The Ongoing Insurgency in Southern Thailand by Zachary Abuza National Defense University

Author:Zachary Abuza, National Defense University [Zachary Abuza, National Defense University]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839747786
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Barakaldo Books
Published: 2021-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

Table 2. Human Achievement Index Rankings of Deep South Provinces (ranking out of 76 provinces)

Source: United Nations Development Programme.

The problem may be exacerbated rather than solved by THB63 billion in development funding. The real questions are who will spend those funds and how they will be spent. As it stands, the military’s ISOC will be responsible for the disbursement of most funds. The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre only administers a handful of projects for education and reconciliation. The Abhisit government said it wanted a softer, development-oriented approach, but that policy was administered by the same security institution whose role the government sought to reduce.

There is also a legitimate concern over whom the funds will benefit. If funds are misappropriated—always a possibility in a country with high rates of corruption—or directed primarily to Buddhists or Muslims who have openly sided with the government, the effort will further alienate the population. Since 2004, the government has gone out of its way to use fiscal means to punish “red zones”—villages with high rates of insurgent activity—which is hardly an effective counterinsurgency program. The government has suggested that it will continue to reward regions with lower rates of unrest. One nongovernmental organization (NGO) leader estimated that roughly 20 percent of the 2009 development funds for the south simply vanished.{32} The government is bracing for a similar amount in the 4-year budget. The NGO official said that government auditors were afraid to be deployed to the south—and not because of the insurgency. More cynically, many have suggested that the funds were being used to shore up the Democrat Party’s support base in the Buddhist-majority upper south in the hopes of improving its performance in the May 2011 elections.

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