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Insurgency in Southern Thailand: Literature Review

Carlyle A. Thayer

Introduction
During the first decade of the twentieth century Siam incorporated the
Kingdom of Patani into its territorial domain. This action sparked a hundred
years of Malay Muslim resistance to incorporation into the Thai Buddhist
state. The struggle for Malay Muslim self-determination has passed through
various phases as traditional Malay aristocrats, Muslim religious leaders and
student militants have stepped forward to lead the struggle to re-establish an
independent Islamic state. The predominant character of Malay resistance
historically has been ethno-nationalist and secular in nature but in recent
years there have been signs that religious ideology is becoming more salient.
In the aftermath of the al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on 11
September 2001 (hereafter 9/11), our understanding of the nature of the
insurgency in Thailand’s southern provinces has been skewed by the rhetoric
of President George W. Bushes’ Global War on Terrorism. On 20 September
2001, President Bush declared, for example, “(o)ur war on terror begins with
al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group
of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
In late 2001 the United States attacked al Qaeda bases and the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11. As a result, many al Qaeda operatives
were forced to flee. Coincidently, security authorities in Malaysia and
Singapore rounded up a number of suspects who belonged to a regional
terrorist network known as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) which had links to al
Qaeda. At the same time, the United States initiated security cooperation with
the government of the Philippines to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf Group. In
short order Southeast Asia had become the “second front” in the Global War
on Terrorism. This view was reinforced in October 2002 when JI terrorists
exploded bombs in Bali killing over two hundred persons. As result,
terrorism and regional security specialists adopted what might be called an
“al Qaeda-centric paradigm” in their analysis of politically violent groups in
Southeast Asia (Thayer 2005a and 2005b).
In this hothouse atmosphere a number of academic commentators and
terrorism experts quickly identified Thailand as a “country of convenience”
for al Qaeda terrorists transiting into and out of the Southeast Asian region
(Abuza 2003: 172). These allegations were dismissed out of hand by no less a
figure than Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s Prime Minister. He characterized
such reports as the work of “crazy reporters” (quoted in Chongkittavorn 2004:
268). Thaksin even declared Thailand’s neutrality when the United States
invaded Iraq in March 2003. Two months later, however, he reversed position
and pledged Thailand’s full support.
In the late 1980s an unknown but substantial number of Thai Muslims had
trained in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border at a camp run by mujihadeen
leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (Liow 2006b: 45 and ICG 2007a:37). In 1987, at least
three Thais studied under Zulkarnaen, JI’s head of military affairs. Other Thai
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Muslims trained alongside Indonesians in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. By

2003 it had become clear to Thai security officials that key al Qaeda operatives
as well as members of JI were using Thailand as a safe haven to plan terrorist
operations further a field. But it was less clear to what extent these terrorist
networks had penetrated Thailand’s Muslim community in the deep south.
In 1999, JI attempted to expand on the personal networks forged in
mujihadeen training campus by creating a regional alliance of Southeast
Asian militants known as Rabitat-ul Mujahidin. At least two Thai militant
organizations were represented at these discussions, Patani Islamic
Mujahideen Movement (Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani or GMIP) and
Patani United Liberation Organization (Pertubuhan Pembebasan Patani
Bersatu or PULO). PULO’s delegates reportedly rejected JI’s violent strategy
(International Crisis Group 2005a 37, hereafter ICG). The following year an
emissary from JI based in northern Malaysia was dispatched to southern
Thailand to purchase arms. He was only able to acquire thirteen hand guns.
The joint Malaysia-Singapore security crackdown in late 2001 disrupted JI’s
regional network and forced several of its members to seek refuge in
Thailand. None was more important than Hambali (Ridduan Isamuddin),
head of JI’s Malaysia-Singapore division and chief of operations. In February
2002, Hambali convened a meeting in Bangkok attended by key JI leaders
who were later involved in the 2002 Bali bombings. JI reportedly financed this
operation from funds that it had previously deposited with militant contacts
in Narathiwat province in southern Thailand.
After the Bali bombings the heat was turned up on JI across Southeast Asia.
On 10 June 2003, Thai security authorities arrested three members of JI who
had been planning terrorist attacks on western embassies and tourist
attractions. This marked the first occasion that the Thai government officially
identified those arrested as part of a regional terrorist network rather than
Muslim separatists (Chongkittavorn 2004: 268). A major break through was
achieved on 11 August 2003 when Thai security forces arrested Hambali in
Ayutthaya. During interrogation Hambali revealed details of plans to attack
the American, Australian and Israeli embassies in Bangkok. He also told his
American interrogators that Thai militants refused to cooperate because they
held reservations about targeting civilian tourist spots.
During the first quarter of 2004 Thailand experienced a major outbreak of
violence in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces in the south. This led
academic commentators and security analysts to speculate that foreign
terrorist networks in Southeast Asia, if not al Qaeda itself, were involved
(Gunaratna et al., 2005). Their discourse has framed much of the analysis on
the insurgency in Thailand’s southern border provinces, or the “fire in the
south”. Between January 2004 and June 2007, 2,493 persons have been killed
in this conflict. Of this number, an estimated fifty-one percent were Muslims,
forty-four percent Buddhist and the remainder were unknown (ICG 2007: 19).
In the period from January 2004 to May 2006, at least twenty or more victims
were beheaded. The casualty figures have since risen to more than 2,600,
mainly civilians (ICG 2007: 1). Buddhists have suffered disproportionally
since they constitute a minority in the south.
This chapter attempts to reframe how the southern insurgency should be
understood. Muslims are the largest religious minority in Thailand
constituting perhaps four percent of the total population. The majority are
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Sunni adherents. They are unevenly distributed. An estimated eighty percent

or four million reside in the southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala,
Songkhla and Satun. There they constitute an overwhelming majority of the
population. But the southern insurgency is largely confined to Pattani,
Narathiwat, and Yala plus four districts in Songkhla but not Satun province.
Why is this so? The main factor distinguishing the central area of insurgency
from Satun is ethnicity. The Muslim population of Pattani, Narathiwat, and
Yala are overwhelmingly ethnic Malays, while the Muslims in Satun are
ethnic Thais. The remaining twenty percent of Muslims not resident in the
south are scattered throughout Thailand. These Muslims have been
assimilated into the Thai Buddhist state as their cousins have in Satun and do
not support separatism.
The persistence of Malay Muslim separatism in the south over the past
hundred years as well as in recent decades may be explained by unsuccessful
attempts by the Thai state to assimilate this minority. Additionally, Thai
policies towards the Malay Muslims have at times exacerbated their feelings
of cultural, social, political and economic alienation from the Thai polity. In
southern Thailand Muslims identify themselves as Malay and speak a Malay
dialect known as Jawi. Historically, the political leadership of Malay Muslim
resistance has come from Malay nobles and aristocrats who were conservative
and traditional in their doctrinal leanings.
The Malay Muslim struggle for separatism is based on a distinct identity from
the Thai nation. Malay Muslims have resisted incorporation into the Thai
Buddhist state because of their ethno-nationalist identity and not because of
religious extremism. The persistence of their struggle is based on historical
grievances, discrimination and forced assimilation, and patterns of neglect,
dating over a century. It is not Islam that has politicised Muslims in the south
but Malay ethnic identity. This chapter will explore these themes in three
parts. Part one will present the historical background. Part two will examine
the rise of separatism in the south from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s;
while part three will discuss the current conflict.
In the discussion below Pattani, the English transliteration from the Thai
language will refer to the province of Pattani. Patani, which is derived from
the Malay spelling, refers to the geographic area of the former Kingdom of
Patani.

