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There is a historical reason for Saudi involvement with the Thai Islamist groups who have been mounting a continuous insurgency since January 4, 2004. The present insurgency has killed 2,100 people so far. According to a May 2005, report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), there were riots in Narathiwat province in 1946. These were connected with Thailand's decision in 1945 to release its control of sultanates in southern territory that it controlled. These sultanates - Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis were allowed to rejoin Malaya. The former sultanate of Pattani comprised the current Thai provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, and two districts of Songkhla province, which had been annexed by Thailand in 1902. The Pattani "sultanate" was not allowed to become part of Malaya.

 

Several Muslim leaders who had wanted Pattani to become part of British Malaya then fled Thailand. Some crossed the border into Malaya, but others moved to Saudi Arabia. These individuals would later send money to support those who wished to see the former sultanate of Pattani secede from Thailand. In early 1947, the Pattani People's Movement (PPM) was formed by Haji Sulong, an individual who had been educated in Mecca. The PPM aimed to have self-rule and Islamic law in the south of Thailand. This group was the precursor of several separatist groups that would follow, most of which became involved in the insurgencies, which have beleaguered Thailand in recent years.

 

In 1968, a group called PULO, the Pattani United Liberation Organization, was formed by Kabir Abdul Rahman, aka Tengku Bira Kotantila, a Malay scholar who now lives in Syria. This group had offices in Sudan and also in Mecca. During the 1970s and 1980s, PULO was the most active of the insurgent groups in Thailand.

 

During this time, PULO's activities in Saudi Arabia caused concern for the authorities. PULO activists were, according to ICG, issuing documents to Thai exiles claiming they were "citizens of the Pattani Republic". They also forced taxes from these individuals. In 1984, the Mecca branch of PULO was closed down. Several leaders of the group were arrested and deported. PULO split into two factions, one more military, and the other more political. After the last major insurgency in southern Thailand ended in the 1980s, many of PULO's leaders fled to Sweden, where they claimed to be spokespeople for the southern populace. Their website now claims that the group seeks dialogue rather than warfare to resolve the current conflicts.

 

On August 31, 1989, PULO joined forces with other separatist groups - including the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Pattani (BRN), the Barisan National Pember-Basan (BNPP, founded 1959) and the Mujahadeen Pattani. In 1991 this coalition gained the title Barisan Bersatu Kemerdekaan Pattani (Bersatu). Since last October, Bersatu has been engaged in peace talks, held on the island of Langkawi in Malaysia.

 

The component groups in the Bersatu coalition were particularly active in the 1970s and 1980s insurgent attacks. Attacks continued through the 1990s and occasionally members of the groups within Bersatu launch their own terror assaults. On Thursday, August 31, 2006, on the 27th anniversary of the founding of Bersatu, 22 of the 92 banks in the province of Yala were attacked by small bombs (pictured) - killing one person and injuring 24.

 

The two groups most connected with the current violent activities are the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) and the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), which is an offshoot of BRN. The youth wing of BRN, called Permuda or Pemuda ("youth" in Malay) has almost 600 members. It is less involved with handling weaponry or launching attacks, but provides logistical support to insurgents, and scouts to reconnoiter targets for attacks. Some of the weaponry, which was taken in the raid on the Narathiwat military base on the first day of the current insurgency, has subsequently been found in the possession of RKK members.

 

RKK has been involved in attacks upon Buddhist villagers in Yala province. Buddhist populations of two villages in Than To and Bannag Sata districts of the province were so intimidated by threats and shootings carried out by RKK in November last year, they were forced to take refuge in the grounds of the Wat Nirotsankharam temple in Muang district, Yala.

 

 Identifying, which actual groups are behind the insurgency, is confusing, even for the current government, which was installed after the coup, which took place on September 19 2006, led by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin (pictured). With so many factions, negotiations become futile if only some insurgents are amongst those attending talks. The current government has promised to act upon the recommendations of a body called the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC). The NRC was created in March 2005, with 48 representatives, aiming to provide suggestions for peace. The NRC's recommendations, made on June 5, 2006, included commitments to establish Islamic law, and to make Yawi, the local Malay dialect, the language of the region.

 

The privy office of the Thai King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, objected to language segregation. Schools are frequently attacked in the south, being seen as symbols of Thai governance, and because teaching is conducted in the Thai language. Teachers are not the only figures seen as representatives of the government - fireman, telephone workers, water engineers, and electrical engineers have been specifically targeted.

