Economic zones will boost south Thailand peace process, says think tank

 

More than 7,000 people have been killed in fighting between Thai forces and insurgents since 2004. (AP pic)

PETALING JAYA: Economic zones should be established in southern Thailand as they will help to boost the peace process, says the head of a think tank.

Altaf Deviyati said setting up economic zones that are jointly protected by Malaysia and Thailand would not only spur economic growth but prove that “peace is the way to go”.

“This would be faster than the peace deal itself,” the managing director of Iman Research, an outfit focused on peace building and sustainable development, told FMT.

More than 7,000 people have been killed since 2004 in fighting between Thai forces and groups seeking independence for the predominantly Muslim and ethnically Malay provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and parts of Songkhla which border Malaysia.

Altaf said Hatyai and Songkhla were business havens but as long as there was no peace in the three nearby provinces, it would not be sustainable.

She said Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani were the three poorest areas in Thailand and the economic disparity was huge. There was also a large youth population in the provinces who did not see a future for themselves.

“This is not sustainable, resentment will boil to violence. So, if we are serious about shared economic prosperity, we need to get all the border areas together,” she said.

Altaf said the political crisis in Malaysia, which saw the government change hands three times in two years, had also hindered the peace process.

She said a change in government would normally see the appointment of a new facilitator for the peace process.

Unfortunately, she said, “things didn’t go positively for a number of reasons” for the facilitator under the Pakatan Harapan government, former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Noor.

She said whatever goodwill was achieved in the past had been replaced with distrust.

“Which is why the current facilitator has a lot of work to do to rectify that,” she said, referring to Zulkifli Zainal Abidin, a former head of Malaysia’s armed forces. - FMT