By Don Pathan
When it comes to the conflict in Thailand’s far South, there may be no peace talks in sight but there’s been plenty of action.
A spike in violence in the border region in recent days was a jolting reminder that the Thai government’s uncompromising position on the peace talks with Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebels comes with a cost.
Starting on the night of March 8, Separatist combatants launched a spate of attacks that left six people dead through March 10.
The violence occurred just days after Malaysian Facilitator Mohd Rabin Basir forwarded BRN counter-demands for a Ramadan ceasefire to the Thai side. Some of the demands included the release of BRN prisoners, reducing the number of days for a truce to 15, appointing a team of international experts to monitor the truce, and permitting local NGOs to have a role in working on this initiative.
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai rejected all of them, insisting that BRN should display their goodwill gesture by standing down during Ramadan.
The shuttle diplomacy to get the two sides to embrace a ceasefire started in mid-February when the National Security Council chief Chatchai Bangchuad met with BRN chief negotiator Anas Abdulrahman in Malaysia to discuss an NSC proposal that included a Ramadan-time ceasefire.
Chatchai was appointed the chief negotiator for the peace talks by the government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. But his position was automatically terminated after the Constitutional Court removed Srettha and his government from power.
On Feb. 28, NSC issued a public statement saying their agency and the regional Internal Security Operation Command would do their utmost to create an atmosphere conducive for peace during this Ramadan.
“The government will adjust its work missions to focus on peaceful operations and facilitations as the main principle so that the people can fully practice their religious activities in the area,” the NSC said in the statement.
According to a BRN source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Thailand equates the Feb. 28 statement as their proclamation of a unilateral ceasefire for this year’s Ramadan. The source suggested that it was in BRN’s best interest to do the same.
But this shuttle diplomacy didn’t start with the mid-February meeting in Kuala between Chatchai and Anas but through a December 2024 public statement by Nikmatullah Bin Seri, a senior member of the BRN’s negotiating team who criticized the Thai government for dragging its feet on the peace talks. Nikmatullah said BRN was prepared to walk away from the peace process and take back the group’s decision to negotiate with Bangkok under the Thai constitution.
The BRN official said conflict resolution, including Ramadan ceasefire, needed to be discussed with a new government chief negotiator, which the Thai government has yet to appoint.
However, Phumtham told reporters on March 12 that the new chief negotiator for the peace talks with BRN would not be appointed until a comprehensive strategic plan for the restive southern provinces was finalized.
According to a Thai official working on conflict resolution for the far South, the government will not appoint a new negotiating team until BRN curbs the violence. BRN said that demanding them to put down their weapons before coming to the negotiation table was like putting the cart before the horse. Reduction of violence is something that has to be negotiated, preferably with a government-appointed negotiator, BRN said, according to the Thai official.
Phumtham also plans to stop international peace and conflict experts from other countries from continuing to observe the high-level negotiations between Thailand and BRN, the Thai source said. Moreover, back channels will be eliminated, thus ending the role of international NGOs.
Observers of the peace process said they were not surprised about why BRN refused to give in to the suggestions made to them by Thailand on Feb. 18.
First of all, said Artef Sohko, president of The Patani, a political action group dedicated to the right to self-determination for the people of this historically contested region, Thailand has always tried to use a Ramadan ceasefire for short-term political gains. BRN feels that Thailand is using the peace talks as an intelligence-gathering exercise so they can go after these BRN leaders at a later date, Artef told me.
BRN said they still recalled how the Thai Army belittled their unilateral ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to a call for a global ceasefire from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. It was an opportunity missed; the Thai side could have reciprocated BRN’s gesture of goodwill and built on that, Artef said.
Instead, the Thai Army in the far South unleashed search-and-destroy operations, taking down combatants in a series of lopsided standoffs as they were laying low in the home village during the unilateral ceasefire.
What was astonishing in the view of the many security officials was that, despite being outnumbered by 60 to 70 to one, all but one of the combatants chose to fight to death rather than surrender, even though their chances of making it out alive were slim to none. A total of 60 BRN combatants were killed in the standoffs during that 2-year window, which covered early 2020 to early 2022.
But not much came out of this brief episode during Ramadan 2022. Since then, BRN has refused to entertain Thailand’s proposals for a Ramadan ceasefire because they see it as something purely for Thai public consumption.
While Ramadan carries a religious significance for Muslims worldwide, the Malays of Patani are reminded of the Tak Bai massacre, an incident during Ramadan in October 2004, when 78 young Malay Muslims died in the back of Thai military trucks, where they were bound and stacked up like logs after being rounded up during a protest. Another seven were shot dead by Thai security forces at the protest site in Tak Bai district, Narathiwat province.
Just months before the 20-year statute of limitation expired, a Narathiwat court charged a group of Thai military officials for the death of unarmed demonstrators. But law enforcement officials were not able to bring any of the suspects to court and the statute of limitation for the case was permitted to expire.
More than two weeks have passed since the start of Ramadan 2025. A truce is still nowhere in sight as the rebels crank up their campaign of violence to get the Thais back to the negotiating table.
* Don Pathan is a Thailand-based security analyst. The views expressed in this column are his own and do not reflect the position of BenarNews.