KUALA LUMPUR: The assassination of a mosque imam in Thailand’s southern Narathiwat province has already spooked a group of 131 Thai Muslims to flee across the border into Malaysia’s Kelantan state. And now, a week later, with little real understanding developing over the issue between the neighbouring countries, there are fears of a massive exodus of Thai Muslims into Malaysia which has deep historical and cultural ties with southern Thailand. The 55-year-old imam, Satopa Yusof, who headed a mosque in the Thai border village of Ban Lahan village in Sungai Padi was killed by unknown but uniformed gunmen days before the refugee group, including 24 women and 43 children, fled into Kelantan. Malaysia’s foreign minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar has said that while Malaysia has accommodated the fleeing Thai citizens on humanitarian grounds, this should not be interpreted as giving them refugee status. “Malaysia is the chairman of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) and one of roles of the OIC is to ensure the safety of Muslim minorities living in non-Muslim counties are guaranteed and their security not threatened,” Syed Hamid says.

“Thailand is not very far from Malaysia and what happens in south Thailand has direct impact on us, so we just cannot keep quiet,” he says.

Last Friday, Syed Hamid said Malaysia would give “temporary shelter” to the fleeing Thais on a “humanitarian basis” but was careful to add that this did not mean they were being refugee status. Members of the fleeing group say they fled after Thai security forces launched an operation against suspected militants seeking autonomy for the Muslim-dominated southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani, in which several people were killed.

Suspected Muslim militants have also been reported setting off bombs, shooting at police and occasionally beheading informers in the towns of these provinces. Syed Hamid said he had been told by his Thai counterpart, Kantati Supamongkon, that the villagers who fled were not refugees. The Thai foreign minister also denied that his country’s security forces had killed 17 Thai Muslims during last week’s operations, as claimed by members of the Thai group. Narathiwat shares

border crossings with Kelantan at Sungai Golok-Rantau Panjang and Tak Bai-Pengkalan Kubor.

“The sudden and unexplained killing brought the war to the village spooking the villagers to flee,” a Malaysian police officer told IPS on condition of anonymity. “We fear the worst now...not just more refugees, but placating local Muslims—the situation is extremely complex and delicate”. One complication is that the villagers had crossed into opposition-ruled, Kelantan state, where the Islamic fundamentalist Parti Islam Malaysia or PAS party rules, and which is openly sympathetic to the cause of Thai Muslims if not the separatists.

Within hours of the villagers crossing into Kelantan, its chief minister and PAS spiritual leader, Nik Aziz Nik Mat, slammed Bangkok for causing the refugee problem. “It is their insensitive and dictatorial rule in southern Thailand that is causing the villagers to flee,” Nik Aziz said, urging the Malaysian government to accept any number of affected Thai Muslims and treating them humanely. Nik Aziz has also been urging Muslims to donate cash and clothes for the refugees, and warned Bangkok that the situation would escalate if the genuine grievances of Muslims in southern Thailand were ignored. Other PAS leaders are less charitable and directly blame Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s “unkind policies” for the insurgency.

“We are horrified and sickened by the massacre of Muslim civilians in southern Thailand. The lack of concern by the Thai Government has encouraged the military to execute its trigger-happy approach against unarmed Muslims, resulting in much loss of life and influx of political refugees into Malaysia,” PAS secretary general Kamaruddin Jaafar told IPS. “We also urge the Malaysian Government to give the refugees from southern Thailand, who fled to Kelantan state, necessary assistance befitting the political refugee status,” he said. “We also urge the Malaysian Government to form a task force to visit and observe the actual situation in southern Thailand,” Kamaruddin said.

Thaksin has not made it easier by saying some of the 130 villagers, many of them women and children, who crossed over to Malaysia were militants. “They are hiding as refugees and they want to internationalise the issue. “It is a dirty tactic by the insurgents,” Thaksin told Thai media last week. Thaksin has declared several times, without pointing fingers directly at Kuala Lumpur, that Muslim separatists were carrying out attacks in south Thailand but were hiding out across the border in a “neighbouring country”. Malaysia has strongly denied it is harbouring Muslim militants from Thailand. The relationship is strained but senior officials of both countries have met several times to iron out differences and put up a common stand against the insurgents. The refugee crisis is sure to complicate relations, analysts said.

Thailand wants villagers returned but mindful of possible criticism from local Muslims, Malaysia, which currently chairs the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), has been holding back. The ruling National Front government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has not recognised the villagers as refugees, but insists that Malaysia has a responsibility to be humane to them. To placate Bangkok, Malaysia is describing the villagers as ‘detainees’ who had entered Malaysia without proper documents. Nevertheless, Malaysia is also insisting Thailand must explain what is happening on their side of the border that is forcing Muslim villagers to flee into Malaysia.

Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist nation with a Muslim minority, has suffered Muslim insurgency for decades but since January last year, guerilla activities have gained steam in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala with more than 900 people having died in shootings, bombings and beheadings. “I think the responsibility is for the Thai side to ensure that they can overcome the fear, whether real or perceived fear, in the local community in Thailand so that they will not come here,” Syed Hamid said. “We will help them (the refugees). “However, we are not meddling in Thailand’s domestic affairs,” Syed Hamid added. The situation is complicated by the fact that Muslims on both sides of the border are related, share a common culture and language and a common past. “These provinces were part of the Malay world and were conquered by the Thais. The colonial British rulers handed them over to Thailand. The provinces rightly belong to us, not to the Buddhists,” a PAS leader told IPS. Political analysts urged a high level meeting between Thaksin and Abdullah to quickly come to grips with the situation.

—Dawn/Inter-Press News Services