Background
The three southern Thai provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala once
formed part of Greater Patani an independent kingdom with roots extending
to the fourteenth century. During the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries Arab
traders introduced Islam into the region. In 1457 the ruler of Patani converted
and established a sultanate in which the role of Muslim religious elites
(ulamas) became prominent. To the north, Thai states consolidated into the
Ayutthaya dynasty (1351-1767) in the fourteenth century and extended their
territorial control to Thailand’s southern peninsula.
Siamese incorporation of Greater Patani was a prolonged historical process
that resulted in the subordination of Patani to the Thai state. Malay histories
record repeated clashes with Siam from the fifteenth century as a result of
which Patani became a vassal and then a tributary state of Siam
(Aphornsuvan 2007). In the nineteenth century Patani was conquered by
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Siam. This meant that Patani was subject to administrative reforms adopted
by King Chulalongkorn. Patani was divided into seven provinces and
governed by appointees nominated by the king. Thai civil law replaced sharia
and adat law. The subordination of Patani in this manner provoked resistance
and revolt, and thus set the pattern for the next hundred years.
Patani was officially incorporated into Siam in 1902. This action prompted the
last sultan to call on the Malay aristocratic class to engage in passive
resistance. The following year, the sultan was arrested and charged with
treason. This action immediately provoked first popular revolt to Siamese
rule that Bangkok suppressed. The sultan was released in 1906 and nine years
later fled to Kelantan in British Malaya. This established a long-standing
pattern of cross border support for Malay Muslims in southern Thailand by
the diaspora exiled in Malaya/Malaysia.
In 1904 and 1909, under the terms of two Anglo-Siamese Treaties, Siam
conceded four southern Malay states to Britain in exchange for recognition of
Siamese sovereignty over Patani. The latter treaty ushered in a new period of
alien rule that had profound consequences for Malay society and religious
and political authority in the south. In 1910, Sufi sheikhs declared jihad
against the kafir (infidel) Siamese government and launched two rebellions.
Both were put down by Thai military force and the Malay Muslim leaders
were arrested.
Siam extended its administrative control over the southern region by
reconfiguring the seven provinces created in the eighteenth century into three
– Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. A fourth province, Satun, was created later.
Each province was administered by a Thai governor, thus further
undermining the political authority of the Malay Muslim aristocratic class.
In 1921, Thailand introduced a compulsory national Primary Education Act
that required all children to attend state school for four years and study a new
secular curriculum in the Thai language. The new curriculum also included
Buddhist ethics that were taught in some instances by monks. The new
education law was viewed as a direct assault on the culture, religion and
language of Malay Muslims (ICG 2005a: 3). In response Tok Gurus (heads of
Islamic religious schools) led a boycott of Thai schools accompanied by
massive protests against Thai educational policy.
In 1922, at the urging of Patani’s sultan from his refuge in Kelantan, Malay
nobles launched another unsuccessful revolt. This took the name Namsai
Rebellion after the village in Pattani where residents refused to pay the land
tax in protest against the 1921 education reforms. The Thai government
responded by arresting and executing suspected leaders The revolt was
suppressed by 1923 by the combined forces of Thai police and the Wild Tiger
Corps, a militia group established by King Rama VI. The use of the militia
introduced another actor into the politics of insurgency in southern Thailand
that would become prominent decades later. The southern revolt of 1922-23
resulted in the closure of many Islamic schools, or ponohs (pondoks in Malay),
and the further marginalization of the ulama. Over the next decade the Thai
government gradually reduced taxes and violence subsided.
In June 1932 the power of the absolute monarchy was ended. The so-called
“revolution of 1932” was motivated by the concept of popular sovereignty
based on nationhood and citizenship. It led to a concerted drive by
subsequent Thai political elites to construct the Thai nation and national
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identity around symbols of Buddhism and the monarchy. In practical terms,

