1 - The Policy documents

1.1 - The National Security Policy (2003 – 2006)

1Interestingly, the ONSC did not produce a specific policy document concerning the Southern Border provinces for the next period from 2003-2006 (the period during which the NSC policy would be implemented by government agencies was reduced from five years previously to four years).

2Why decide not to publish a policy document on the South? The reason could be that, reflecting the general mood in the country at the end of 2002, the government decided that the situation in the deep South was not serious enough to warrant a specific policy document. The coming to power of Thaksin Shinawatra after the January 2001 elections had heralded a new era in Thai politics. At the end of 2002, the vast majority of the country was under the charm of Thaksin, one of the first Prime Ministers to implement his campaign promises: social security; such as universal health care, the village fund, the suspension of farmer’s debts.

3For many politicians, even the most seasoned ones like Nakhorn Sri Thammarath MP for the Democrat party and former Foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, considered that the ‘Southern issue’ was on the way to being solved. In an interview in mid-1990s, Khun Surin told us “The Malay Muslims are being integrated to the Thai society through their parliamentary representatives; they are becoming partners in the social contract.”78

4Such an apparent misreading of the situation by such an intelligent academic and politician is rather puzzling. But maybe, Khun Surin was, by then, more used to Bangkok political circles than to those in the Malay villages of the deep South.

5This illusion that everything was on the right path in the South would explode towards the end of 2003, when the violent incidents became more and more frequent and more political in nature. Between the end of the separatists insurgencies at the beginning of the nineties and the new wave of militantism from 2002-2003, there were only sporadic incidents, mostly extortion by former separatists fights of local businessman. The most serious incident happened in 1993 when thirty government schools were torched during the night, for reasons still unclear. Some Thai Media implied strongly that General Chaovalit Yongchaiyudh, at the time a minister in Chuan government, had a hand in the wave of schools burning.79 At the end of 2003, it became difficult to deny the rise of violent militantism in the southernmost provinces. From then on, Thaksin’s government took the Southern policy directly into its own hands and the NSC was not responsible anymore for dealing with the issue. Policies were directly designed by the government.80

General Outlook

6This policy document is cohesive and straight to the point. This might have been down to the influence of General Winai Patiyakul, a brilliant military officer, who was secretary-general of the NSC at the time. Additionally, there was a cell of academics established within the NSC, centered on Mark Tamthai, at the end of the 1990s, of which was fully operative in 2002 when the NSC policy was elaborated.

7Interestingly, there is not, even once, a specific mention of the tensions in the Southern border provinces, as if there were no problems there. But as the document was written in the wake of the terrorist attack against the World Trade Towers in New York on 11^th September 2001, the whole text is imbued with the thinking that the Kingdom is not immune from the terrorist threats and that government agencies have to prepare themselves for a possible strike. At the time the document was written it was known that the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiya, composed of Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean, was also showing an interest in Thailand, particularly at the Southern provinces. We will see in the next section what approach the NSC has taken towards the “terrorist threat” in this policy document.

8The document also explains clearly that its content is simply a “strategic framework of operation for safeguarding national interests” to serve as guidelines to governments agencies in their specific field of work.81

Detailed Analysis

9The document does not outline intricate details of implementation, but does emphasise some important points.

10The “democratic notions” which appeared in the 1999-2003 NSC paper for the Southern borders were further expanded upon in the 2003-2006 policy paper. The importance of cultural diversity and participation of all public and private concerns – but also for the first time, “the people” – in national affairs are duly mentioned. In a paragraph at the end of the document, the authors stipulate the necessity of eliminating “power exploitation” and the importance of accepting “human rights” – even if it is easier written than implemented. It is worth noting the effort to integrate such notions which are usually given little consideration by security agencies. The document goes even further by stating the necessity for the bureaucracy to show efficiency, transparency and accountability in their actions. Recognising that there is a serious problem with the despising and corrupt attitude of Thai bureaucrats towards the common man is an important first step to begin to work on solving the issue. This problem with bureaucrat’s attitude is especially acute in the Southern border provinces, but the policy document does not mention this.

