Die islamische Minderheit in Südthailand

Abstract This paper deals with the Muslim minority in Thailand's four southern provinces. Now numbering about 820,OOO, these Muslims of Malay ethnic stock have been under Thai influence, protection and government since the 13th century, when the Thais started moving into the Malay peninsula. Pattani resistance to political incorporation into Thailand failed for lack of British backing. However, they defended their ethnic, cultural and religious identity in the face of Thai attempts to integrate and assimilate them. After the 1932 coup Thai Muslims received limited cultural autonomy. But with the rise of Pibul Songram and national chauvinism former rights were withdrawn and pressure on the Muslim minority increased again. After World War II, and ensuing chaos in the Malay Peninsula, Haji Sulong became the voice of the Muslim emancipation movement which, influenced by Indonesian and Malay nationalism, demanded cultural, religious and administrative autonomy for the southern provinces. These demands were rejected; Haji Sulong was arrested and a subsequent revolt suppressed. But tensions in Southern Thailand still ran high during the fifties. During the sixties and early seventies economic conditions in the Muslim provinces deteriorated drastically. Organized crime and political dissent reached unprecedented levels. A liberation organisation - the Barisan Nasional Pembebasam Republik Pattani (NLFP) - was formed and armed resistance started. The Thai military tried in several unsuccessful operations to suppress the Muslim guerillas. A political solution was vainly sought during the short democratic interlude in Thailand. After the 1976 military coup, the resistance of Thai Muslims increased again and culminated in the unsuccessful attempt to assasinate the king in 1977. The political aims of the Liberation Organisation of the Pattani People have not yet been clearly formulated; there seem to be different factions. For a long time the NLFP demanded an independent Pattani republic or sultanate in the four southern provinces. More recently they have demanded an autonomous region only. This apparently results from closer cooperation between Muslim dissidents and the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT). It is this possible cooperation between Thai Muslims, the CPT and the Communist Party of Malaya - whose strongholds are in the Thai-Malaysian border area - that worries the Thai government most and will keep Thailand's Muslim provinces a minor crisis area in the years to come.