this meant the assimilation of ethnic minorities and the centralization of
power in Bangkok. For the first time Malay Muslims were now eligible to
stand for election to national parliament.
Tensions between the Thai state and Malay Muslims were exacerbated with
the rise to power of Field Marshal Phibul Songkhram. Phibul was an ultra
nationalist who pursued an aggressive policy of assimilation in the late 1930s.
Under a series of decrees known as Cultural Mandates, ethnic minorities
including Malay Muslims, were forced to conform to Thai cultural values.
Buddhist images were placed in all public schools and Malay Muslim
children were required to bow before them to demonstrate their civic loyalty.
Malay Muslims were banned from wearing traditional dress in public and
were forced to adopt Thai names as a precondition for government
employment (Islam 1998: 444). The use of Malay was banned in government
offices and “anti-Thai” behaviour was classed as sedition under the law.
Phibun’s cultural decree represented a direct challenge to Malay Muslim
identity (ICG 2005a:3-4).
During the Second World War Field Marshal Phibun sided with Japan. He
was rewarded by Tokyo which assigned the four northern Malayan states of
Kelantan, Kedah, Trengganu and Perlis to Thai control. Many Malay Muslims
took refuge in Malaya and supported the British and their Malay allies in
resisting Japan. Malay Muslims who remained in southern Thailand received
support from both the British and the Free Thai movement that led resistance
to Japanese occupation.
Thailand’s Malay Muslim expected that Patani would be incorporated into
British Malay at the end of the war. But their hopes were dashed when the
four provinces annexed by Japan were returned to British-ruled Malaya but
Patani was not, it remained part of Thailand. Disappointed nationalist Malay
Muslims sought exile in Malaya and Saudi Arabia. In sum, two important
developments emerged from this period. First, links between Malay Muslims
on both sides of Thai-Malayan border were reinforced during the war years.
Second, overseas communities of Malay Muslims from southern Thailand
took root and became a source of funds for separatist movement in later
years.
In July 1944 Phibun was replaced as prime minister by Pridi Phanomyong,
leader of the Free Thai. Under Pridi’s leadership attempts were make to win
over the Malay Muslims in the south with conciliatory policies. For example,
under the 1945 Patronage of Islam Act, Muslim affairs were placed in the
hands of a single high-ranking official known as the Chularajmontri who
advised the king on religious matters. Under the Act, Malay Muslim leaders
and local mosques were incorporated into the state structure under the
Ministry of the Interior. Other reforms included the appointment of two
Islamic judges in each Muslim majority province to advise state courts on
Islamic marriage and inheritance law. Pridi also created a special commission
to investigate Malay Muslim complaints against the government.
Pridi’s initiatives backfired and became a source of grievance for the Malay
traditional elite and religious teachers. Pridi’s policies were widely perceived
by Malay Muslim leaders as a derogation of their authority and as further
undermining Malay Muslim identity. The office of Chularajmontri, for
example, was originally created during the Ayutthaya dynasty and modelled
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on Persian practice alien to Sunni Muslims. Islamic judges could not act
independently in provincial courts; they could only offer advice to Thai
judges who applied Thai rather than sharia law. Malay Muslims who
attempted to file complaints before the special commission were reportedly
beaten by the Thai police. As a consequence, riots broke out in Narathiwat in
1946.
In early 1947, Haji Sulong Abdul Kadir, chairman of the Pattani Religious
Council, submitted a seven-point petition to the government on behalf of the
newly formed Patani People’s Movement. The petition called for (1) the
appointment of an elected locally born governor for the four southern
provinces; (2) a quota of eighty percent of all public servants to be Muslims;
(3) the use of Thai and Malay as official languages; (4) Malay language as the
medium of instruction in primary school; (5) recognition of sharia law and
separate Muslim courts; (6) control over revenue and expenditure for the
southern provinces; and (7) and the creation of a Muslim Council to issue
laws related to Muslim customs and ceremonies (Islam 1998: 444 and
Aphornsuvan 2007: 41).
A petition containing similar demands was drawn up by fifty-five Malay
Muslim leaders in Narathiwat. A third petition was lodged by Malay
Muslims in Satun. These actions coincided with a coup d’etat that returned
Field Marshal Phibun to office in November 1947. The following month one
Malay Muslim leader in exile in Kelantan declared Patani independent. In
January, Thai authorities responded by arresting Haji Sulong and his
supporters and charged them with treason. As a result, Malay Muslim leaders
immediately withdrew from meetings with Thai officials and instigated a
boycott of national elections scheduled for later that year. On 3 March 1948
Patani nationalists in exile in Kelantan formed southern Thailand’s first overt
separatist organisation League of Malays of Greater Patani (Gabungan
Melayu Patani Raya or GAMPAR).
In 1948, GAMPAR demanded the merger of the four southern provinces into
a Malay Islamic state and its incorporation into the newly formed Malayan
Union. A quarter of a million Malay Muslims petitioned the United Nations
in support of these demands (ICG 2005a: 5). Many of the leading signatories
were arrested. Increasingly public protests turned into violent confrontations
and eventually yet another revolt by Malay Muslims. Mass protests were held
initially outside the jail where Haji Sulong was detained, but Thai authorities
quickly transferred him outside the region. Riots then broke out in all three
southern provinces. The largest took place in Narathiwat on 26-28 April 1948
when a religious leader led hundreds of men into a confrontation with the
police. In the ensuring clash at least four hundred Malay Muslims and thirty
police were killed (ICG 2005a: 5). Thousands fled into Malaya. These events
are collectively known as the Dusun Nyur rebellion and resulted in the
declaration of a state of emergency.
After the rebellion was quelled Phibun resorted to piecemeal concessions to
the Malay Muslims that gradually reversed many of the policies contained in
his wartime Cultural Mandates. Islamic law was now applied to family law
and inheritance in Thai courts. Malay Muslims were permitted to wear
traditional dress in the public service, and Malay language was reintroduced
in primary schools. Haji Sulong was released from prison in 1952 but
mysteriously disappeared two years later. It is widely believed by many
Malay Muslims that he was killed by the police. The “disappearance” of
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Malay Muslim leaders at the hand of Thai security officials was to become a
common feature of the southern insurgency in later years.
During 1953-54 the Malay Muslim nationalist movement was weakened by
the deaths of Haji Sulong and the leaders of GAMPAR. According to Thai
scholar Thanet Aphornsuvan, “Haji’s Sulong’s leadership, and his Islamic
credentials, recast ethnic Malay nationalism in Islamic terms” (quoted in ICG
2005: 6). Despite his death, Haji Sulong’s legacy lived on as new organisations
took up the struggle of Malay Muslims in southern Thailand and moved into
the space created up by the demise of the Patani People’s Movement and
GAMPAR.

