communication strategy, thus, leaving the Thai side to control the narrative about the conflict.
But on 5 May, the BRN issued a statement condemning the ongoing violence and reiterated its long standing policy of not targeting civilians. It did not make reference to any specific incident of the recent weeks.
The long road to peace
While Bangkok still insists on talking to BRN representatives who have command-and-control over insurgents on the ground, on 5 May, the same day that the BRN issued a statement about its long standing principles, Phumtham softened his position by saying peace talks can resume as long as the BRN stops attacking civilians.
A government source who works on the southern conflict said the reason for Thailand’s hard-line position on the talks was because Phumtham is afraid that restarting the formal peace talks amid the spike of violence would make Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra look weak. She is already the butt of many criticisms for just about every policy initiative, foreign and domestic.
Publicly, Phumtham questioned the BRN negotiators’ ability to influence the movement they represent when in fact, the problem stems from Bangkok’s lack of political will to negotiate and make concessions to the BRN and the Malays of Patani.
The BRN has time and again, publicly and secretly, demonstrated to the Thais that they have command-and-control over the combatants on the ground. The 45-day ceasefire during Ramadan 2022 was a case in point; a thorough cross-check between the two sides over the years removed all doubts that the Thai negotiators were dealing with the wrong people.
But Thailand has always wanted to deal with the BRN military leaders, believing in their ability to sweet talk them out of the conflict, or at least reduce the violence.
The BRN says Thailand doesn’t understand that to them, the peace talks are only the start of a very long journey. The talks are not an end in themselves. For years, the two sides have been stuck in the “talking shop” mode, unable to move the process beyond confidence-building exercises. Like past administrations, the Pheu Thai-led government doesn’t seem to have the political will to go further.
Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security consultant.
https://prachataienglish.com/node/11397
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