Causes of The Insurgency
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont claimed to have evidence the insurgency was being financed by restaurants selling Tom Yam Kung soup in Malaysia. Malaysia's Deputy Security Minister Fu Ah Kiow argued the claim was "absolutely baseless," and "very imaginative." Financing aside and despite official Thai agency alternative explanations, the essential cause of the continued violence is likely to be rooted in historical animosity generated by a Buddhist culture taking over and administering, often under an inadvertently corrupt motif, an Islamic culture.
Some locals in the area support some kind of independence from Thailand, while others clearly do not. The national referendum to support the junta-backed constitution for Thailand was favored by a majority in all three southernmost provinces and passed overwhelmingly in the southern region of Thailand, with 87% of the 3.7 million voters who participated there approving it. Furthermore, while those in the insurgent groups support armed conflict, most Southern residents seem to want negotiation and compromise and the rule of law to return, along with an end to human rights abuses by both sides.
Read more about this topic: South Thailand Insurgency