Ihsanoglu expressed “serious dissatisfaction at the persisting bloody acts of violence perpetrated against Muslims in southern Thailand”.

BANGKOK, March 1, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - With analysts seeing little chance of the Thai PM to change his hawkish policies, Thailand said it was sending envoys to meet with the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to explain its policies in the violence-wracked Muslim-majority south.

Thailand will dispatch three special envoys to the OIC following a strongly worded statement from the 57-member body condemning the government’s hard-line policy towards the Muslim-majority South, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Monday, February 28, according to Malaysian daily The Nation.

The OIC has appealed to the government to end “persistent bloody acts of violence” against Muslims in southern Thailand.

In a recent statement, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed “serious dissatisfaction at the persisting bloody acts of violence perpetrated against Muslims in southern Thailand”.

The appeal was made in a statement that followed a meeting between Ihsanoglu and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, chairman of the 10th Islamic Summit Conference to be held in Saudi Arabia later this year.

Ihsanoglu had said violence against Muslims continued despite appeals made by the OIC and the international community to the Thai government to end the violations that have claimed the lives of hundreds of people.

He also called for a “a just and urgent investigation into the causes of these incidents and to put an end to them”.

The Thai envoys, two Muslims and a Buddhist, are Charan Maluleem, a government adviser on Islamic affairs, Nissai Vejjajiva, an adviser to the foreign minister, and former ambassador to Tehran Mahadi Wimana.

Nissai said he considered problems in the South an “internal affair”, but fell short of saying the OIC has no right to voice its point of view on the subject, according to the paper.

The decision to dispatch envoys is the government’s latest effort to prevent problems in the restive region from spilling over into the international arena, the paper added.

Thaksin has vowed Thursday, February 17, to crush “separatist revolt” in the predominantly-Muslim south within four years, saying his government would cut off aid to villages who help separatists there.

But the plan drew fierce criticism in the region, with Muslim leaders, academics and politicians saying it would encourage support for a separatism in which more than 500 people have been killed since it erupted in January last year and would further damage business confidence.

Representatives of several civic groups signed an open letter to Thaksin demanding him to scrap his recent order to divide some 1,500 villages into “red”, “yellow” or “green” zones according to their level of alleged sympathy for rebels or support of authorities.

Unlikely Change

Analysts Doubt Thaksin is likely to change his harsh strategy. (Reuters)

Within the same context, analysts and Muslim leaders said Tuesday, March 1 that although the Thai Prime Minister has sought rare advice from critics of his tough stance towards unrest in the Muslim far south, he is unlikely to change tack, according to Reuters.

Normally intolerant of any criticism, Thaksin has surprised his opponents by inviting academics and villagers to come up with non-violent proposals to end the violence, it added.

However, few believe that Thaksin, fresh from a landslide second election victory, will heed their words.

“The government has created an image that it is willing to listen to others and ready to let them join its effort in solving the problem in the south,” political scientist Bukhoree Yeema of Rajabhat Songkhla University told Reuters.

“But I doubt if the Prime Minister will sincerely listen to them and implement some of their advice, or whether he will just listen and say those non-violence methods won’t work so he needs to continue with the hawkish approach.”

Religious leaders in the region, where four out of five people are Muslim, said villagers were tired of voicing their opinions to a wide variety of government officials who seldom did anything about them.

“We've made suggestions to officials from a deputy prime minister to provincial governors and district heads, but we've never seen concrete implementation of our plans,” Narathiwat Islamic council chief, Abdulrahman Abdulsahad, told Reuters.

“We've wasted so much time giving them so many opinions and so much advice,” Abdulrahman said, adding people were still living in “fear for their lives”.

He also urged the government to be more open and accessible, as suggested Monday by Prem Tinsulanonda, a former prime minister and chief adviser to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

“Whichever organizations want to settle the problem must know what is really going on. They must also know correctly the problem they are going to resolve,” Prem, who served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988, told a recent seminar on the thorny south problems.

Thaksin won elections, but not a single seat in the Muslim south. (Reuters)

Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist nation but about five percent of the population is Muslim, and most live in the five southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat are the only Muslim majority provinces in Thailand, where Muslims have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education and business opportunities.

On October 25, a total of 87 Muslims died after Thai troops broke up a protest at Tak Bai in the southern province of  Narathiwat with tear gas, water cannon and gunfire.

The majority of victims suffocated or were crushed after being bound and left for hours on trucks.