Separatism in the South

The four decades from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s mark a distinct phase
of separatist insurgency in southern Thailand. At the start of this period new
secular and religious groups emerged that sought to achieve an independent
state of Patani through armed struggle. The Thai government responded in
kind but also attempted to institute policies designed to undercut the appeal
of Malay Muslim ethno-nationalism. The government of General Prem
Tinsulanond in the 1980s was particularly effective in dampening armed
conflict. By the 1990s militant separatism appeared to be a spent force. But
this view was deceptive. In the mid-1990s Malay Muslim separatists
regrouped and then re-launched armed struggle that carried over into the
early years of the next decade.
In 1959, a group of traditional Malay Muslim aristocratic elites and religious
teachers based in Kelantan founded the Patani National Liberation Front
(Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani of BNPP). The BNPP was the first
organised armed group to call for the creation of an independent Islamic state
in the geographic area embracing Patani. The BNPP included a small guerrilla
wing of a few hundred fighters. The BNPP recruited Malay Muslim students
who were studying in Malaysia, while religious teachers in southern Thailand
selected students and local villagers for political and/or military training.
Some recruits were sent overseas to Libya and Syria for advanced military
instruction.
The Patani National Liberation Front conducted a number of sporadic attacks
against government security forces in the 1960s. The BNPP’s strategy was
aimed at destabilization and provocation in order to make the southern
provinces ungovernable and to raise new recruits. The government of Field
Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1957-63) responded in part by altering some long-
standing government policies in order to become more accommodating. In
1961, for example, the Thai Customs Decree was repealed.
Sarit’s policies towards Malay Muslims had unintended consequences. For
example, the Educational Improvement Program of 1961 mandated that
religious schools teach a secular curriculum in addition to Islamic studies.
These schools were now classified as private schools teaching Islam.
Nonetheless, government officials continued to view the ponohs as
recruitment grounds for anti-government militants. Thai government efforts
to regulate ponohs were widely resented by Islamic religious instructors as
schools that failed to implement the law were shut down. Also in 1961, Sarit
initiated a Self-Help Land Settlement Project that resulted in the migration of
over 160,000 impoverished Thai Buddhist farmers from the northeast to the
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south. In sum, the policies carried out by the Sarit regime reinforced long held
views by Malay Muslims that their identity was under threat in what they felt
was an alien Thai state (ICG 2007: 19).
Finally, the Sarit government and its successors met with force with force and
conducted a number of military operations directed against the BNPP,
particularly in 1972. In 1977 two BNPP leaders died, and shortly after the
BNPP lost its support base in Kelantan when the Parti Islam se-Malaysia lost
power in that state. The BNPP splintered and many members gave up the
struggle. A small hard core continued spoiling attacks aimed at disrupting the
government’s resettlement scheme. They also attacked local police and
government officials. By the late 1980s BNPP’s armed wing was reduced to
about fifty fighters. They were forced to extort money from Chinese
businessmen in order to survive.
The BNPP’s demise coincided with the rise of two new militant organisations
that dominated the separatist struggle in the late 1960s and throughout the
1970s. It was during this period that Malay Muslim students, who had
studied abroad, mainly in Egypt, India and Pakistan, returned to southern
Thailand where the economy was depressed due to a decline in the world
price of rubber. These returned students differed in outlook from the older
generation of traditional aristocratic elites. They were also divided along
religious and secular lines. The former founded the National Revolution Front
(Barisan Revolusi Nasional or BRN) in the early 1960s, while the secularists
founded the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) in 1968.
The BRN was primarily an urban group, with a support base among teachers
and students in ponohs or nearby Muslim villagers. Its formation was
precipitated in part by the government’s educational policy that required
ponohs to adopt the national secular curriculum or face being shut down (ICG
2007:19). The BRN aimed to create an independent Islamic Republic of Patani
(but not the historical sultanate). The BRN advocated an ideology of Islamic
socialism and formed tactical alliances with both the Thai and Malayan
communist parties. This alienated the religiously conservative members of the
Malay Muslim community.
PULO’s ideology, on the other hand, emphasized religion, race, homeland
and humanitarianism, in other words, secular ethno-nationalism. Its stated
goal was the establishment an independent Islamic state. PULO was founded
in India, and maintained offices in Mecca and Kelantan. PULO directed its
recruiting efforts at Patani Muslims studying in Malaysia and the Middle East
or on haj in Mecca. Study abroad was facilitated by funding from Arab
governments and international Islamic charities.
PULO’s armed wing was called the Patani United Liberation Army and it
numbered from 200 to 600 in 1981. Some fighters were sent to Syria and Libya
for training, and Libya provided funding for operations. PULO’s fighters
mainly carried out assassination of policemen and government officials, and
conducted bomb and arson attacks against police posts, government offices
and schools. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s PULO was considered by Thai
officials to be the most prominent and best trained separatist group because of
its ability to conduct operations in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces
and the neighboring four districts in Songkhla.
Throughout the 1960s, the Thai government routinely dismissed violence in
the south as the work of Thai and Malayan communist guerrillas. At this time
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there were an estimated sixty armed groups operating in the south spanning
the spectrum from purely criminal to political in motivation. This picture was
even more complex as criminal groups were contracted out by local
politicians to do their bidding. In short, significant areas of southern
Thailand’s border provinces had become lawless. In 1969, the Thai
government officially acknowledged the existence of a Malay Muslim
separatist movement for the first time.
In the 1970s, the Thai government once again initiated a number of policies
designed to win the hearts and minds of Malay Muslims. A system of
admission quotas was promulgated for Muslims at universities and
recruitment into the civil service. The Thai government re-established the post
of Chularajmontri and set up national and provincial councils for Islamic
affairs. The central government allocated funds to improve educational
facilities in Muslim majority provinces at all levels from college to university.
Funds were also poured into infrastructure projects such as roads, flood
control, irrigation projects and agricultural extension.
Nonetheless, armed attacks increased in rural Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani
throughout the late 1960s and 1970s as separatist guerrillas mounted attacks
on government offices and police posts. But the responsibility for other acts of
violence, such as kidnappings for ransom and extortion of funds from
coconut and rubber plantation owners as well as local businessmen and
ordinary villagers was less clear. The finger of suspicion was often pointed at
criminal gangs or other politically motivated special interest groups.
The longer the conflict in southern Thailand raged the more security forces
and vigilantes became implicated in everyday violence and “disappearances”
of suspected separatist collaborators. In most instances these incidents were
not investigated and the perpetrators were never punished. An exception
occurred in November 1975 when Narathiwat province experienced massive
public protests in response to the deaths of five Muslim youths shot by Thai
marines. The protests were instigated by PULO but the sheer size of the
demonstrations indicated widespread Malay Muslim anger against
government officials who failed to curb such violence. In December, Buddhist
extremists reportedly threw a bomb into a large crowd of protesters killing
twelve and injuring thirty or more. The bodies of those who died were buried
as martyrs (syahid). Militants issued calls to launch jihad to avenge these
deaths and thus garnered a significant propaganda victory against the
government (ICG 2007: 13).
Thai government authorities moved quickly to diffuse the situation by
meeting most of the demands put forward by the protesters. The families of
the victims were offered compensation. Police arrested and charged the
marines held responsible; their unit was withdrawn from Narathiwat and an
official enquiry was opened. The governor of Pattani was removed and
replaced by a Muslim. Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj travelled to the south to
personally hear grievances.
The events of late 1975 sparked the formation of at least three short-lived
extremist groups who conducted retaliatory attacks by bombing Bangkok’s
international port, train stations and government offices. A bomb was even
thrown into a royal ceremony in Yala in September 1977 killing five persons.
The group responsible, Black December 1902, took its name from the year
Patani was incorporated into Siam seventy-five years earlier (Aphornsuvan
 10

