![]() ![]() In the South, talk of reconciliation involves ignoring the political aspirations of the Malay Muslim population. The central problem with the reconciliation discourse is its blindness to politics. Successive governments have tried to address the conflict through parallel talk of "reconciliation" ( samanachan), a term first popularized by the 2005–06 National Reconciliation Commission. Trained in conventional warfare and with little history of combat, the Royal Thai Army has struggled to respond effectively to the violence. ![]() But an expensive security response-including the deployment of around 40,000 troops from all over the country to the region-has failed to quell the violence, and serious attacks are now back on the rise. Since 2004, more than 4,200 people have died in Southern Thailand, the world's third-most intensive insurgency after Iraq and Afghanistan. The small Malay state of Patani, today wracked by insurgency, was formally incorporated into Siam only in 1909, and relations with Bangkok have been troubled ever since. Both reflect the unraveling of Siam's 19th-century form of rule-the domination of royal Bangkok over the untamed hinterlands, and the substitution of internal colonialism for European empire. But Thailand's two conflicts may have more in common than meets the eye. One country, two conflicts: a simmering insurgency on the southern border, and several rounds of violent clashes in the capital city, a thousand kilometers away. This article is drawn from a longer commentary in the Aug.-Sept. ![]()
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