Another round of vehicle bombs in Narathiwat province last week has shown this government has no more control of the deep South's violence than any of its predecessors. Militants drove a truck and a motorcycle, both carrying bombs, into the province's main town. It was Friday, broad daylight. No intelligence report alerted Narathiwat officials or innocent civilians. The explosions wounded 13 people and damaged 20 buildings.
The military regime has been touting statistics that "prove" that violence in the South has diminished since last May. The numbers are correct, as presented. Compared to the deadly attacks in 2013-14, the murderous assaults have been fewer in number. As many wise men have cautioned, statistics are slippery things, able to "prove" many proffered arguments. The value of fewer attacks is largely lost on Narathiwat and its three neighbouring provinces. People there will be impressed when attacks reach zero, and separatists agree to stop their violent ways.
It is far too easy to lay blame and point fingers at the government. It is not the army, police and elite forces behind last week's vehicle bombs in Narathiwat. Security forces have not committed atrocious acts such as beheadings in an attempt to intimidate residents of the South. The government has not killed teachers and burnt their schools to the ground. Not only have armed separatists done all of this and much more, they have claimed the actions are pious and justified because of their "struggle to oppose Siamese aggression".
This language alone shows the refusal of the separatists to face facts. To each other, they insist they are resisting a foreign invasion. Everyone else realises that six generations of southern people have been born in Thailand.
It would be a hopeless, romantic notion if the separatists were peacefully calling for a return to the status of the 19th century. Instead, for nearly half that time, groups such as the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) have conducted terrorist attacks such as last Friday's bombing. The only result the separatists have achieved is destruction and death. Muslim southerners comprise a majority of the dead, totalling more than 6,000 in just the last 11 years.
It is often said that authorities are deaf, that the anti-insurgency policy has failed and that current anti-terrorism tactics do not work. From Thaksin to Prayut, every government since 2004 has tuned out when southern people peacefully raise grievances. All of the above is true. Government has indeed failed the challenges of the deep South, lawful and lawless alike. Calls for a change in policy, however, work both ways. The separatists' methods of insurgency, intimidation, terrorism and bombing have utterly failed.
For 47 years, Pulo has failed to budge Bangkok governments. An alphabet of violent groups, sometimes together but often fighting each other, has not captured the support of the people in the South. And groups that used to be able to count on sympathy from Malaysia have now lost that tactical battle for aid.
The army, the police and all the secretive military and paramilitary units operating in the deep South have failed to halt the violence. But so have the separatist movement which still calls for separation and preaches hatred of Thailand. When it comes to calls for a change of policy, Pulo and its fellow separatists should listen, because their strategy of nearly half a century has brought only death and destruction to their own region and people.