80 Days After Thailand's Coup, the Violence Continues Unabated

By Zachary Abuza

In the 80 days since Thailand’s coup, insurgent violence in the Muslim south has continued to rage. Not only has there been no reduction in the violence, but the rate of killing has actually increased. Since the 19 September 2006 coup, 148 people have been killed, including 19 soldiers and 9 police; 230 people have been wounded, including 63 police and soldiers and six Buddhist monks. The average rate of killing before the coup in 2006 was 1.65 people per day. In the 80 days after the coup, the rate increased to 1.85 people per day. In that period, there have been 41 bombings and 4 attempted bombings, 29 arson attacks that have destroyed 15 schools. Many schools across the south remain indefinitely closed as the government continues to be unable to provide adequate security for the teachers. Bombing and arson attacks are occurring at a rate of almost one a day. In the three years since the insurgency made the news, over 1,800 people have been killed and thousands more have been wounded.

The violence continues to be targeted mainly at civilians, and the majority of the victims continue to be Muslims. The insurgents target moderate Muslims, suspected collaborators and anyone who receives a state salary. Insurgents have escalated the violence in other ways too. For the first time, students were directly wounded in an a bombing of a school.

The Thai government under coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and caretaker Prime Minister Surachud Chulanont, remain unable to stem the violence. They have made many important gestures and reforms to the Muslim community, which should be applauded. But they have continued to underestimate the degree to which the Muslim community has been alienated by the Thai state and the Islamist nature of the insurgents. They do not understand that the short and medium term goals of the insurgents are threefold: two make the region ungovernable, to provoke heavy-handed government responses that will further alienate the Muslim community, and to impose their values and authority on the local community.

The continued violence must be seen in the context of the “Langkawi talks,” both in spite of and because of. The talks, to which there was much fanfare, were over-rated because they did not include the insurgent groups that are most responsible for the violence; if they did send representatives, they were junior, and they clearly did not endorse the process. The Thai military was talking with the last generation of exiled insurgents who have absolutely no command and control over the new generation of insurgents. The government demanded a one-month cease-fire as a show of good will and of command and control, later shortened to two weeks; the insurgents cannot deliver. Both sides had preconditions for the continuation of talks, that the other was unwilling to even countenance. As such the talks have stalled. But we also must see the violence in the context of the hardliner insurgents trying to discredit those groups who entered into talks with the government and as an attempt to derail any further negotiations.

The insurgents have nothing to gain from talks: they have suffered few arrests of leaders, the government continues to alienate the community, security forces still have paltry actionable intelligence, and the insurgents continue to be able to attack at will. Until that changes, the violence will only continue.

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