By Prashanth Parameswaran
Last week, the Thai government reached a historic agreement to hold peace talks with a major rebel group to resolve an insurgency in southern Thailand that has claimed over 5,000 lives in under a decade. But while few would dispute that the agreement signed in Malaysia is a welcome step, finding a truly lasting solution to Southeast Asia’s deadliest ongoing conflict will require overcoming significant obstacles as well as far bolder steps from Bangkok.
The insurgency raging in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces is rooted in Malay-Muslim nationalist resistance to Thai rule that began in 1902. But the current wave, which spiked in 2004, is powered by a generation of radicalized Malay-Muslim youths, many of whom felt discriminated and exploited by the Buddhist-dominated Thai state. They have waged a shadowy campaign to establish an independent Islamic state, carrying out shootings, bombings and beheadings in autonomous cells against Bangkok which has vacillated between clumsy heavy-handedness and ineffectual reconciliation.
While the talks may be a welcome reprieve from the usual bloodshed in southern Thailand, one should not get too excited about their prospects just yet. Bangkok has pursued secret talks with insurgent representatives for years with aid from various parties (including Malaysia), but they have all failed principally because the purported separatist leaders had no actual control of the fighters on the ground.
Read the full story at The Diplomat