11We must also have some useful clarifications about what is guiding the Thai authorities in their security policy. It is driven by mostly two objectives: protecting national interests, which is rather obvious, but also “maintaining the honour and dignity of the country within the international community”. This touches the question of the “image of the country” outside the borders, which is a very sensitive topic in the Kingdom. There are many ways to maintain the dignity of the country on the international scene. One way is to be brave and tell the truth even when that truth is embarrassing for the country in question. Another way is to hide the truth when that truth is not positive for the country, so that the “image and dignity” of the country cannot be affected. Thailand has traditionally opted for the latter in the past. But is it a good strategy? Hiding the truth will never work for long and the “good impression” given through lies will not last. If a country wants to be a cohesive and united nation, it surely cannot be built on half truths and manipulation of historical facts.

12An interesting sentence further says that Thailand “must be respected for (its) position (on the international scene)” and “be independent in pursuing her own foreign policies”. Concerning the relationships with the “superpowers”, Thailand, said the document, must “avoid any exclusive commitment, but choosing opportunities, issues, and forums to play appropriate roles on the basis of national interests”. It is interesting because it give a sense of the kind of duality Thailand is facing while acting of the international scene. Thai authorities are acutely aware of what we can call the “foreign gaze”, i.e. the international opinion on its actions. They want to be respected, considered as a responsible member of the international community. At the same time, Thailand follows a cautious middle path, always sitting on the fence, always balancing its relationships for its best interests and not taking many “principled positions” – as clearly shown, for instance, by the total lack of involvement of the successive Thai government in the Khmer rouge trials in Cambodia. As often, Thailand wants to have one’s cake and eat it too. Overall, there is a lack of critical self-assessment among Thai decision makers; Thailand, and they, are “never wrong”.

13Going back to the issue of the Southern border provinces, two paragraphs in the document seem relevant. The first one, which is under the section “Overview of Situations Affecting National Security”, says aptly that the majority of the problems in Thailand come from “unbalanced development” which produced a “widening gap between the rich and the poor”, and concludes: “This has become a major factor contributing to problems such as narcotics, dark influence and crimes syndicates, corruption, and social conflict”. This diagnosis is true in most of Thailand’s provinces, as well as in the Southern border provinces at the time the report was written. Two additional elements, contributing to the social breakdown in the South, should be added: the cultural conflicts between Malay Muslims and Thai Buddhists, and the rise of a kind of hatred of everything “Thai” or “Siamese” among a sizable part of the educated young Malay Muslims – a cultural and xenophobic hatred under a thin veneer of a religious war.

14The second one deals with the terrorist threat. The text says that the policy aims “to prevent and counter all forms of terrorism, by giving importance to solving the root cause of the problem”. It is certainly a wise policy. Sadly, there is a time when a situation has festered so long that even looking at the roots and trying to cure deep wounds is not enough, because it is just too late. And in 2003, the situation in Southern Thailand seemed to have reached that level.

1.2 - Confidential Policy Document (June 2006)

15A confidential document, Developments in the Southern Provinces of Thailand, written in June 2006 by the Thai army provides both an assessment of the situation in the South and a review of the government’s programs being implemented there. This document is not an official document per se, but was given by the Thai army to some diplomats in order to brief them on the situation. This four page document contends that the root issues in the region are “socio-economic problems”, which are exploited by the rebels notably through “distorting religion”, in order to benefit their own political interest. Thus, the document asserts, a number of measures aiming to improve the educational system and to stimulate economic growth in the region should help appease tensions and solve the situation. It is interesting to note the repetition in most official documents of the notion that the Southern border provinces are underdeveloped and in need of strong economic stimulation, although the reasons why this potentially very rich region has not benefitted from its natural resources are never explored.

16As former policy documents stated, the text also recognizes the lack of good understanding between government officials and local residents as a key factor of the instability in the region. To cope with this issue, only officials “sensitized to the unique characteristics of the region” are being sent to the three provinces and “cultural awareness programs” have been initiated.

17Following the international criticisms against the government handling of two major incidents – the Krue Se mosque massacre in April 2004 and the Tak Bai massacre in October 2004 (see further down: “The attack on the network monarchy”) – the Thai army commits to prevent a recurrence of such incidents and to follow international standards in crowd control techniques. The document specifically mentions the setting up of a special “Riot control company” based in the South, but this unit seems to have been extremely discreet so far.

18The economic stimulation package is being centred on the establishment of a “Halal food industry”, a policy which makes sense but which does not seem to have been forcefully implemented, and on the provision of low interest loans.

19It is, again, striking that the political dimension of the Southern issue is not even mentioned, and the cultural aspect is glossed over with the same jargon previous used in policy papers over past decades. Among the educational initiatives listed in the document, one item deals with the government will to promote Islamic studies at state primary schools. It further says that the government encourages local schools to teach Malay and the region’s history. From our field observations, the second of these latter initiatives has never been implemented. It would also be interesting to know which version of the “region’s history” the government would want to encourage.