 

Twenty schools were subjected to arson attacks on the day the current insurgency commenced, January 4, 2004. In addition to the 300 Islamic seminaries, there are (according to May 2006 figures) 861 public schools in the three southern provinces, with 291,300 students being taught by 11,260 teachers. Numerous schools have been burned down, even though the government of Thaksin Shinawatra used certain schools as relief centers, providing financial support to local families whose relatives had been killed in the insurgency. Such arson attacks upon schools have continued to the present. Last week, leaflets were dropped from helicopters over the south, urging residents to inform authorities if they heard of more plots to burn down schools.

 

About 70 teachers have been killed, and many more wounded, since the current insurgency began. Since one particular incident last year, school-teachers are now regularly escorted by police or military patrols to and from their places of work. These patrols have been subjected to bomb attacks and ambushes.

 

The incident that brought national attention to the predicament of teachers in the south took place on May 19, 2006 at a school in Gujinruepo village in Narathiwat's Rangae district. Two Buddhist women teachers were held hostage and brutally beaten. The teachers were not attacked by armed insurgents, but by a mob of ordinary villagers, many of whom were women.

 

That atrocity erupted after Mohammed Sapaeing Buari, a local villager, had been arrested for shooting at soldiers at a local train station a month earlier. His wife, 24-year old Karima Masaleh, tried to gain the release of her husband and another insurgent from the village, Abdulgareem Matae, by taking teachers hostage. A crowd of villagers went to the school and demanded to know which teachers were Buddhist. The mob was told that 26-year old Juling Pongkanmul and 30-year-old Sirinat Thavornsuk were Buddhist. Miss Juling was dragged from her classroom, and Ms Sirinat was found at a nearby teashop.

 

The two women were taken to the childcare center in Gujinruepo village, where they were beaten with fists and sticks for more that an hour. Villagers pulled logs into the roads accessing the village, preventing security services from reaching the mob's victims. By the time the mob were persuaded to release their victims, both were in a serious condition. Miss Juling was in a coma. Though her companion recovered from her injuries, Miss Juling, who had only begun teaching at the school a few weeks earlier, never came out of her coma. She finally died on January 8 this year.

 

Such incidents of coordinated mob violence are not uncommon, indicating the strength of feeling against Thai authorities. In another village in Rangae district, two Thai marines were abducted by villagers and held hostage on September 21, 2005. 2000 people were involved in the action, and hundreds of women stood in roads, preventing any negotiators from reaching the soldiers. During this time the two men, who were wrongly suspected of involvement in a previous shooting incident, had been beaten to death.

 

Horrifyin incidents of mob behavior, often led by women, have continued under the current government. These incidents are often successful, as military and police do not wish receive negative publicity by acts of force against "vulnerable" women, who often bring their children on such protests.

 

It would be simplistic to state that the insurgents are being manipulated by outside interests such as the pan-Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah or agitators from across the border in Kelantan state, Malaysia. Many of the Muslim communities have no desire to be "Thai". However, the insurgents are assisted by foreign donations. On November 19, the Bangkok Post quoted a source who claimed that during the last Ramadan, 6,000,000 baht ($163,908) was given to insurgents by Muslims living abroad. The donors came from Egypt, Libya, Sweden, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

 

Attempts by the current government to quell the unrest in the region have been as unsuccessful as those made by the previous government of Thaksin Shinawatra. The last government enforced an "emergency decree", renewable every three moths, to deal with the insurgency. This gave the authorities greater powers of arrest and detention. The post-coup government has been forced to continue extensions of these emergency powers, even though they have proved unpopular with locals.

 

 On April 30 this year, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) made an official two day visit to Thailand. Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (pictured) met with the king, and members of the government, as well as General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, author of last year's coup, and also former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, who had chaired the NRC.

 

On the day Ihsanoglu arrived, a 35-year old Buddhist rubber tapper in Yala was shot dead by insurgents. In this attack, four other people were injured, including two of the Buddhist's children.

