
The Deep South Watch documented this event and recorded the opinions of two academics who gave presentations.

The Deep South Watch documented this event and recorded the presentations delivered by a human rights activist and highly-ranked military commander.

The poll views on critical issues, the causes of the situation of conflict and violence, and the prospects of the Abhisit government in solving it

“The continued political turmoil in Bangkok shows no sign of being resolved anytime soon. As long as Thai governments are preoccupied with maintaining political office, they will be distracted from putting forth a genuine effort to improving the situation in the southern border provinces.”

"We have tried to resolve the separatist problem, but our efforts have unfortunately resulted in creating further social divisions. We have essentially already separated the people.”

"If the Thai state continues to use the same policy that relies primarily on its security forces to bring peace to the region, the cost of the state’s investment will require approximately an additional 235,984 million baht, bringing the total sum of the state’s security expenditures since 2004 to approximately 345,280 million baht. This security-focused strategy will also require another five to ten years to resolve the problems.”


During five years of the resurging violence from January 2004 to December 2008, there were 8,541 violent incidents, causing 3,287 deaths and 5,409 injuries. Although violence seems to have declined since June 2007 when over 60,000 military and security forces were deployed in the deep South, the trend still fluctuates and continues. Violence has been reflected in many forms of physical attacks including shooting, bombing, arson and vandalism.