Identity of insurgency
A resurgence in violence by Pattani guerrilla groups began in 2001. The identity of the actors pushing conflict remains mostly obscure. Many local and regional experts have implicated the region's traditional separatist groups, such as PULO, BRN and GMIP, and particularly the BRN-Coordinate (a faction of BRN) and its alleged armed wing the Ronda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK).[13] Others suggested the violence occurred under the influence of foreign Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, but since their modus operandi attacking army depots and schools is not a similar MO to other groups attacking Western targets, most view the connections as weak.[14]
Some reports suggest that a number of Pattani Muslims have received training at al-Qaeda centres in Pakistan, though many experts believe, to the contrary, that the Pattani guerrilla movements have little or nothing to do with global jihadism. Others have claimed that the insurgents have forged links with groups such as the religious-nationalist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines and the quasi-secular Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Indonesia.
At first, the government blamed the attacks on "bandits," and indeed many outside observers believed that local clan, commercial or criminal rivalries did play some part in the violence in the region. In July 2002, after some 14 policemen died in separate attacks over span of seven months, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra publicly denied the role of religion in the attacks, and was quoted as saying he did not "think religion was the cause of the problems down there because several of the policemen killed were Muslim".[15] Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon attributed the attacks on the police to the issue of drug control, as the "police are making serious efforts to make arrests over drugs trafficking."
Thailand
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In 2002, Shinawatra stated, "There's no separatism, no ideological terrorists, just common bandits." By 2004 he had reversed his position, and has come to regard the insurgency as a local front in the global War on Terrorism. Martial law was instituted in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in January 2004.[16]
In 2005, Bangkok Senator Sophon Supapong accused the United States of being the mastermind behind bombings in Hat Yai. His accusations were seconded by Perayot Rahimmula, Democratic MP and professor at Prince of Songkhla University (Pattani campus), though they could provide no convincing evidence to back up their accusation.[17]
In 2006, Thai Army Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin, himself a Muslim, suggested that former communist insurgents might be playing a role in the unrest.[18] However, this is unlikely in that many former communists were incorporated into the Thai Rak Thai Party and hence would have provided other communists with a voice. Governors of the southern provinces showed some skepticism over his suggestion, but investigated the connection.
South Thailand insurgency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
