South Thailand Insurgency - Post-coup Reorganization

Post-coup Reorganization

The junta implemented a major policy shift by replacing Thaksin's earlier approach with a campaign to win over the "hearts and minds" of the insurgents. Junta chairman Sonthi Boonyaratglin announced that the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) and the Civilian-Police-Military Task Force (CPM) 43 would be revived. Sonthi said the Army-led multi-agency Southern Border Provinces Peace Building Command would be dissolved and its troops would come under the CPM 43, which would operate in parallel with the SBPAC. The SBPAC and CPM 43 had been dissolved in mid-2001 by former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Before that, CPM 43 was under the directive of the SBPAC. Sonthi also made himself head of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC). Previously, the ISOC had been headed by the Prime Minister.

The ISOC was given 5.9 billion baht in funding for fiscal year 2007. By May 2007, General Sonthi asked the government for an additional emergency budget of 2 billion baht for ISOC, as the normal budget was running out. The money was under the "secret budget" category, which meant that state officials could spend it without having to account for it to the government.

In November 2006, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont revealed that the insurgency was being financed by restaurants and stalls selling Tom Yam Kung in Malaysia. Surayud claimed that the Tom Yam Kung network collected money from local businessmen through blackmail and demands for protection fees and channelled the sum to the separatists. Malaysian Deputy Security Minister Fu Ah Kiow described the revelation as "absolutely baseless," and "very imaginative." ISOC is heavily infiltrated by the growing Muslims population in Thailand who are giving weight to the insurgency.

Junta-chief Sonthi announced that the insurgency was a second priority for him, behind the issue of dealing with "undercurrents" who still supported the deposed elected government. Meanwhile, the junta shifted intelligence resources, surveillance equipment, and phone-tapping equipment from the South to Bangkok, in order to deal with political dissenters. Defence Minister Boonrawd Somtas also noted that worries over further attacks in Bangkok did not focus on Southern insurgents, but rather on "a man who is in exile" - a remark that the media interpreted as deposed Prime Minister Thaksin. Sonthi later refused to transfer additional troops to the South, instead keeping them in Bangkok to perform what he called "community relations work."