After a two-year hiatus in talks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first half of 2022 has seen quantifiable progress in the peace dialogue between Thailand’s government and separatist rebels based in the country’s Muslim-majority south. Since the beginning of the year, two rounds of formal negotiations have been held in Kuala Lumpur, in a Malaysia-facilitated process that has seen the government’s Peace Dialogue Panel, or PDP, meet face-to-face with leaders of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, the most powerful rebel group in southern Thailand.
The latest meeting, which concluded on April 1, led to a 40-day truce that covered the holy month of Ramadan and the Thai New Year, or Songkran. The festivities were held without incident, as the army and BRN avoided clashing, building momentum ahead of a third round of dialogue scheduled for July or August.
But there are signs that not everyone in the south is on board with the peace process. On April 15, the Patani United Liberation Organization, or PULO, an older rebel group whose remnants had been inactive for half a decade, disrupted the truce with a double bomb attack in Sai Buri, a district located in Pattani province. The first explosion killed a fisherman, while a second device injured three police bomb-disposal officers responding to the scene. PULO’s leader, Kasturi Mahkota, told local news outlets that his fighters did not approve of the recent talks involving BRN and vowed to fight for full independence rather than autonomy, which many suspect will be the most likely endpoint of the current talks. Then, less than two weeks after the truce ended on May 14, BRN fighters attacked a police station in Tak Bai, a district in Narathiwat province, with rifles and grenades, marking the first attack by the group in months.
The PDP and Malaysian facilitator Abdul Rahim Noor have stressed publicly that these attacks will not affect the peace process. Yet these incidents demonstrate that disunity on the rebel side—in the form of attacks by groups excluded from talks, like PULO, or by rogue BRN fighters fearful that their leadership will negotiate a resolution short of full independence for the south—could raise the stakes at the negotiating table, at a time when a breakthrough appears more likely than at any stage in the conflict’s six-decade history.
Until the recent productive dialogue, which followed initial talks with the BRN in early 2020, all past efforts to resolve the conflict bore little fruit. The insurgency has its roots in the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty, which effectively demarcated the modern-day border. In so doing, the territories that once formed the Islamic sultanate of Patani—which was annexed by the Kingdom of Siam, Thailand’s predecessor, in 1786—were split from Muslim-majority Malaysia. Muslims in the southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and parts of Songkhla have waged an armed struggle against Bangkok’s rule since the 1950s, with the conflict intensifying after a military crackdown in the mid-2000s. A peace process involving Mara Patani—a loose umbrella grouping of southern rebels—saw talks take place from 2014 to 2019, but those efforts ground to a halt as Mara Patani negotiators were unable to stem the tide of BRN attacks.
Identity politics as a source of conflict in the region have now become deeply rooted. The state’s promotion of Buddhism as the official religion has hardened attitudes among many Muslims, who account for 85 percent of the population in the south and reject forced assimilation. The pervasive militarization of the region also fuels tensions. Under emergency laws in place since 2005, the military oversees a network of security checkpoints and has the power to detain suspected rebels for 30 days without charge. Allegations of torture and mistreatment in custody have driven mistrust and left Malays fearful of suspicion by association.
The Thai government maintains that attacks will not impede dialogue and that it is willing to talk to all actors in the conflict.
This legacy has been compounded by economic marginalization: Narathiwat and Pattani are the poorest provinces in Thailand, with a poverty rate of 34 percent, compared to 6 percent nationwide. And while Bangkok and the country’s tourist islands have boomed over the past 20 years, agriculture and construction remain the major industries in the south, with a lack of job prospects leaving young men vulnerable to rebel recruitment in pursuit of a wider cause.
The current dialogue, with the BRN as the sole negotiating party, stands more chance of success than the last failed peace process, as the group is thought to control most of the fighters on the ground, believed to number around 3,000. The first two-day round of talks in January resulted in the formation of a joint working group to discuss political solutions, public consultation and violence reduction. The second round, from March 31 to April 1, led to the Ramadan cease-fire, which held firm—unlike a similar truce agreed at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, which was broken within weeks.
The recent truce was aided by gestures of goodwill from the military, which suspended all arrest warrants and raids on rebel hideouts, while allowing BRN fighters to visit their families unimpeded during Ramadan. This broke cycles of local retaliatory violence, which have been a major feature of the conflict. The attendance at the talks for the first time of Deng Awaeji, a senior figure from the BRN’s secretive military wing, also proved to be key.
This rare backing of a peace initiative by the BRN’s military wing signaled to rebel fighters that they should halt operations, but its influence clearly did not extend to all factions. The April 15 bomb attacks by PULO—a largely dormant and small group that had once led the southern uprising until the BRN usurped its dominant position two decades ago—served as a deadly reminder of the group’s existence and latent capabilities.
In addition to insisting on independence for the southern territory, PULO leader Kasturi Mahkota said after the blasts that the Thai panel “must negotiate with all groups,” adding that “Patani doesn’t belong only to the BRN.” He also warned that PULO is unwilling to engage in talks under the framework of the Thai constitution, which enshrines the nation as “one and indivisible Kingdom,” thus ruling out a breakaway state in the south. While PULO claims to have trained more than 2,000 combatants over the past five years, its strength is uncertain, and an unnamed military source told Benar News it has only a few dozen active fighters.
Arguably more worrisome was the assault on May 25 by BRN forces on a police riverine patrol base on the Kolok River in Tak Bai district, along the Malaysian border. This attack was well-planned and orchestrated, with rebels first felling electricity pylons and laying nail spikes along the road to deter responders, before throwing pipe-bombs and opening fire with automatic rifles. Two police vehicles were destroyed by fire and three officers wounded in a prolonged three-hour ambush, the intensity of which was clear from videos captured by local residents and posted on social media. Though BRN members claimed responsibility online, it is unlikely the attack was orchestrated from above, highlighting the potential for the tactical autonomy enjoyed by BRN fighters—who operate via small, cell-like groups—to disrupt talks.
The Thai government maintains that attacks will not impede dialogue and that it is willing to talk to all actors in the conflict, while Malaysia is ready to facilitate an expanded peace process. But in an email to Reuters after the PULO blasts, the PDP cautioned that “the bringing together of groups for the peace dialogue is an internal matter for the other side,” making clear Thailand’s stance that the BRN, as its primary interlocutor, is responsible for persuading all factions in southern Thailand to come to the negotiating table.
According to the BRN’s chief negotiator, Anas Abdulrahman, the Thai side appears for the first time to be serious about discussing a political solution that recognizes Malay identity and addresses governance issues in the south. This will likely equate to some kind of structure to devolve powers. While an independent state is firmly off the table, reports suggest the BRN wants, at a minimum, a “Patani Darussalam” autonomous region, with Malay as the official language and an Islamic justice and education system.
Yet even if Bangkok were to agree, winning over all insurgents and the wider population to back such an arrangement would be difficult in a region where public grievances toward the Thai state are deeply embedded and the desire for independence remains strong. Given all this, the biggest task of the BRN’s political leadership may not be finding compromise with Bangkok, but bringing ordinary rebels and a population skeptical of the Thai state along with them.
Michael Hart is a writer and researcher covering politics, conflict and postwar issues in Southeast Asia. He has researched for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), and has contributed to World Politics Review, The Diplomat, Asia Sentinel and Geopolitical Monitor. He is editorial assistant at The Pacific Review journal and publications consultant for the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.