"[2] Thailand has made two submissions to the Convention,[3][4] with ongoing issues including government policy towards ethnic groups, especially the Thai Malays, and the country's lack of racial discrimination legislation.
[6] According to Dr Chayan Vaddanaputti of Chiang Mai University, this was not always the case: "Earlier, they were seen by ordinary people in the lowlands as friends and trading partners in a mutually symbiotic relationship between the hills and the valleys.
But growing environmental problems after Thailand's national social and economic development plans took off in the late '60s and early '70s, and an influx of Vietnamese migrants during the Vietnam War changed this relationship forever.
"[7] Extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, and intimidation of members of Thailand's hill tribes by Thai police and military was rampant under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's "War on Drugs", which started in 2003.
Being called khaek ('foreigner' or 'guest'), the Thai Malays were subjected to discrimination and political suppression, especially during the regimes of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram and the Thaification policies of the mid-20th century.
The south Thailand insurgency of the past 10 years, has repeatedly been met with brutal force by successive Thai governments, especially under the Thaksin Shinawatra administration.
This also includes signage promoting racial segregation as was common in the southern United States prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and South Africa under apartheid.
Thailand has had long standing racial issues with Middle Easterners and South Asians,[citation needed] who collectively are also called khaek, meaning "foreigner" or "guest".
[33] Anti-Khmer sentiment, already high due to border clashes over the Preah Vihear temple, has been fanned by Suthep Thaugsuban, a Yellow Shirt leader.