By Max Constant
BANGKOK
Two Malay Muslim insurgents have been killed in southern Thailand, local media reported Wednesday, amid observations that the kingdom’s military rulers appeared to prioritize security operations over a political solution to the decades-old conflict.
The fatal clash with security forces, which was only covered in local press two days after it occurred Monday, unfolded in Pattani province -- one of four southern provinces plagued by a rejuvenated insurgency since 2004, according to The Nation.
Soldiers killed two "operative insurgents" and captured a third suspect in Nong Chik district. They also retrieved three M-16 automatic rifles, one of which had been stolen from an army depot in 2003.
The clash came in the wake of a series of shootings and bombings over the last three weeks -- a rise in violence that occurs every year during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ended on July 17 in Thailand.
The incident seemed to confirm observations published by a think tank earlier this month that said the generals ruling Thailand since last year’s coup -- despite expressing interest in restarting a peace dialogue -- seemed to prioritize a military approach to solving the conflict.
"Reports that [junta leader-cum-prime minister] General Prayuth [Chan-ocha] has spurned talks with a newly formed militant umbrella group raised questions about the government’s willingness to negotiate," the International Crisis Group said in its report.
The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between the Malay Muslims living in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and some districts of Songhkla, and the Thai central state where Buddhism is de facto considered the national religion.
Armed insurgent groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools. The Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) had been the dominant rebel group until it faded away in the middle of the 1990s.
In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement -- composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) or National Revolutionary Front -- re-emerged. Since then, the conflict has killed 6,400 people and injured over 11,000, making it one of the deadliest low-intensity conflict on the planet.
A peace dialogue had begun under the elected government of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2013, but was suspended in December that year due to political tensions in Bangkok.
The May 22, 2014 coup against Yingluck’s government that brought the junta to power added more uncertainty to a possible peaceful solution to the conflict, despite the military expressing commitment to pursue talks.
Six rebel groups, including PULO and BRN, have recently set up a Consultative Council of Patani, under the name MARA Patani, in order to coordinate for eventual peace talks. But as noted by the International Crisis Group report, “BRN hardliners remain uncommitted”.
