News Analysis: Thailand and Malaysia bristling
International Herald Tribune
October 27, 2005
Nick Cumming-Bruce 

BANGKOK Alongside the almost-daily shootings and bomb blasts marking the escalating violence in the mainly Muslim southern Thai provinces bordering Malaysia has come a volley of acrimonious comments from ministers on both sides of the border charting a decline in bilateral relations.
 
Relations between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are at the lowest point in many decades, regional analysts say, to such a degree that their neighbors and allies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have begun to worry that the tensions between the two are starting to have an adverse impact on their wider strategic and security interests.
 
"This is not a good time, to be sure," a senior official of the 10-member regional grouping said. "Things appear to be getting worse." He asked not to be identified in deference to the Asean convention that members do not comment on each other's internal affairs.
 
This month, for example, the Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, accused Malaysian leaders of trying to exploit the insurgency issue to score domestic political points, while Malaysia's foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, was quoted calling on Thai leaders to be more "mature."
 
Thailand's justice minister, Chidchai Vanasatidya, who oversees policy on the south, is heading to Kuala Lumpur on Friday for talks with Najib Razak, Malaysia's defense minister, to try to defuse tensions.
 
The agenda for their talks is not known but the hope is they will "emphasize cooperation between the two countries and try to move forward with our relationship," a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman, Sihasak Phuangketkeow, said.
 
A series of other top-level contacts are planned.
 
Thaksin will have a chance for talks with his Malaysian counterpart, Abdulah Badawi, when the two attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Busan, South Korea, in mid-November. The former Malaysian leader Mahathir bin Mohamad will see him in Bangkok soon afterward.
 
Thaksin will meet with Abdullah again at an Asean summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December.
 
Still, the mutual mistrust and suspicion will require effort by both sides to overcome, analysts say.
 
The present tensions are "not something that can be resolved just by a couple of high-level meetings," said Abdul Razzak Baginda, director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center.
 
Also, he said, "Thaksin does not seem anxious to sit down and discuss the matter with Malaysia, he views it as a domestic issue."

Tension between the two countries has been building for more than a year. Thailand regards the conflict in the south as a purely internal matter. Malaysia fears that the instability to the north could spill across the border.
 
The population of Thailand's southern provinces is ethnically the same as in neighboring Malaysian provinces; they speak the same language, Yawi, and share the same religion. Many southern Thais have relatives in Malaysia and thousands cross the border to work there.
 
Thaksin offended Malaysian leaders last year by bluntly expressing concern that separatist insurgents were receiving training and support across the border in northern Malaysia.
 
Malaysian leaders, sensitive to the opinion of Muslim voters at home and the Islamic community abroad, have viewed with dismay Thaksin's heavy-handed use of security forces to tackle what he sees as largely a law-and-order issue in the south.

The current chill resulted from the flight last month of 131 Thai Muslims from Narathiwat, epicenter of the violence in the south, into Malaysia, where they took refuge at two mosques, claiming that they were fearful for their safety because of Thai military operations against insurgents.
 
The Thai authorities dismissed their exodus as a political stunt manipulated by insurgent groups to present the Thai authorities in a bad light and to arouse the sympathy of Muslims outside Thailand.

Malaysia's decision to let them stay instead of returning them as illegal immigrants drew instant indignation from the Thai authorities, who said it played into the strategy of the insurgents.
 
Recent comments by Malaysia that it could not return the 131 until it had Thai assurances over their safety deepened the perceived offense. Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon retorted that Malaysia should "stop giving interviews to teach us things that there is no need to teach."
 
Asean fears that it might start to pay a price for the open acrimony between two of its founding members and former staunch allies.
 
Among the immediate concerns is the fate of a meeting that the 10-member Asean is trying to arrange between its leaders and President George W. Bush at the mid-November Asia-Pacific talks in South Korea.
 
Two years have lapsed since Asean leaders last met with Bush, and the impetus within Asean for another meeting is the concern that American engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, regarded by South East Asian countries as a cornerstone of regional stability, may be weakening.

Insurgents seize weapons
 
Suspected Muslim insurgents seized dozens of weapons in 34 coordinated nighttime attacks across southern Thailand, leaving six people dead, the Thai military said Thursday, The Associated Press reported from Bangkok.
 
The attacks took place over several hours along the Malaysian border in Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces, said a regional military spokesman, Colonel Somkuan Saengpataraneth.
 
Four villagers - two of them village chiefs - and two insurgents were killed, and seven people were hurt.

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