KUALA LUMPUR: A diplomatic row between Thailand and Malaysia over the fate of 131 Thai Muslims who fled to Malaysia in August, to escape ethnic violence and repression, has worsened as it begins to gain international attention.
Indeed, Thailand claims that the “escape” of the refugees was engineered by separatist Muslim militants precisely to drag United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) into the ethnic conflict simmering in its southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani.
Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wants the UNHCR to stay away from the villagers, who fled following violence and counter-insurgency operations by Thai armed forces in and around their village in Narathiwat, and not grant them refugee status.
Malaysia, on the other hand, says the UNHCR should be allowed to carry out its humanitarian mission and insists that Thailand guarantee the safety and rights of the villagers, now held at an immigration detention camp, before they can be returned home.
The positions of both countries hardened this week with words exchanged between leaders through their respective media and developing into a stand-off that is affecting the sometimes choppy bilateral relations. Thailand has accused Malaysia, which shares a border with the three Muslim-dominated southern provinces of aiding and sheltering separatist insurgents. Malaysia has denied those charges. “It is a serious row and the two countries should open discussions and settle their differences amicably,” said political scientist Murugesu Pathmanaban. “There are many mechanisms bilateral as well as multilateral available”. Despite warnings from Thaksin not to “interfere” in Thailand’s domestic affairs, the UNHCR has completed interviewing the villagers who included 21 women and 49 children of ages ranging from five months to 17 years.
So far, the UNHCR has refrained from announcing the results of the interviews which included key questions such as what prompted the villagers to flee, whether the feared for their safety on return and whether they are indeed eligible for grant of refugee status. Thaksin is sure to react furiously if the UNHCR decides they are refugees — which is apparently the case — since this will allow the 131 villagers to remain in Malaysia. Such an outcome is bound to be favoured by many Malaysian Muslims, who form the majority in this country of 25 million people. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi is under pressure from Muslims, who backed him overwhelmingly in the 2004 general election, to ‘save and protect’ brother Muslims in Thailand.
Bilateral relations have been souring largely because both countries, instead of talking to each other directly and in earnest, have preferred to talk through their respective national media and to their own galleries. The result has been rising political temperatures with almost weekly demonstrations in Malaysia joined in by even moderate Muslims protesting against Thaksin’s hard line policies against Thai Muslims. Already Muslims have launched a Malaysia-wide boycott of Thai products. The issue is further complicated because almost all of the villagers hold dual Malaysian and Thai citizenship — a common condition in the border areas. Similarities of culture, language and religion and long historical ties add to the problem. Thai Muslims naturally look to Malaysia for help and most Malaysians expect their government to back them.
Thaksin has not helped matters by describing the protestors as belonging to the “same pack of villains,” as the Muslim separatists. Like the Malaysian government, the UNHCR is also caught between fulfilling their humanitarian mission and threats from Thailand not to interfere in their domestic affairs. “Given the current sensitive situation in southern Thailand, the UNHCR has decided to withhold any public pronouncement on the status of the 131 southern Thais currently in Malaysia,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.
Last week, Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned the Malaysian envoy in Bangkok and lodged a strong protest against Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid’s statement that Malaysia would only return the refugees if Bangkok can guarantee their safety and human rights protection.
Thaksin upped the ante, this week, by rejecting a suggestion by Malaysian foreign minister Syed Hamid that both countries open discussion on the future of the 131 villagers.
“The talks are unnecessary,” Thaksin said before leaving for a one week-visit to the European Union. “The circumstances are not so pressing as to warrant a meeting. It is all a matter of procedure.” Hamid believes a dialogue will clear the air. “The plight of Thai Muslims has become an emotive issue here and Abdullah has to balance pressure from domestic audience to act as protector of Muslims and at the same time maintain good relationship with Thailand,” a prominent political analyst told IPS. “The problem is not Thailand but Thaksin,” said the analyst who declined to be named because he has sensitive links with both countries.
Abdullah’s soft spoken, mild mannered ands fatherly ways contrast sharply with Thaksin’s sometimes callous comments. Political analysts see the contrasting styles and the age gap between the two leaders as one reason why the war of words has been escalating and why so much bad blood has surfaced since the separatist violence surged last year. More than 1,000 people have been killed in escalating violence, shooting and bomb blasts since the March 2004 kidnap and murder of prominent Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, widely believed to have been killed by his police abductors.
It is is difficult to put a finger on who is behind the violence that is causing hardship to the six million Thai Muslims but atrocities like Neelaphaijit’s murder have not helped. Nor has the gruesome deaths by suffocation, while in custody, of 78 Muslim boys and men in October last year soon after they were arrested in Narathiwat for demonstrating against police abuse. For his part, Thaksin blames the escalating trouble on a mixture of separatists, gangsters and rogue generals. Nearly 80 per cent of those killed are ordinary civilians mostly rubber tappers, shopkeepers and civil servants. Tourist arrivals, mostly from Malaysia have dropped dramatically, traders have closed shops and left, hotels are empty and schools are shut.
