THAILAND’S SOUTHERN INSURGENCY IN 2017: Running in Place

Wheeler cites that the year 2017 marked the fourteenth year of a renewed insurgency that has roots in the post-Second World War wave of national-liberation movements, a legacy of Siam's annexation of the Patani region at the start of the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1960s, and waged at a low level through the 1970s to the 1990s, the insurgency re-emerged with unprecedented intensity at the start of the new millennium. Malay nationalist groups cast their fight as one for liberation from Thai rule and for national self-determination. The main militant group, Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu-Patani (Patani-Malay National Liberation Front; BRN), founded in 1960, built a clandestine network of cells in the southernmost provinces during the 1990s. Since the beginning of 2004, militants have continually staged ambushes, bombings and assassinations, but at a slowing pace over the past several years. Deep South Watch, an NGO that monitors violence in the region, estimates that almost seven thousand people have been killed. Violence has declined over the past several years, and in 2017 reached its lowest point since 2004; the insurgency claimed 235 lives, compared to 309 in 2016 and a peak of 892 in 2007.