2 - Analysis of the Policies’ Implementation

20Highly distrustful of the bureaucracy and imbued with a know-it-all attitude, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was not the kind of leader to let policy documents limit his field of action. Thus, it is not surprising that there has been a gulf separating the content of the policy documents and the real policy implemented on the ground by the government and its local representatives. Very reactive, impetuous and opportunistic, Thaksin continually shifted his policy on the South, sometimes promoting harsh measures and sometimes playing on a policy of appeasement. Three main thrusts can be discerned during this period: the will of Thaksin to dismantle the “old power networks” associated with the monarchy in the South, the adjustment of Thaksin’s policy after he was confronted by this network monarchy and the impact of the emergency decree.

2.1 - The Attack against the Network Monarchy

21The thesis that the upsurge of violence in the three provinces since 2003 is more a reflection of a political struggle at the national level, than a factor of long standing historical grievances in the region has been exposed by Duncan McCargo in a landmark article.82 The argument is attractive, because it allows us to build a cohesive narrative of the events both at local and national levels between 2003 and 2006 around Thaksin’s campaign to take down the political networks built over the previous decades by Privy Council Chairman Prem Tinsulanonda in the Southern region. This showdown at the national level was not sufficient by itself to explain the resurgence of the insurgency in 2003-2004 – new militants’ networks had been developing since the mid-1990s – but, both local and national conflicts fed onto each other.83

22Since his time as a Prime minister in the 1980s, Prem Tinsulanonda had built a power network in the Southern region, relying on a carefully crafted compromise between the local elites and the representatives of the central State. As already mentioned in chapter one, the key agency managing this compromise was the Southern Border Provincial Administrative Centre (SBPAC), who had established good communication channels with the Muslim leaders of the region. These leaders could access to important positions in the Islamic Provincial Councils or as district officers if they renounced to support calls for autonomy and showed compliance to the demands of the central State and the SBPAC. The Fourth army, in charge of the Southern provinces, was another key partner in the deal: it was given carte blanche to oversee the security of the area and left to manage its own affairs, including the “taxation” of the illegal border trafficking. Local politicians, most of them under the Democrat party, were encouraged to compete for participation in national politics and advised not to vocally support calls for autonomy. Since the amnesty proposed by Prem in 1981, this consensus helped to maintain a relative calm in the region, until 2002-2003.

23According to McCargo’s argument, Thaksin wanted to wreck this consensus because he considered the region as emblematic of the “old power networks”. In his campaign to reduce the symbolic power of the monarchy, Thaksin chose to strike at the heart of the system. “Thaksin and the forces he commanded were not directly responsible for all – or even most – of the violent incidents that erupted in the South from January 2004 onwards. Nor was this violence directly initiated or inspired by Prem, or by forces loyal to the network monarchy. Rather, national level tensions between the competing networks of Thaksin and the palace provided a context and background for the renewed southern violence, creating a space in which other forces could emerge and operate”, argues McCargo.84 The overall objective of Thaksin was to replace this network monarchy with a new and more efficient mode of leadership based on the concept of the CEO politicians allied with big businesses.

24To take down the deeply entrenched power network overseen by Prem, Thaksin proceeded to send his own men to the Southern region and to identify the key representatives of the network monarchy so that they could be transferred to other positions. The first to be pushed out was a key man of Prem, Palakorn Suwannarat, the head of the SBPAC. Under heavy criticism from the minister of Interior Purachai Piumsomboon, Palakorn resigned in July 2001.85 As a sign that the network monarchy understood Thaksin’s intentions, Palakorn was immediately elevated as a member of the Privy Council. Thaksin also sent one of his classmates at the preparatory military academy, general Songkitti Chakkabatr, as deputy-leader and then leader of the Fourth army. After a study of the situation, Songkitti reported to Thaksin at the beginning of 2002 that, in his view, there was no real insurgency in the South and the situation was normalized. According to him, most of the conflicts and sporadic incidents in the three provinces were linked to “conflicts of interest” or to local political rivalries.

25Drawing information garnered in this assessment, Thaksin took two measures which were the first big blows for the network monarchy: he dissolved the SBPAC in April 2002 as well as the Civilian Police and Military Task Force 43, the inter-agency unit in charge of coordinating the security forces operations in the region. The dismantling of these two organisations, which had patiently built communication channels with local leaders including former insurgents and presided over a period of twenty years of relative calm, appears, with hindsight, as major a contributor as any in helping to strengthen a new militant movement.

