The Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand

Authors:Jayshree Bajoria, Senior Staff WriterCarin Zissis Over the past four years, an insurgency in Thailand's southern, predominantly Muslim provinces has claimed nearly three thousand lives. The separatist violence in these majority Malay Muslim provinces has a history traceable back for more than half a century. Some experts say brutal counterinsurgency tactics by successive governments in Bangkok have worsened the situation. Political turmoil in Bangkok and tussle between supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the country's military have further contributed to the instability, working to stymie any serious initiatives...

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Tak Bai massacre anniversary: 15 blasts in Yala, Thailand South

Photo By STRINGER/THAILAND/REUTERS Yala - Suspected Muslim insurgents caused more than a dozen co-ordinated explosions on Tuesday in a town in Thailand's troubled south, killing at least one civilian and two militants, a local official said.Fifteen blasts were heard across Yala, causing chaos according to the town's governor Krisada Boonrach. He confirmed three deaths, including two militants  who were killed when what were thought to be home-made bombs exploded prematurely.An AFP photographer at a local hospital said more than 50 wounded people, some in a serious condition, had arrived for medical treatment after the attacks, which caused...

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When will we really understand the South?

Politicians are afraid to admit that the southern insurgency is a historical,   not criminal problem This has not been a good week for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is planning to make his first trip to the deep South since taking office last month. First, there was the posting of an amateur video on YouTube showing a group of gun-toting Thai soldiers kicking, punching and slapping what appeared to be a helpless Malay-Muslim teenager. The clip was posted under the title "Pattani  menangis", which, in Malay, basically means, "Pattani in tears", with a flashing statement saying, "This is how they investigate suspects in...

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Talks the only way forward for southern Thailand

In her customary birthday-eve address last Thursday, Thailand's Queen Sirikit told prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra one of her top concerns was the ongoing violence in the south. Ms Yingluck has proposed a similar degree of autonomy for the region as in Bangkok and Pattaya, which elect their governors. In other provinces, governors are appointed by Bangkok. But army chief general Prayuth Chan-ocha has publicly called the idea ''premature.''  Talks in various regional capitals between a government backed delegation and representatives of southern Malay Muslim insurgent groups, are paused because of the change of guard in Bangkok. But analysts...

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Analysis: A debate over autonomy in Thailand's restive south

YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - The motorcycle bomb burned the 27-year-old woman so badly her father only recognized her by a tattoo. She lost half her face and an arm in the attack by shadowy Muslim separatists in Thailand's troubled deep south. "The wound was awful. She must have suffered enormously," said her father, Athorn Buakwan, a Buddhist farmer, as he held a framed photograph of his daughter and recalled his frantic search for her on the afternoon she was killed and 17 others were wounded in a market in the capital of Yala province. That February 21 attack is one of many illustrating the growing sophistication of a Muslim insurgency...

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From Gold Leaves to Minaret

The intersecting calls of the muezzins pierce the sweltering equatorial air as Ahmad Abdurrahman, imam of Narathiwat's central mosque, arrives on a racketing and underpowered moped to lead the noon prayer. "We're 80 percent Muslim here," he says, with an engaging smile.Climb to the top of the minaret of Abdurrahman's modern, almost futuristic, mosque and he will show you a stunning view: palm-fringed beaches running along the South China Sea, wooden fishing boats moored in jostling huddles in the creek and lush plantations of oil palms and rubber trees that stretch to a mountainous horizon.This is Thailand, and it looks like paradise - complete...

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