Thailand's violent south: Dreaming of a sultanate FROM Pui's fruit stall in central Yala it is easy to see, just up the road, the charred remains of the shophouses blown apart by car bombs on March 31st. Eleven people were killed, and about 100 more injured. Yet Pui appears unperturbed. After all, she explains, she has already seen seven bombs go off just in her half of the street over the past few years, including two outside the same car-repair business only yards away (one person was killed). She just has to live with it, she says. The bombers are almost certainly Muslims from shadowy groups including the Pattani-Malay National Revolutionary Front Co-ordinate (known by its Malay initials, BRN-C). Though Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, in the south ethnic Malays form a Muslim majority. For years armed groups have fought for the restoration of the ancient sultanate of Pattani, which Thailand (then called Siam) annexed in 1909. The insurgents do not issue statements or release videos, but it is reasonable to assume that they target Pui's road because it is at the heart of Yala's ethnic-Chinese community, which accounts for two-fifths of the town's people. The aim is presumably to scare ethnic Thais and Chinese out of this bit of Yala and to break up a multi-ethnic community that once prospered here. If so, they are succeeding. Many have fled. The whole area is now a "safety zone." Access is controlled by checkpoints, sometimes manned by officially sanctioned local militias. Business is being choked off. Pui, a third-generation Chinese immigrant, will give only her nickname, for fear of reprisals from the bombers. Her Muslim friends are afraid to visit her. A few blocks away, by contrast, the Muslim quarter carries on much as before. Such are the consequences of allowing southern Thailand's decades-old insurgency to fester. Since 2004, when a modern campaign of terrorism began, over 5,000 people have been killed in the four provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla. The violence has ebbed and flowed, but this year it is building up again. Insurgents killed 128 people to the end of March and injured 657 others. Despite years of bloodshed, few politicians have devoted energy to ending the insurgency. The deep south is remote from Bangkok, and the problems appear intractable. Besides, the capital's elite has been preoccupied with its own coups and confrontations. And so the south gets treated mainly as a security or a criminal headache. Some 60,000 soldiers have been dispatched to keep a lid on the cauldron. However, after the latest atrocities in Yala (and also in the city of Hat Yai), that might change. On April 30th the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, paid a visit to Pattani, promising to do more to help restore peace. But to put an end to the violence, local experts agree, the government will have to do more than just promise better security and more jobs, as Ms Yingluck did. It will have to make hard political decisions as well. At the root of the conflict is the feeling among Malay Muslims that they lack proper political representation. They make up four-fifths of the population in the deep south. They often speak only Malay and are proud of their particular history. In contrast, only one of the governors in the three Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat is a Malay Muslim, while the other two are Thai Buddhists. All are appointed by the government in Bangkok. Poverty and drug-running contribute to the problems in the south. But armed groups feed off a sense of political grievance and discrimination, says Muhammad Ayub Pathan of Deep South Watch, a local think-tank. Despite some signs of progress, he says, the younger generation is more radical than its parents - and just as much in favour of restoring the sultanate. Experts say that the insurgents have grown more sophisticated, and that their numbers have increased. Though accounts vary as to how far the insurgency is fuelled by Islamic radicals from abroad, many locals travel to other Muslim countries to gather support. Moderate Malay Muslims and Thais argue that if the conflict is ever to be resolved, the government in Bangkok will have to grant a measure of autonomy to the southernmost provinces. Perhaps they should also be united in one administrative unit. More autonomy would certainly offend conservative Thais who insist on the unitary nature of the country, with the king presiding. The army, too, would object. Yet searching for a political solution is the only way forward.