Escalating violence in Southern Thailand : a counterinsurgency perspective.

Abstract

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was popularly blamed for his heavyhanded policies in causing the upsurge of insurgency violence in southern Thailand that has been steadily escalating since January 2004. This paper attempts to explain why the interim Surayud government has not been able to reverse the escalating trend in violence, although it has denounced Thaksin's hard policies and vow to adopt a soft conciliatory approach in dealing with the southern insurgency conflicts. Looking through the lens of counterinsurgency using David Kilcullen's Three Pillar Counterinsurgency framework, this paper asserts that Thaksin's high-handed policies administration has indeed played a significant role in escalating the violence. While the Surayud government has performed better than the Thaksin administration in strengthening the economic and political pillar, it inherited Thaksin's poor intelligence apparatus and suffers from inadequacies of the reinstated Southern Border Provincial Administration Centre and joint Civilian-Police-Military organization that are vital to the security pillar.