Be patient in tackling rebellion; OIC to Thailand

Bangkok, Apr 27: The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) has praised Thailand's handling of insurgency in the country's Muslim-majority southern border region but urged patience ahead of an OIC team visit here.

Ekmeleddin Ishanolgu, Secretary-General of the 57-Islamic nation grouping is scheduled to arrive in Bangkok on April 30 leading a delegation which will travel to Thailand's troubled south.

An OIC advisor who met the top official in the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs here yesterday in preparation for the visit, said Thailand's approach to the over three-year-old southern insurgency showed recognition of its root causes.

The OIC found this encouraging and this was the reason the grouping has deferred discussion on the Thai insurgency till next month's OIC foreign ministers' conference in Pakistan which takes place after the OIC secretary-general's Thailand visit, OIC advisor Sayed El-Masry told Thai foreign ministry's Permanent Secretary Virasak Futrakul.

However, the OIC official added that it could take a number of years before the approach produces results and the Thai government must be patient.

More than 2,100 people have been killed since the outbreak of insurgent violence in early January 2004 in the three Muslim-majority provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala bordering Malaysia.

The three Malay-speaking provinces are also ethnically, linguistically and culturally distinct from Buddhist-majority Thailand.

It is, however, not correct to equate the Thai insurgency to similar situations involving Muslim minorities in other nations, Mr El-Masry, a former OIC assistant secretary-general added.

"Each situation has its own dimensions and different cases have different paths," he said.

The OIC has "to take care of one-third of the world's Muslim population of 1.8 billion who are minorities under the principle that we respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country we are working with. But please note that the OIC has never supported separatist movements," the OIC official said.

UNI