Underground struggle licence to smuggle: the Thailand–Malaysia border region

‘They usually come in the evenings, every three to four days. They arrive by bus and are smuggled across the border to Malaysia here. It’s people from Myanmar, Laos, Bangladesh and Northern Thailand. Then they are picked up again on the other side.’1 This is how a resident from Narathiwat province in Southern Thailand, at the Malaysian border, described the people smuggling activities in his area. All sorts of licit and illicit goods are also smuggled across the Golok river, which defines the border between Thailand’s Narathiwat province and Malaysia. Petrol is cheaper in Malaysia and is smuggled to Thailand; conversely cooking oil is cheaper in Thailand and is smuggled to Malaysia. Meth from Myanmar’s Shan State is smuggled across the river and cigarettes from the Philippines pass through Malaysia and are sold in Thailand. The southern part of Thailand (Figure 2.1), the so-called Deep South, is not only a popular transit route for smuggled goods and people, a violent conflict between an independence movement and the Thai state has been going on for decades, particularly in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. Checkpoints and Thai army soldiers are everywhere. Hundreds of mainly small attacks take place every year (Abuza, 2017). The conflict cost more than 7,000 people their lives between 2004 and 2018 (Blaxland, 2018; see also Abuza, 2016). In order to explore the link between armed conflict and the smuggling economy, I conducted research in the area in November 2017 and February 2018, covering both sides of the border in Thailand and Malaysia. On the Thai side of the border, I worked in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla. On the Malaysian side of the border, I spent my time in Kelantan province.