In the second of a series of articles about the continuing violence in southern Thailand, Ronald Aung Nai tries to find out what is really fuelling the violence and what local Muslim leaders are demanding.

Students practice for a drama show in Yala Rachabaht University.

Masuerin Dalot is one of the actors. A Muslim student in his early twenties, he tells me he’s tired of the violence.

It started many years ago. But, I don’t know, before that, what happened. And, what they want. I only know that the situation seems never ending

He has no sympathy for the shadowy groups fighting for a separate Islamic state here, or the Thai military.

The conflict here affects every aspect of life.

But who exactly is behind the current violence is still unclear.

Many local Thai Islamic leaders say the root cause of the insurgency is social injustice and historical differences.

I meet Mansour Salleh, the former president of the Young Muslim Association of Thailand in a restaurant outside Yala. Like many people here he’s suspicious of outsiders.

Mansour tells me this conflict is historic.

“It’s not just the last three years. But it’s related to almost a century after Pattani was conquered by Thailand. Pattani was fully ruled by Thai government after they changed the infrastructure through centralized concept. Then, Pattani started to demand to rights as Malay area and they want one Malay governor.”

For centuries, Pattani was the centre of an independent Muslim kingdom - which only became part of the Thai state in the early 20th century.

Mansour Salleh says the fact that Thai is now the official language is also a sensitive issue.

“We are Malay and we have Malay language as mother tongue. We want to practice our language freely here and promote by the government. We need government open minded and tolerance about this issue. Even though there is no harassment on this policy but they try to stop our language and campaign Thai. According to human dignity, I think it is very wrong.”

The Malay language and the Islamic faith are practiced freely here though.

Daud Waedueramae Maminchi is the headmaster of a private Islamic school in Pattani.

In his school office he tells me in Malay, the violence has been fuelled by poverty. The South is one of the poorest parts of the country.

The crisis situation rose gradually step by step. It based on the history of Pattani but we can conclude that the current crisis results from social injustice. The authorities didn’t understand and care about the feeling and needs of the Muslim in this area. The distress increased slowly step by step, time to time. And, local people start to organize among themselves to ask for justice for Muslim people to authorities.

Maminchi also claims that politicians trying to win elections and illegal business tycoons in the region are fuelling some of the violence.

Those people doing illegal businesses such as smuggling, illegal trading and drug trafficking benefit from the violence too. They have the power to create a situation where they can safely carry out their black businesses. Of course illegal businesses flourish in a crisis situation like the one we have now, not in peace times.

He says due to social injustice, poverty and low education, many young Muslim people are at risk of joining militant groups.
The main armed groups are the Pattani United Liberation Front and Bersatu. Bersatu or ‘unity’ is believed to be an umbrella organisation for a number of splitter groups.
They say they are fighting for independence from Thailand, however their leaders and goals are shadowy and unclear.

Greater autonomy and rights is what Muslim leaders I speak with are demanding.

In the office of the Young Muslim Association of Thailand, workers are busy helping the families of people who have disappeared or been arrested in the conflict.

Abdurrashid Tadaein the Vice Chairman of the group, speaking in Thai not Malay, divides the young people of the region into three groups.

The first group is the young people who sympathize with the militants and later join or work for them. The second group are those who want to help solve the problems by helping people in need. The third group of young people are indifferent. They don’t really know what is happening. They are in risk for being recruited or trained by government troops or police.

Abdurrashid believes most young muslin people in the South do want peace, But…

Peace is not enough. We also need justice. I would like to tell you what is injustice is here. Here we have a Muslim majority. Very few people are Buddhist here. But when it comes to who is in charge the situation is reversed. 80 percent of top leaders are Buddhists and a only 20 percent are Muslims. That is what we mean by injustice.

Thai Muslim leaders have cautiously welcomed the recent military coup. Some hope the new leaders will take a different approach to understanding and solving the tensions in the South.

But Mansour, back in the Yala restaurant is not so hopeful.

“The problem of Southern Thailand is not only government but there is one super power behind the government structure. It’s the State. The State says that we cannot allow this. We cannot allow any type of Malay language because there is Thai as official language. This is Nationalism. Thai Nationalism.”