Although there is no official statistics of the number of Muallaf soldiers or Buddhist soldiers who converted to Islam and married with Muslim women killed or maimed in the Deep South, it is no secret that they are constantly living a dangerous life.

Fifteen men killed and eight injured during the six-month period from January this year are a cruel reminder of the life-threatening danger facing paramilitary defence volunteers (or-sor) on daily basis in the three southernmost provinces.

The unrest situation in the Deep South has sowed the seeds of mutual distrust between security forces and Muslim students which occasionally led to open frictions between them and protests by the students.

A former core member of the BRN (Barisan Revolusi Nasionale) separatist movement believes that the creation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in the next three years will help ease the unrest situation in Thailand’s Deep South as Muslim youths in the region will turn more attention to education issue than to separatism issue.

The right of access to compensation or rehabilitation cannot be traded or exchanged with the right of access to the truth and justice, according to Ms Caitlin Reiger, an Australian advisor to the International Centre for Transitional Justice.