Separatist movements are a perennial problem in Southeast Asia. Vietnam’s conflict against the Montagnards living in its Central Highlands was already ongoing in the imperial era and later peaked during the Indochina Wars. Violence in Thailand’s Deep South has ebbed and flowed since the Siamese conquest of Pattani and surrounding areas in 1785. Campaigned for by its many ethnic minorities, separatism in Myanmar has been a constant complication in politics since independence in 1948.
Despite decades of negotiations and peace processes, however, most separatists have not laid down their weapons or stopped their campaigns for a separate homeland. The few instances where they have, seem to prove that political negotiations are provisional until power is truly shared. Aceh, for instance, saw peace return after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami jumpstarted political negotiations between the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM, to use its Indonesian abbreviation) and the Indonesian government. These days, former GAM leaders freely contest local elections in an autonomous province.
Third-party involvement is another complication in the tug of war between national governments and separatist movements. These interventions can either help mediate the separatist conflicts or complicate them with another set of interests. In the case of Thailand’s Deep South, Malaysia has served as a go-between between the government in Bangkok and the separatists since violence broke out again in the mid-2000s. The recent change in government in Kuala Lumpur, as a result, has the potential to affect the peace process in Thailand’s Deep South. Hara Shintaro’s analysis in Khaosod English, our first Spotlight article, provides us with a view on possible developments concerning the Deep South.
To take another perspective, peace processes, in which almost all governments in Southeast Asia have taken part alongside separatists, are by nature tentative and fragile. However, one lesson from conflicts that have been resolved, like Aceh, or are moving in that direction, like Mindanao, is that national governments could be open to negotiating any sort of political arrangements as long as separatists drop their dream of secession. Our second Spotlight article by Irrawaddy editor Nyein Nyein illustrates how difficult it is for the peace process in Myanmar to move forward when Myanmar’s territorial integrity is still in question.
Moving peace processes forward depends on a full array of complicating factors. Some separatist movements in Southeast Asia still aim for full independence, others have weakened their demands to political autonomy and a guarantee for the preservation of local culture. In the many peace processes ongoing in Southeast Asia, separatists’ ambition for independence is an untenable basis for political negotiations. Without a durable basis for a political solution, peace processes are likely to go nowhere, unfortunately.