26The stint of general Songkitti at the helm of the Fourth army was rather disastrous as it provoked serious conflicts within the unit. Moreover, Thaksin wanted to break the hold of the Fourth army, considered as loyal to Prem, on the region and handed over the responsibility for security to the police. The police chief, General Sant Sarutanond, adopted the strategy of sending police officers from Bangkok to the three provinces. Their brutal behaviour (illegal arrests, extrajudicial executions) and their interventions in the Southern political microcosm were equally harmful, fuelling the resentment of local Muslims and cutting all intelligence sources for the authorities.

2.2 - Reaction of the Network Monarchy and Thaksin’s Adjustment

27As soon as February 2004, King Bhumibol Adulyadej referred to the deteriorating situation in the South and admonished Prime Minister Thaksin to implement the three royal principles of “understanding, reaching out and development”. On the 4^th of January, a daring raid of Muslim militants on an Army base in Narathiwat, during which several military were killed in cold blood and the stock of weapons stolen, had attested the re-emergence of an armed movement against the “Buddhist central State”.

28Thaksin’s reaction was to entrust, in March 2004, one of his brightest deputy-Prime minister, Chaturon Chaisaeng, to investigate the situation in the South and elaborate a set of proposals to improve it. After having consulted more than a thousand persons, including local Muslims, security personnel, civil society groups and religious leaders, Chaturon came up with a wide ranging plan, proposing to lift martial law, to immediately transfer back to the capital the Bangkok police officers dispatched in the South, to stop all state extrajudicial killings and to offer an amnesty to anyone in the conflict who had not committed criminal offenses. For the first time since the 1999-2003 NSC policy, a plan elaborated by a representative of the central State clearly took into account the viewpoint of the Malay Muslims and tried to strike a balance between the interests of the State and the rights of the locals to be protected from abuses by security forces. Perhaps for this very reason, Chaturon’s proposals were heavily criticized by Thaksin’s allies, most notably by Army chief general Chetta Thanajaro. Viewed as too liberal, the plan was shelved and quickly forgotten.86

29In a tragic irony, the first serious incident since the re-emergence of violence with the January 2004 raid occurred a few days after Chaturon’s plan had been shot down. In a dramatic development, reminiscent of the fighting between Malay villagers and police officers in Duson Nyor exactly 56 years before,87 130 militants, mostly teenagers armed with machetes along with a few adults with guns, attacked several police stations and military outposts across the three provinces and in some districts of Songkhla. The reaction of the security forces was merciless: at the end of the day, 107 of the raiders laid in their blood, as well as five soldiers and policemen. Known as the Krue Se mosque massacre – the main showdown took place in this 18^th century Pattani mosque – the incident became emblematic of the ruthless approach of the security forces: some of the young attackers, in Saba Yoi district of Songkhla province, were found with a bullet hole at the back of the head, having clearly been executed after their arrest.88

The Krue Se Mosque in Pattani, where took place the confrontation between militants and military in April 2004 (Photo Arnaud Dubus, 2005)

30At the end of the year, a second bloody incident confirmed that all pretences to an accommodating approach of the conflict had been dropped. In October 2004, a demonstration by villagers outside a police station in Tak Bai district of Narathiwat province turned into a tragedy. First, the military shot into the crowd killing seven of the demonstrators, then they arrested hundreds of them, piled them up in military trucks and carried them towards Inkayuthborihan military camp in Pattani. When the trucks arrived six hours later at the camp, 78 demonstrators had perished, asphyxiated. Thaksin himself had taken control of the operation early on and did not express any regrets after the tragedy was known. For him, the Muslim villagers had died because “they were weakened by the Ramadan fasting”. In the view of the local Muslims, the Krue Se and Tak Bai massacres were the modern equivalents of the Duson Nyor incident: a sign of the cruelty of the State towards them.89

31In front of the breakdown of peace and order in the South, the network monarchy felt the need to react. King Bhumibol, and especially Queen Sirikit, have always had a strong interest in the region; as if these provinces, relatively recently integrated, needed to be reminded regularly that they belonged to the Thai nation. In February 2005, not long after the triumphal re-election victory of Thaksin, general Surayud Chulanont, former army chief and Privy Counsellor, spoke about the “festering wound” in the South which threatened to become a “malignant tumour”. He reported that while Muslim religious teachers had been arrested on suspicions of masterminding attacks, none of the military involved in the Tak Bai massacre had been arrested. Advocating an equal fairness in the judicial system, he also criticised a zoning plan, launched by Thaksin, according to which areas in the South would receive developments funds according to their level of loyalty to the central State. Privy Counsellor Surayud’s very specific criticisms against a seated Prime minister – something unseen so far – were followed by similar statements by Prem Tinsulanonda, Chairman of the Privy Council, and by Kasem Wattanachai, another Privy Counsellor. The network monarchy wanted its voice to be heard and Thaksin was strongly advised not to ignore it.

