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From left to right, Gen. Sosak Rungsita, Thailand's chief negotiator, Mohd Rabin bin Basir, Malaysian facilitator, and Anas Abdulrohman, lead negotiator of the BRN, at the end of a two-day official meeting in Kuala Lumpur, on Dec. 8, 2025.
Don Pathan
www.stratsea.com
The Deadlock of Divergent Aspirations
On the surface, the statement by the designated Malaysian facilitator for the peace talks sounded promising: Thailand and the rebel Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani (BRN) agreed to work towards an “end state”.
The term emerged from decades of establishment officials asking one persistent question: how will this all end?
For BRN, however, the end state means self-government through a regional assembly empowered to draft its own laws and manage local affairs, including taxation, education and power sharing with the central government. Most controversially, they seek the right to secede from the Thai state.
For the Thais, the end state is something that has to be negotiated.
But after more than two decades of on-again, off-again peace talks, the two sides can still find a common ground to guide the peace process toward a meaningful end. The furthest they have progressed is establishing a framework – the so-called Joint Working Group on Peace Process (JCPP) – under which both sides identified three priorities. These are the reduction of violence, public consultation, and a political solution to end the conflict.
Little progress has been made on concrete details, however.
The previous government, under the then prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatr,a refused to resume talks unless the BRN stopped attacking Thai targets. They also insisted on negotiating only with BRN’s military wing—those who supposedly control combatants on the ground.
BRN countered that violence reduction must be negotiated, and any ceasefire would require monitoring by the international community
Within days of taking power, the government under Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced the resumption of peace talks. No one was certain what he hoped to achieve, given that he agreed to serve only three months before cutting his term even shorter by dissolving the Parliament to avoid a potentially embarrassing no-confidence debate.
Thai and BRN chief negotiators met briefly in November 2025 to prepare for a high-level official meeting on 8 December in Kuala Lumpur. This time, the term “JCPP” was dropped and replaced with the Peace Dialogue Plan Implementation Framework (PDPIF). The content is more or less the same, but the rebranding creates an impression that Anutin’s camp is pursuing something fresh and new.
Rebranding the Stagnation
“But nothing fundamentally has changed,” said Asmadee Bueheng, a local writer and a close observer of the conflict. “Youth activists still face legal persecution for speaking out, and the controversial Emergency Law remains in place.”
This short-lived new beginning saw the end of the role of five international observers who had been brought in to monitor high-level talks but were never permitted to do much beyond observing. For the December talks, a German conflict expert was brought in as a monitor.
The press statement from Malaysia’s Office of the Facilitator for the southern Thai peace talks contained some promising words. But considering the background and context – how this high-level meeting suddenly materialised after nearly two years of no official talks – it is difficult to feel excited about any claims of success.
There were secret meetings, facilitated by Malaysia, to get BRN to stand down during last year’s Ramadhan (from 1 to 30 March), but Bangkok did not have anything to offer.
While a regional assembly may be too controversial at this juncture, other issues such as the Patani Malay ethno-religious identity, historical narrative and cultural space could have been pushed through to demonstrate the country’s willingness to meet BRN halfway.
Instead, the Thai side offered nothing new beyond a different chief negotiator and fancy words that confused more than clarified any meaningful intent.
The Living Memory of Tak Bai
BRN combatants, who have been operating on an autopilot mode in which a set of broadly defined rules of engagement are normally observed, are reminded of the Tak Bai massacre in 2004 when 85 young Malay men died at the hands of Thai security forces. As many as 78 of them died from suffocation because they were stacked on top of one another, and seven were shot dead at the protest site.
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Thailand never made a closure on this incident, as the statute of limitations expired 20 years after the incident, but the security forces continue to pay the price for the incident. The massacre became an important part of the rebels’ narrative.
Based on the public statement released after the December meeting, it appears that the Thai representatives could have taken this chance to respond to the longstanding grievances expressed by BRN and the people of Patani.
In short, the recent high-level meeting itself represents progress only because peace talks had been put off for some time.
But the meeting’s modest output risks creating false hope among local people who want to see meaningful talks resume. It came at a time when Anutin was facing a desperate political situation following poor handling of flooding in the South.
Moreover, his unchecked support for the army over the border clashes with Cambodia could backfire against his mid-size party if the current frantic nationalism loses steam and his base in the northeast begins demanding attention to bread-and-butter issues – or, in their case, rice and fish – as the cost of military operations takes a toll on their livelihoods.
As with the far south conflict, allowing the army to define “national threats” limits the scope of solutions. For more than two decades, this threat perception has confined the peace process to a tiny box of confidence-building measures. It has merely served as a talk shop that never advances because bureaucrats cannot agree on the nature of the violence, much less the needed concession for peaceful coexistence with the Malays of Patani.
Calling it a “conflict” means recognising the historical grievances of the Malay people and legitimising BRN. But calling the combatants anything other than criminals invites counterattacks not just from the hawks but from a public that has long believed official claims that these Melayu fighters are drug-crazed youths who embraced a distorted version of Islam.
The “Criminal” vs “Conflict” Narrative
Yet, even after security officials came to the realisation that they had been barking up the wrong tree – that religion is not the driving force of the struggle, but Malay nationalism – they lacked the political will to explore terms for peaceful coexistence with the Malays. Instead, they relied mainly on military-led counterinsurgency measures.
According to Asmadee, nothing has changed under the current Thai government. The controversial Emergency Law and Martial Law remain in place, and political activists continue facing harassment from security agencies and through judicial channels. Mistrust between the two communities remains high, and an end to the conflict is nowhere in sight.
Moreover, five youth leaders from The Patani, a political action group, face charges of promoting separatism for participating in a public seminar at Prince of Songkhla University’s Pattani Campus, where the issue of rights to self-determination (RSD) was discussed and a mock referendum was conducted.
The participants were asked if they would support a formal referendum on RSD – not independent Patani – if the law permits it. The Fourth Army Area, the command in charge of Thailand’s counterinsurgency in this restive region, was displeased and directed the police to press charges.
Ironically, The Patani is often the group security officials consult – and at times ask to intervene – when addressing extremely sensitive issues with BRN. The Patani criticises all sides – Thai authorities and BRN – when rights are violated, and rules of engagement, civility and humanitarian norms are disrespected.
Anutin will certainly go to the polls in February 202,6 claiming to have accomplished something for the far south—more than the previous government, at least. If his Bhumjaithai Party becomes a coalition member of the next government, the current negotiating team could receive another mandate. Whether they can develop the political courage to be more creative than their predecessors – or convince the conservative establishment to open space for critical dialogue – remains to be seen.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of STRAT.O.SPHERE CONSULTING PTE LTD.
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