2007: 29). By the end of the 1970s, it was estimated that there were about 1,000
active armed guerrillas in the south, about half of whom were associated with
PULO.
In the decade of the 1980s the Thai government, under the leadership of
Prime Minister Prem, was able to make demonstrable progress in dampening
down the levels of violence in the south. Splits within the mainstream
separatist groups, PULO and the BRN, weakened the separatist movement.
But more importantly, the Prem government created security institutions in
the south that were better able to coordinate and implement government
policy and revive cooperation with sections of the Malay Muslim community
estranged by years of ill conceived government policies.
Between 1980 and 1984 leadership disputes within the BRN led it to splinter
into three, BRN-Coordinate, BRN-Congress and BRN-Ulama. BRN-
Coordinate focused on recruiting from religious schools and carried out
urban sabotage. BRN-Congress was formed in 1984 as a result of a dispute
about whether or not to drop “Islamic soc1alism” from the list of BRN
objectives. A younger more militant group objected to the change and split off
to form the BRN-Congress. They advocated stepping up military operations.
The BRN-Ulama comprised the more moderate members of the original BRN.
They favored a long-term strategy of gaining support in Islamic schools and
downplayed the role of armed violence.
In the early 1980s PULO split into two factions over the issue of whether or
not to cooperate with criminal gangs. The hardliners won the power struggle
and the moderates were pushed aside. PULO’s fortunes took an unexpected
turn for the worse in 1984 when Saudi authorities shut down its office in
Mecca and deported PULO leaders. The Saudi government acted mainly
because of its concern over PULO’s growing ties with Syria and Iran. But
PULO’s issuance of Republic of Patani citizenship papers and taxation of
“Patani citizens” in the kingdom also aroused concern. As a result PULO’s
coffers began to rundown.
In 1985 several militant leaders broke with the Patani National Liberation
Front to form the United Patani Mujahidin Front (Barisan Bersatu Mujahidin
Patani or BBMP). This group was composed of religious teachers educated in
Indonesia and Malaysia. It adopted a radical Islamist program calling for
jihad against the kafir. The following year the Patani National Liberation Front
changed its name to Patani Islamic Liberation Front (Barisan Islam
Pembebasan Patani or BIPP) in order to stress its Islamist credentials. By the
early 1990s both organizatons faded from the scene.
By all accounts a relative lull in separatist violence descended on the southern
provinces in the mid-1980s and throughout most of the 1990s. During this
period there was a marked shift in Thai government policy that gave greater
attention to understanding and respecting local Malay Muslim culture. This
change in policy was facilitated by the growing climate of democratisation
that swept the Thai political system as a whole. Both the Democrat Party and
New Aspiration Party recruited Malay Muslims into their ranks and opened a
direct channel for Malaysian Muslims to enter the Thai parliament where they
formed the Wadah faction.
In particular, Prime Minister Prem initiated a Policy of Attraction that
emphasized economic development, popular participation and an amnesty
for armed separatists. The Thai government provided funds for several large-
 11

scale infrastructure projects to bring electricity and running water to remote

areas. But it was the establishment of two inter-government agencies that
provided the crucial catalyst for the success of Prem’s new conciliatory
policies (ICG 2005a: 11-12 and 2007a: 13). The first agency was a combined
Civil-Police-Military command (known as CPM 43). CPM 43 coordinated
security operations and acted to stamp out extra-judicial killings and
disappearances. CPM 43 came under the direct control of the Fourth Army
Region commander.
The second agency, the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center
(SBPAC), was established in 1981 and was designed to overcome poor
coordination among government departments. It was responsible mainly for
political affairs. The SBPAC was initially placed under the command of the
Fourth Army Region but in 1996 it was transferred to the Ministry of the
Interior. At first the SBPAC dealt with communist insurgency but was soon
drawn into dealing with separatist violence.
The SBPAC performed many functions. It coordinated the activities of
government agencies and security forces in the south and acted as the channel
of communication back to Bangkok. The SBPAC performed the important and
sensitive role of liaison with the local Malay Muslim community. The SBPAC
served as the venue where Muslim leaders and teachers could meet with
police and soldiers and local officials to exchange views. This enabled
conflicting parties to air grievances. Military and government officials also set
up village-level committees to promote both security and economic
development. The administrative arrangements set up by the SBPAC helped
reduce tensions and are widely credited with reducing the level of violence
during this period (ICG 2007: 13). Over nine hundred militants took up the
government’s offer of amnesty and rehabilitation in the period up to 1997.
The SBPAC also performed the role of addressing ignorance and prejudice
among government officials. The SBPAC conducted courses for Thai officials
on Malay Muslim culture including language training in Jawi, the local Malay
dialect. And finally, the SBPAC was charged with reducing corruption. It
transferred over one hundred public servants out of the south by 1995. But
this was offset by the transfer to the south of corrupt and poorly performing
officials as a disciplinary measure.
The Prem government may have been successful in dampening down the
level of violence in the south, but it was not successful in eradicating the
existence of militant separatist groups. New groups formed and took shape in
the 1990s out the fragmentation and splintering of earlier organizations. And
for the first time they began to institutionalize their cooperation. In 1992, the
BRN-C formed Pemuda as its youth wing and began recruiting students. In
1995, two new groups appeared – New PULO and the Patani Islamic
Mujahidin Movement (Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani or GMIP). The GMIP
was formed by veterans of the Afghan conflict. In August 1997, activists from
the BRN-C, New PULO and the GMIP formed a loose coalition known as the
Council of the Muslim People of Patani (Majelis Parmesyuaratan Rakyat
Melayu Patani or MPRMP) or Bersatu (Unity) for short. The militants
immediately implemented a program of targeted assassinations of Thai
government and security officials carried out by small cells known by the
codename, “Falling Leaves” (ICG 2005a: 14).
 12

During the 1990s, the political climate in Thailand improved as the process of
democratisation spread. Malay Muslims joined the Democrat Party and
participated in national politics. Some Malay Muslims returned from self-
imposed exile. External support for southern separatists declined as a result of
effective Thai diplomacy in the Middle East. Thailand and Malaysia stepped
up their cross border cooperation. In 1998, for example, Malaysian authorities
arrested four key separatist leaders including PULO’s military commander
and the leader and deputy leader of New PULO. In sum, by the end of the
1990s all the main separatist organisations had fragmented and splintered due
to internal bickering and defections and separatism in the southern provinces
appeared to be a spent force.
Violence in the southern provinces did not come to an end; but it was
generally attributed to criminal gangs, bandits, crooked businessmen, drug
traffickers, arms smugglers, corrupt police and disgruntled local politicians.
In March 1998, the Southern Border Province Administrative Centre
estimated that insurgent strength stood at 405: 79 GMIP fighters, 93 PULO
fighters, 102 New PULO fighters and 131 BRN-C fighters. Two years later, the
CPM 43 headquarters estimated that separatist forces had dwindled to a mere
70 to 80 “armed bandits”. In sum, the Thai government appeared to hold the
upper hand as its counter-insurgency strategy took hold.

