Published on June 20, 2005 - After several months of spitting contests between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and Malaysia are coming to terms with the fact that it’s better to work together towards a peaceful outcome in the Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand than to continue to be at a loggerheads.

But how long this kiss-and-make-up session will last remains to be seen. Observers say it would premature to expect the current mood to last simply because there are too many variables at play when it comes to the sensitive issue of the insurgency in the Malay-speaking parts of southern Thailand.

Just a few months ago, the two countries were engaged in a tit-for-tat war of words. Harsh accusations about how each country was not being a good and responsible neighbour were clouding the air as diplomatic niceties were put aside in favour of emotional outbursts.

Ever since the January 2004 raid by suspected insurgents on an Army base in Narathiwat, Thai authorities have been leaking news about how militant operatives are ordering attacks on targets on Thai soil from their hideouts in northern Malaysia.

They have accused their Malaysian counterparts of not doing enough to seal the porous Thai-Malaysian border or clamp down on suspected insurgents accused of being behind the ongoing violence in the South, which has claimed more than 650 lives in the past 18 months.

Frustrations have been running high, and not just among the security agencies. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra abandoned diplomatic subtlety and put Kuala Lumpur on the spot when he stated publicly two months ago that he would ask Malaysia to extradite Jehku Mae Kuteh, a suspected insurgent from southern Thailand who also holds Malaysian citizenship.

Naturally, Kuala Lumpur responded angrily, describing this pubic outburst as a violation of diplomatic norms and suggesting that the chances that Jehku Mae would be extradited were slim to none.

Historically, Muslim insurgents who have fled Thailand for Malaysia have been permitted to reside there as long as they did not put the host country in an unwanted spotlight. And when Wan Kadir Che Man, leader of Bersatu, a Thai Muslim separatist umbrella organisation, went public by criticising the heavy-handed treatment of Muslims in the South by Thai police and soldiers, Kuala Lumpur sent him off to Sweden, where he now lives in exile.

But there are many people like Wan Kadir – ethnic Malay Muslims from southern Thailand – residing in Malaysia and Indonesia who are unable to return home because they have been marked for speaking out against the state.

Politicians tend to avoid this no-win topic because it only ends up antagonising the other side. Besides, said an Army general overseeing the restive region, today’s insurgents are mostly young men from the poor villages dotting the three southernmost provinces.

Despite this, Thaksin, amid growing criticism of the government’s failure to curb the violence, decided to play the Jehku Mae card anyway, scoring himself some quick political points.

But after months of bickering, it was time to kiss and make up. The two sides know that in the end they can’t go it alone in the fight to end the violence in the country’s Muslim-majority region or in addressing other issues.

There have been a quiet visit to Bangkok by a senior Malaysian government leader, as well as the visit by Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon to Kuala Lumpur and the northern state of Kelantan.

Thailand decided to retreat tactically by not insisting that Kuala Lumpur honour the 1911 extradition treaty between Siam and Britain. The two sides ended up placing economic cooperation high on the agenda.

Besides extending an olive branch to Malaysia, Bangkok has also invited the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, to visit the country to get a first-hand look at the situation.

The statements issued by the visiting delegates in recent days were in stark contrast to the one issued by the organisation’s secretary-general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who, immediately after an earlier meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi at the secretary-general’s Riyadh headquarters, slammed Thailand over the heavy-handed tactics employed in the south.

So strong was the statement that Bangkok had to send three special envoys to the OIC’s headquarters in the hopes that it would be possible to keep the problem from going international and out into the Islamic world.

Analysts and observers said Abdullah could not have returned from Riyadh empty-handed because he was being watch from all sides – from Anwar Ibrahim to the people in Islamist-oriented Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS). Indeed, the OIC statement was for domestic consumption in Malaysia as much as a shield against Abdullah’s critics. These are not exclusively Malaysians but also political leaders in the Middle East who are not thrilled with the idea of a Muslim country like Malaysia handing over so-called “Muslim freedom fighters” to a Buddhist Kingdom.

While the mood between Thailand and Malaysia these days is totally different than it was four months ago, the foundation of these relations still rests on a shaky ground.

As long as the killings in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces continue unabated, sooner or later some Thai political leader is going to lose his cool and make the kind of comments that Thaksin made. And the tit-for-tat spat will resume its due course.

Don Pathan