32Thaksin’s response was to choose a steadfast partisan of the traditional power network, former diplomat and former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, to chair a National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), whose membership was mostly composed of established Bangkok elites and local Muslim leaders associated with the former SBPAC. With the help of academics, politicians, civil society groups and security experts, the NRC engaged in a grand effort to analyze the root causes of the unrest and the ways to solve it. It was, in a way, a reproduction of Chaturon’s initiative but on a much grander scale and with apparently more guarantees of the government’s consideration as Thaksin had committed to implement all NRC’s proposals “without conditions”.

33The report that the NRC remitted to the government in June 2006, is a remarkable document for its frankness about the causes of the unrest and for his creative proposals to put an end to it.90 Trying to diagnose the roots of the unrest, the NRC makes a distinction between structural causes that can be found in other rural provinces – like poverty, brutal competition for natural resources under pressure from external economic forces, injustices at the hands of the state officials and weaknesses in the judicial process – and issues which can be easily instrumentalised to justify the use of violence, like “differences in religion, ethnicity, language and understanding of the history”. For the first time, an official organization recognized that the causes of the uneasiness in the Southern border provinces were not only rooted in “socio-economic problems”, but were due to injustice at the hands of officials and, moreover, that cultural and historical factors could play a role. “Religion, the history of Pattani and Malay ethnic identity are used to legitimize the use of violence”, stated the report.

34Advocating a political solution to the issue, the report said that “defeating the violence requires for the most part political measures that aim to rearrange the relationship between the State and the people, as well as between the majority and the minority both in the southern region and throughout the country”. It was the clearest ever mention of the need for political measures to address the issue, but the vague formulation did not seem to indicate a specific framework. Surin Pitsuwan, former Foreign Affairs Minister and a member of the NRC, stated that, during the NRC discussions, Anand Panyarachun put aside the mention of the need for an autonomous status for the Southern region. “He felt that we, Thais, need to learn to live besides each other”, said Surin.92

35Going more into the details, the NRC proposed a series of reconciliatory political measures, with the aim to unify the State’s approach to the region and to strengthen civil society. The report suggested the establishment of a Peaceful Strategic Administrative Centre for the Southern Border Provinces (PSAC), a kind of new version of the defunct SBPAC, which would be tasked, among others, to recommend the transfer of incompetent government officials out of the area, to end any action of policy by any government agency that conflicts with the PSAC’s strategy and to promote the development of an educational system and socio-economic development consistent with the region’s culture and religion.

36More immediately, the report proposed the setting up of an unarmed Peace Force, called Santisena and comprising civilians, military and police, to keep the existing conflict from worsening. It also suggested that the State “clearly demonstrates that it chooses to engage in dialogue with the militants” and deals decisively with State officials against whom abuse-of-power complaints have been substantiated.

37Finally, the document suggested twelve “sustainable reconciliation measures”, among which a call to enhance the efficiency of the judicial process based on truth, rule of law and accountability, and a daring proposal of declaring Pattani-Malay “as an additional working language in the southern border provinces to facilitate communications between the people and State authorities”.

38In the absence of a National Security Council policy paper on the Southern region, the NRC report, written after extensive consultations with all parties involved, was filling a gap and bringing some cohesiveness to a possible new State policy on the South. Three important points were strongly emphasized: the fact that part of the responsibility for the unrest laid with the violent approach of the security forces, the fact that the unfair treatment of the locals by the administration and by the judicial system was also part of the problem, and, lastly, the fact that there was a cultural aspect in the conflict which could not be ignored and had to be dealt with (thus the “working language proposal”).

39This grand effort at reconciliation was, like Chaturon’s plan, pushed aside by Thaksin’s administration. Not only did Thaksin impose, in July 2005, an emergency decree which rendered all of the NRC’s work meaningless. He also backtracked on his earlier promise to implement without conditions the NRC proposals, by stating that some of them were “conflicting with the imperatives of the security forces”.