The Current Insurgency

In the first quarter of 2004, there was a marked escalation of violence in the
south. Many security analysts and terrorism specialists took this as evidence
that international terrorism had arrived on Thailand’s southern shores and
foreign fighters and jihadist ideology were now accelerating “the fire in the
south.” This was both an alarmist and erroneous view.
The southern insurgency did take on new dimensions as a result of the impact
of 9-11, the coalition attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the war
in Iraq. In March 2003, for example, Malay Muslims in Yala instigated a
boycott of American goods and erected billboards declaring the province a
“U.S. produce-free zone.” In August, Malay Muslims held angry protests
when the Thai government announced that it was making a troop
commitment to Iraq. But both the intensity and scope of violence which broke
out indicated that the prime causes were overwhelmingly local. As of
November 2007, there is no credible evidence of al Qaeda or other foreign
terrorist involvement.
What is clear is that insurgency-related violence in the southern provinces
steadily escalated from fifty incidents in 2001, to seventy-five in 2002, to 119 in
2003 and then dramatically jumped to 1,843 in 2004 (ICG 2005a: 16). An
incident was any recorded act such as a shooting, arson, detonation of
explosives directed against security forces, government officials and their
offices, schools and other economic infrastructure. Some analysts argue that
the relative lull of the 1990s was not entirely due to the efforts of the SBPAC
but to a conscious decision by the BRN-C and perhaps other major separatist
groups in the late 1980s or early 1990s to lie low, consolidate, and prepare for
a renewed struggle in a decade’s time. This view is not incompatible with
another major explanation, namely that the policies of the Thaksin
government securitized the situation in the south to such an extent that these
very policies became the problem.
 13

Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party swept to power in April
2001. Thaksin repeatedly claimed that residual violence in the southern
provinces was the work of bandits and criminal gangs. This assumption was
badly shaken in December 2001 when militants conducted simultaneous raids
on five police checkpoints in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces in which
six security personnel were killed. No one claimed responsibility but Thai
police alleged that New PULO had been involved. This raid displayed
sophistication and greater coordination that had not been seen for several
years and was a precursor for what was to come.
In May 2002, Prime Minister Thaksin abolished both the Southern Border
Province Administrative Center and the CPM 43 command in part to weaken
the influence of his main political rival, the Democrat Party, which had strong
support in the south (ICG 2007: 33). Thaksin placed responsibility for dealing
with the “fire in the south” in the hands of the police. By this single act
Thaksin cut the eyes and ears out of a relatively effective intelligence network
and precipitated rivalry and friction between the army and the police.
Thaksin’s restructuring of the security architecture did little to address long-
standing grievances that had fuelled separatist violence. Quite the opposite,
without interagency restraints, the Thai police and other security-related
organisations became increasingly implicated in human rights abuses and
extra judicial killings. This was exemplified in 2003 when Thaksin’s war on
drugs resulted in an estimated 2,275 extrajudicial killings nationwide. Drug
smugglers and their cross-border networks were targeted in the south.
The expansion of the U.S. Global War on Terrorism from Afghanistan to Iraq
in 2003 was widely viewed by Malay Muslims in southern Thailand as an
attack on Islam and sparked a sense of shared victimhood. New PULO, GMIP
and the BRN-C took advantage of this environment to step up their armed
attacks. For example, in 2003 Thai security seized a BRN-C policy document
that outlined a three-year seven-step strategy to revive armed struggle and
create an independent Islamic state.
On 4 January 2004, an estimated one hundred militants conducted a well
executed raid on the 4th Engineering Battalion camp in Cho Airong district,
Narathiwat. The raid lasted only twenty minutes but in that time the militants
broke into the armoury and hauled away over four hundred weapons, mainly
M-16 assault rifles but also light-machine guns, rocket launchers and rocket
propelled grenades. Four Buddhist soldiers were shot dead but Muslim
conscripts were left untouched. Almost simultaneously diversionary attacks
were launched on twenty schools and three police stations across eleven of
Narathiwat’s districts. In Yala province, militant placed burning tires on
roads and planted fake explosives on bridges.
Quite simply, these spectacular attacks, because of their planning,
coordination and execution, marked a new phase in the southern insurgency.
Prime Minister Thaksin now acknowledged that “professional and well
trained” insurgents were involved. He declared martial law in eight districts
and later extended this to all three southern provinces. Although no separatist
group claimed responsibility for the attack, arrest warrants were issued for
GMIP and BRN leaders. Six thousand troops and police were dispatched to
the south. The army was given the power to arrest without a court warrant
and authority to use deadly force.
 14

In the first quarter of 2004 there were 320 recorded incidents of violence
involving the assassination of police personnel, government officials,
Buddhist monks, students and ordinary residents. Both separatists and Thai
security personnel were implicated in the abduction and murder of over one
hundred persons. In February, soldiers entered a ponoh in hot pursuit of a
suspect without first requesting permission. This provoked Muslim leaders in
all three southern provinces to issue a joint statement suspending cooperation
with the Thai government. In April, Thaksin set up the Southern Border
Provinces Peace Building Command to reverse the deteriorating situation in
the south by improving interagency coordination in all aspects of counter-
insurgency.
On 28 April 2004, groups of militants gathered at mosques in Yala, Pattani
and Songkhla provinces before conducting simultaneous attacks on security
checkpoints, police stations and army bases. The attackers, who were
mounted on motorbikes and were generally lightly armed with machetes and
knives, quickly retreated in the face of armed resistance. The most serious
incident occurred at Krue Ze Mosque in Pattani where Thai army forces
surrounded and eventually stormed the mosque killing all thirty-one inside.
At the end of the day a total of 105 militants, five security personnel and one
civilian had been killed. This was the highest death toll in a single day in
decades.
The militant attacks on 28 April occurred on the fifty-sixth anniversary of the
Dusun Nyur rebellion (Satha-Anand 2007). Once again, no separatist group
claimed responsibility. Thai police found a pamphlet among the dead at Krue
Ze Mosque entitled Berjihad di Patani (The Struggle in Patani). Some terrorism
specialists have latched on to this document to claim that international
jihadist ideology had now seeped into the separatist struggle in southern
Thailand. But expert analysis of the Jawi language text of Berjihad di Patani
reveals a different interpretation altogether (Sugunnasil 2007 and Liow 2006b:
39-42). Berjihad di Patani was written by a religious scholar based in Kelantan.
It draws on the historical tradition of appeals to Islam, martyrdom and jihad
to justify armed struggle to re-establish the Islamic sultanate of Patani
Darussalam. Berjihad di Patani makes no reference to the global jihadi struggle
and contains no anti-western or anti-Zionist themes.
The militants who participated in the attacks in April 2004 represent a
different strand in Malay Muslim separatism from those who executed the
January 2004 coordinated raids. The April attacks were carried out by pious
young students who had been recruited and indoctrinated by religious
teachers in a local variant of Sufi mysticism. This involved the recitation of
prayers over a prolonged period of time, drinking holy water and special
blessings that conferred invulnerability to knives and bullets. Thai police
found strings of beads used in Sufi meditation on the bodies of those killed. In
sum, the attackers were most likely one strand that split off from a broader
separatist youth movement that had been growing in strength and was about
to take center stage in the southern separatist movement.
On 25 October 2004, six Muslim members of the local security forces in Tak
Bai district, Narathiwat province, were arrested by police for their alleged
involvement in providing weapons to local militants. Their arrest provoked a
hostile crowd to gather outside the police station where they had been
detained. Local militants mobilized up to 1,500 demonstrators and then
manipulated the crowd to provoke a confrontation with police. The police
 15

