Malaysian role vexes Thai conflict
By Jason Johnson
PATTANI - When Malay Muslim insurgents recently staked Malaysian flags along roads, pedestrian bridges and on electricity poles across Thailand's predominantly Muslim southernmost provinces, the symbolic acts of rebellion highlighted Malaysia's often overlooked cross-border role in the deadly conflict.
Although Thai officials have consistently characterized the situation as homegrown, that interpretation is stretched by the fact that many Malay Muslim Thai nationals share an ethnic and religious affinity with Malaysia's ethnic majority. Malaysia has long served as a source of sanctuary for ethnic Malay separatists who launch attacks in Thailand and flee to safety across the border.
There have been widespread allegations that northern Malaysia, particularly Kelantan state, has been used for insurgent trainingand planning. Many insurgent fighters and others tied to the separatist rebellion are known to have drawn on the strategic advice of an older generation of Malay Muslim separatists who reside in Malaysia.
The flag hoisting incidents served as a stark reminder that Malaysia will need to play a significant complementary role if the unprecedented levels of violence that have engulfed the historically restive ethnic minority region since early 2004 are to be subdued.
August 31, the day insurgents raised Malaysian flags across the southern Thai provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and parts of Songkhla, symbolically marked both the anniversary of Malaysia's independence from colonial rule and the founding of Bersatu, a separatist umbrella group established in 1989.
Sources with knowledge of the clandestine insurgent movement told Asia Times Online that orders for the highly-coordinated incidents were given by separatist leaders based in Malaysia.
Some Malay Muslim sources tied the events to Thailand's colonization of the region, a former Malay sultanate. They believed that precisely 103 incidents were staged, equal to the number of years that the former region known as Patani has been under formal Thai rule. (The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 demarcated borders between Siam, present-day Thailand, and Malaysia, ending traditional tributary relations.)
Delicate diplomacy
Thai officials said soon after the incidents that insurgents were trying to spark a conflict between Thailand and Malaysia. Other sources with access to the movement, however, suggested that the incidents underscored a longstanding desire among many in the shadowy separatist movement for Malaysia to play an intermediary role in a negotiated peace process with the Thai government.
Malaysia's state-influenced media was initially silent on the incidents. Later, on September 2, Malaysian media quoted officials who said only that they did not know why Malaysian flags were raised on Thai territory. Senior Thai government officials, meanwhile, insisted that that they maintain cordial ties with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's administration.