2.3 - The Emergency Decree and its Consequences

40The Executive decree on public administration in emergency situations (or Emergency Decree), imposed by the government on July 19^th 2005, adopted an approach totally opposite to the one suggested by the NRC. From then, it became clear that Thaksin never really had the intention of heeding the advice of the “wise men” appointed to the Commission, but merely wanted to diffuse the tensions accumulating between him and the palace.

41The NRC members were especially shocked by the imposition of the decree because they were neither consulted nor, even, informed of the coming development. At that point, many members wanted to quit the NRC and it is only at Anand’s insistence that the Commission continued its work until the report was written. But for most members, it was by then clear that there could be no more trust between them and the Thaksin’s administration.

42Written in order to replace martial law, the Emergency Decree, which could be imposed by the Prime minister on any regions for any period of time, was actually very similar to the martial law in terms of content. The main difference was that it did not carry the same stigma as the martial law in the eyes of the international community.

43The most problematic clause in the decree was section 17 which grants enforcement officers immunity from prosecution for any action committed in the line of duty. During a televised debate with Thaksin in July 2005, NRC chair Anand Panyarachun said that this section was being perceived by the southern Muslims as granting officials “a license to kill.”93 Given the frequent habit of security forces to act brutally outside of the limits of the law, this impunity clause was almost a justification of blatant violations of human rights like the Krue Se and the Tak Bai massacres. Indeed, section 16 of the decree suspended the jurisdiction of the administrative courts to prosecute human rights violations by officials. In the terms of a group of Thammasat university academics, the effect of these sections was to “completely destroy accountability”.94

Pictures of militant suspects at a military checkpoint on the road from Pattani to Yala (Photo François May, March 2011)

44Another worrying clause was section 12, which allows the police to hold suspects in “places other than a police stations, detention centre, penal institution or prison”. In a country where mistreatment and torture of prisoners is common, secrets places of detention are a clear threat to the rights of the suspects. Nevertheless, the decree did show a progress compared to the martial law on one point: suspects could be arrested without charges for renewable periods of thirty days, but a judge warrant was deemed necessary.

45Opposition against the decree was strong, not only among the NRC members, but also on the parliament’s opposition bench. Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjjajiva argued that the decree violated the spirit of the 1997 constitution and opened the way for abuses by the authorities. The Democrat party’s deputy Secretary-General accused the government of perpetuating a culture of impunity and of turning a blind eye to abductions and extrajudicial killings. After being elected Prime minister in December 2008, Abhisit Vejjajiva seemed to have revised his stance and used the emergency decree repeatedly during the Red Shirt demonstrations of 2009 and 2010.

A block of shop houses totally destroyed by a car bomb attack in Yala city market in March 2011 (Photo François May, March 2011)

46The main impact of the decree was to totally destroy any trust left between the security forces and Muslim villagers. The military had pushed for the inclusion of the section on legal immunity because they had been publicly embarrassed and called into account for the Krue Se and the Tak Bai massacres. With these new guarantees, they felt emboldened.

47Black lists of suspects, based on weak intelligence, were established and the suspects were called to “voluntarily surrender”. Dozens of reports of extrajudicial killings emerged in the months following the imposition of the decree. In the absence of conclusive evidence, most locals considered, as a first assumption, that the gunmen were members of the security forces. This led to a number of tragic incidents, like the kidnapping and subsequent brutal killings of two marines in September 2005 who were accused by residents of Tanyong Limoh, a Narathiwat village, of having shot two villagers. Three weeks earlier, 131 Muslim villagers of two villages in Narathiwat had taken refuge across the border in Malaysia, claiming that they were afraid of executions by the Thai security forces and of unfair treatment at the hands of the authorities.

48Thus, despite the strenuous efforts by the NRC to take a more balanced approach to the Southern issue and to try to integrate both the interests of the central State and Southern Thai Muslims, Thaksin’s government reverted to a pure “security approach” under a blanket of impunity. The gulf between both sides became so wide and the distrust so deep that it became an apparently insurmountable task to find ways to re-establish some kind of peace and harmony. By destroying a key part of the traditional order in the South of the country, Thaksin had entered into a showdown with the beneficiaries of this order: the military, the palace, the bureaucracy and the established elite. The coup of 19^th September 2006, which evicted him from power, was partly motivated by the will to stop Thaksin of attempting to create a new order, subservient to himself and his cronies, in the South.