were forced to fire warning shots and resort to water cannons on fire trucks.
The crowd responded by throwing bricks and bottles. Thai army soldiers
retaliated by firing directly into the crowd. Soldiers then forced the protestors
to lay face down on the ground where their hands were bound behind their
backs. An estimated 1,300 men were stacked into trucks and transported to a
nearby army base. On arrival it was discovered that seventy-eight had died of
suffocation.
The Tak Bai incident provoked communal outrage and led to a steep
escalation in the number of murders and bombings. A village chief was
beheaded in November and a note was placed on his body reading “For the
innocents of Tak Bai.” Soon the southern provinces were flooded with leaflets
that called for the expulsion of Thai Buddhist oppressors and the liberation of
the Malay Muslim homeland of Patani. In short, revenge trumped ideology
and politics as the main motivation for the large number of scattered small
scale acts of violence that characterized everyday life in the south.
In February 2005, Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party were returned to
power in a crushing electoral victory. In July, in response to a coordinated
bombing raid by sixty militants on the Yala provincial capital, Thaksin
promulgated an Emergency Decree (ICG 2005b). Under this decree security
officials were given immunity from prosecution and suspects could be
detained for thirty days without charge.
Thaksin continued to press his policy of securitization of the Malay Muslim
problem in southern Thailand by relying increasingly on paramilitary forces.
Both the Thai Rangers (Thahan Phran) and the Ministry of Interior’s
Volunteer Defence Corps (Or Sor) tripled in size after January 2004. The
Village Defence Volunteers (Chor Ror Bor) also underwent a massive
expansion with recruitment of 24,300 volunteers over the period 2002-04.
Plans were announced in 2005 to post thirty volunteers in each of the 1,580
villages in the southern provinces or a doubling of strength to 47,400. The
Village Protection Force (Or Ror Bor) was established in September 2004
under the patronage of the Queen. It immediately recruited one thousand
members in Narathiwat and grew to more than 10,000 by 2007. In addition, a
number of informal Buddhist militias sprang up such as Thais United (Ruam
Thai) that enlisted 6,000 volunteers in Yala province (ICG 2007b).
At the same time, in 2005, the separatist movement underwent a further
transformation. BRN-C emerged as the strongest and best organised
insurgent force. It fielded a highly trained assault force known as the RKK
(Runda Kumpulan Kecil or Small Armed Patrol Group). The BRN-C was
responsible for organizing several major coordinated attacks that took place
during this period. The BRN-C also adopted a highly successful strategy of
mobilizing youth through its affiliate, Pemuda. In 2005, the BRN-C stood
behind the formation of the Patani Liberation Assembly (Dewan Pembebasan
Patani or DPP) in an effort to exert general influence but not operational
control over numerous small autonomous cells that were carrying out
everyday acts of violence.
There are two additional elements in the current transformation of the
southern insurgency that should be noted. The first is the emergence of a
large youth movement recruited from ponohs, technical schools, universities,
and from among workers, farmers and the unemployed. A major component
of the youth movement is based primarily but not exclusively on a network of
 16

thirty state-funded “private schools teaching Islam.” For example, several of

the militants involved in the 28th April 2004 incident were students from the
exclusive Thammachat Witthaya private school in Yala (Liow 2006b: 30-32).
The second element is the mobilization of civilians, women in particular, to
participate in protests in response to provocations by Thai security
authorities. The use of mass mobilization techniques was graphically
demonstrated during communal violence in Saba Yoi district, Narathiwat in
March 2007 (ICG 2007: 21). Local Malay Muslims blamed Thai Rangers for a
grenade attack on the headmaster of a local boarding school who had refused
to adopt the secular national curriculum. When police arrived to investigate
they were denied access by a picket line formed by local women. The standoff
lasted for nearly a month. In May-June, a group calling itself the Student
Network for People’s Protection led a highly organised five-day
demonstration at the central mosque in Pattani to protest abuses by security
forces. The demonstration attracted over 4,000 persons who blocked city
traffic and disrupted business (ICG 2007: 12-13).
Thaksin’s securitization policies proved counter-productive as some elements
of the poorly disciplined paramilitaries continued to engage in widespread
human rights abuses, disappearances and extrajudicial killings (Human
Rights Watch 2007a and 2007b). Thaksin’s policy of securitization attracted
criticism from both Privy Councillor Prem Tinsulanond and no less a figure
than the King and played a role in his overthrow on 19 September 2006 in a
coup.
Thailand’s new military leaders promptly sought to address the southern
insurgency (ICG 2007a). Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont issued an
unprecedented public apology for past government abuses and ordered an
end to the black listing of suspects. In October 2006, Surayud issued two
orders. The first set out the principles for a peaceful resolution of conflict and
the restoration of justice in the south. The second announced the restoration
of the SBPAC and CPM Task Force under the overall direction of the Internal
Security Operations Command. Thai government attempts to open a dialogue
with exiled separatists in 2006 failed because their organisations no longer
had any influence on the ground in the south. Southern insurgents responded
by stepping up violence and propaganda aimed at undermining conciliation.
Conflict related incidents recorded at the end of the year were higher than
those following the Tak Bai incident in October.
Conclusion
Thailand’s “fire in the south” defies easy characterization because there are
multiple causes and multiple actors involved in the escalating violence
(Askew 2007). The perpetrators of large-scale coordinated attacks are largely
unknown not least because they have not identified themselves. This has led
one terrorism specialist to characterize the southern insurgency as a
“conspiracy of silence” (Abuza 2005).
Terrorism specialists who have attempted to portray the southern insurgency
as increasingly motivated by Islamic extremism and international jihadist
ideology have missed the mark. They rarely address the question of Malay
Muslim ethno-nationalism and the role of state violence, particularly by the
armed forces, paramilitary groups, police and Buddhist militias as factors
contributing to militant separatism. While it is clear that the separatist
movement in southern Thailand has taken on a greater religious tinge in
 17

recent years, that factor alone cannot explain the multiple forms and
widespread nature of the violence that is occurring. Dire warnings that al
Qaeda and its affiliates will be attracted to the southern insurgency seem
improbable given their current focus on Afghanistan and Iraq and the
decimation of the JI network in Southeast Asia.
An estimated 10,000 police and 22,000 regular soldiers are currently assigned
to the southern provinces to cope with the separatist threat. Insurgents
continue to operate with impunity in many districts and the daily killing of
security personnel and ordinary civilians continues without let up. One major
factor that could bear on the southern insurgency is whether or not Thailand
returns to democratic rule as a result of the national elections scheduled for
23rd December 2007. A new government formed by the Democrat Party may
be able to restore working relations with Malay Muslim elites that were so
effective in the 1990s in reducing tensions. This development could set the
stage for an effective Thai government response to long-standing Malay
Muslim grievances that have fuelled separatist insurgency for over four
decades.
 18