 

Ihsanoglu criticized the violence which has wracked the south for the past three years. An umbrella group representing 200 Muslim organizations, the Council of Muslim Organisations in Thailand (CMOT), urged the OIC to take a role in stabilizing the region. Niti Hassan, the CMOT president, suggested an autonomous administration for the south (similar to the autonomous Muslim region in Mindanao in the Philippines) was a sustainable way of dealing with the situation. The CMOT leader suggested a six-year peace plan should be sponsored by the OIC, which represents 57 Muslim nations. Hassan also said that Yawi, the language spoken by most Muslims in the south, should become the official language of the region.

 

Following the OIC visit, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin claimed that the separatists in the south were changing their tactics. He said: "The other side is resorting to a new tactic after their random attacks on both Buddhists and Muslims. After the visit of the OIC chief, who criticized the violence tarnishing their image, they are changing."

 

The general's claims are projections of his own wishes, rather than an accurate assessment of events. Sectarian attacks against Buddhists have continued, and the militants have renewed their attacks upon military personnel.

 

Last week, the prime minister of the current government, Surayud Chulanont, visited the south, the latest of many. Chulanont has 40 year history in Thailand's army and was regarded as a safe caretaker for the nation when he was made prime minister. Recently there have been calls for his resignation, as in the south and in Thailand as a whole, he has been seen as a failure.

 

There may be solutions to minimize the violence. For the southern provinces to gain semi-autonomy is one option. How Buddhists, who comprise 20% of the population in the south, would be accommodated under a Muslim administration is unknown. Establishing Yawi as the official language of the region is another option, even though such an action would tacitly acknowledge that the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala are distinct from Thailand. Even if a peace deal could be negotiated which satisfied the local populace, groups like the Runda Kampulan Kecil would not take part. RKK aims to entirely remove the southern provinces from Thai control.

 

On May 9, a week after the OIC delegation left Thailand, a bomb killed seven soldiers in Rangae district of Narathiwat. The location of the attack was close to a spot where the military had surprised a group of RKK members on March 2, killing five of the militants. The May 9 bombing of the military patrol was judged by investigators to have been a revenge attack carried out by RKK. The main suspect for the bombing is Wae-aleecopter Waji, an RKK leader who has carried out 20 bomb attacks in Rangae district.

 

There are an estimated 3,000 militants active in the south of Thailand, active in small units in 500 villages.

 

Rorhing Ahsong, aka Ustaz Rorhing, leads RKK -an offshoot of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional. According to MIPT Terrorism, RKK was only officially acknowledged by the Thai authorities as a terror entity in late 2005. It has 500 members. The RKK is essentially the same as BRN, but specifically signifies fighters who were trained in Bandung in Indonesia.

 

When multiple bombings took place in southern Thailand beginning on Pattani Day - June 15, 2006, an Indonesian man was arrested in Bo-ngoh in Rangae district, Narathiwat province. This 34-year old Sumatra-born individual, called Sabri bin Emaeruding was found in possession of bomb-making material. Also called Sabri Amiruddin or Zablee Hamaeruding was found with urea fertilizer, spikes and nails.

 

It was suspected that this individual was a man identified by police sources at the end of 2005 as Mudeh, an Indonesian who was the leader of a group called the South Warriors of Valaya. This recently formed group had connections in Malaysia, Singapore, Afghanistan and Indonesia. Sapaeing Bazo, leader of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional and founder of the militant Thamma Wittaya school in Yala, was claimed to be acting as Mudeh's deputy.

 

In November 2005, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who was then head of the fourth army in southern Thailand, had first suggested that some insurgents had links with Indonesia. This followed the interrogation of 17 individuals who had confessed to being among 300 Thai Muslims who had undergone training in Indonesia.

 

The involvement of Thai insurgents with Indonesians suggests, but does not prove, that some of the southern militants could be actively involved with terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has links to Al Qaeda and comprises numerous Indonesian activists.

 

This month, following the recent beheadings of Buddhists, spokesman for the Thai army Colonel Akara Thiprote claimed that some foreign individuals were training militants. He claimed their accents and dress suggested they were Indonesian. He said: "The insurgent trainers are people from this region, but they are not Thai. Thais would never teach such cruel killing." He suggested that the decapitations were influenced by jihadist videos.

 

There may be political solutions to the crisis in the south of Thailand. While funds are channeled to the insurgents from the Middle East, and members of jihadist groups who seek to create a pan-Asian Islamist super-state train these militants, such a solution is still far off into the future. Those who will suffer most from the influence of exploitative outsiders will be, as always, innocent families who get caught up in the ideological crossfire.