Time Line
1457 The ruler of Patani converts to Islam
1902 Siam annexes Kingdom of Patani
1903 First Malay Muslim revolt against Siamese rule
1909 Anglo-Siam Treaty establishes border between Siam and
British Malaya, Patani
1922 Namsai Rebellion by Malay nobles against Siamese rule
June 1932 Absolute monarchy ended in Siam
1939 Siam renamed Thailand
April 26-28, 1948 Dusun Nyur rebellion, Narathiwat province
1959 Patani National Liberation Front founded
1960 Barisan Revolusi Nasional founded
1968 Patani United Liberation Organization founded
1981 Southern Border Provinces Administrative Committee
and Civil-Military-Police Task Force established
1997 Bersatu (Unity), umbrella organisation to coordinate
separatist activities formed
April 2001 Thaksin Shinawatra and Thai Rak Thai party win
national elections
December 24, 2001 Militants launch simultaneous attacks on five police
check points in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces
marking new phase in southern insurgency
May 2002 Southern Border Provinces Administrative Committee
and Civil-Military-Police Task Force disbanded
January 4, 2004 Raid on 4th Engineering Battalion armoury accompanied
by diversionary attacks in eleven districts reveals new
level of coordination by militant separatists
April 28, 2004 Siege at Kreu Ze Mosque in Pattani results in massacre
October 25, 2006 Tak Bai incident results in suffocation 78 Malay Muslims
while in custody
February 2005 Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai party win re-election
July 14, 2005 Executive Decree on Public Administration in
Emergency Situations issued
September 19, 2006 Thaksin government overthrown in military coup
October 2006 Southern Border Provinces Administrative Committee
and Civil-Military-Police Task Force re-established
 19

Glossary
BBKP Barisan Bersatu Kemerdekaan Patani or United Front for
Patani Independence, founded in 1989, re-emerged in June
1997 as an umbrella organization to coordinate activities of
separatist groups and known as Bersatu
BBMP Barisan Bersatu Mujahidin Patani or United Patani
Mujahidin Front, founded in 1985
Bersatu “Unity”, umbrella organisation to coordinate separatist
activities, formed in 1997, see BBKP
BIPP Barisan Islam Pembebasan Patani or Patani Islamic Liberation
Front, the name adopted by BNPP remnants in 1986
BNPP Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani or Patani National
Liberation Front, founded 1959 and changed name to BIPP in
1986
BRN Barsian Revolusi National or National Revolution Front
established in 1960-63, split into three factions in 1980s
BRN-C National Revolution Front-Coordinate or Barisan Revolusi
Nasional-Koordinasi, one of three major BRN factions to
emerge in 1979-80. By 2001 it was the main militant group for
the current generation of separatists
BRN-Congress National Revolution Front-Congress one of three major BRN
factions, formed 1984
BRN-Ulama Barisan Revolusi National-Ulama or National Revolution
Front-Ulama, one of three major BRN factions, formed
around 1984, also known as GUP
Chor Ror Bor Village Defence Volunteers
CPM 43 Civil-Police-Military joint command, 1981-2002
DPP Dewan Pembebasan Patani or Patani Liberation Assembly
GAMPAR Gabungan Melayu Patani Raya or the Greater Patani Malay
Association formed in 1948 and disbanded 1953
GMIP Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani or Patani Islamic Mujahidin
Movement formed in 1995 by Afghan veterans, grew out of
GMP
GMP Gerakan Mujahidin Patani or Patani Mujahidin Movement,
established in 1986 but largely defunct by 1993
GUP Gerakan Ulama Patani or Patani Ulama Movement, one of the
BRN’s three major factions, formed around 1984
Jawi local Malay language dialect spoken in southern Thailand
JI Jemaah Islamiyah, literally “Islamic community”
kafir infidel
 20

KMM Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia or Malaysian Mujahidin

Group formed by Afghan veterans in 1995, also referred to as
Kumpulan Militan Malaysia or Malaysian Militant Group
MPRMP Majelis Parmesyuaratan Rakyat Melayu Patani or Council of
the Muslim People of Patani, founded in 1997, also known as
Bersatu
New PULO New Patani United Liberation Organisation, formed in 1995
Or Ror Bor Village Protection Force or Village Protection Volunteers,
established under patronage of Queen Sirikit in September
2004
Or Ror Mor Town Protection Volunteers
Or Sor Volunteer Defence Corps
PANYOM Patani National Youth Movement
PAS Parti Islam se-Malaysia or Islamic Party of Malaysia
Pemuda Youth movement associated with BRN-C, formed in 1992
PKB Pejuang Kemerdekaan Patani or Patani Freedom Fighters
PKRRP Pasukan Komando Revolusi Rakyat Patani, a name
sometimes given to Pemuda, the BRN youth wing
PNPP Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani or Patani National
Liberation Front, founded in 1959
Ponoh Muslim religious boarding school (Thai)
Pondok Muslim religious boarding school (Malay)
PPM Patani People’s Movement
PULO Pertubuhan Pembebasan Patani Bersatu or Patani United
Liberation Organization, founded in 1968
Pusaka Pusat Persatuan Tadika Narathiwat, Center for the
Narathiwat Kindergarten Associations, an Islamic educational
foundation, established in 1994
RKK Runda Kumpulan Kecil or Small Armed Patrol Group of the
PKB, an armed unit of the BRN-C, emerged circa 2005
SBPAC Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center,1981-2002
SBPPBC Southern Border Provinces Peace Building Command, formed
2004
syahid martyr
syaria Islamic law
Tahan Phran Thai Army Rangers
Toh Kru head religious teacher at a pondok, or Tok Guru (Malay)
ustadz male religious teacher
Wadah the name of a faction of Malay Muslim parliamentarians
21
 22

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Completed November 5, 2007