As has been identified and acknowledged, the troubles in southern Thailand where most of the 4-5 percent of Thailand's Malays-Muslims are concentrated have always been multi-layered and multi-faceted.

It seems that the most important root causes are history and identity. However, if seen in the contexts of the histories of international relations, regional defence and security as well as inter-state territorial politics, the problems and issues in southern Thailand may even be more complicated.

According to historians, the Malays-Muslims population in southern Thailand once lived under polities that were separated from the Bangkok-based Thais-Buddhist kingdom. Because of the cementing of shared ethnicity and religion, Malays-Muslims in southern Thailand show more emotive affinity with their fellow Malays-Muslims in Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu which are now the constituent states of Malaysia.

However, as the result of the 18th century southward expansion of the Bangkok-based Thais-Buddhist kingdom, the traditional and historical Malay-Muslim polities were conquered or subject to military and political pressures, and their territories progressively brought under the kingdom's direct and indirect control. These territories included Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu. (see J Kennedy, A History of Malaya, London, MacMillian, 1970).

The population of these territories has since been subject to attempts to assimilate them linguistically, culturally and religiously by the Bangkok-based ruling elites. Resentment ensued and seems to continue to fuel separatist sentiment and aspiration. Thus, seen from this historical perspective, imperialism and colonialism were not necessarily Western or maritime.

There was, of course, local resistance to the imperialism and hegemony of the Bangkok-based Thai-Buddhist polity. The motivations of those resistance forces, however they self-styled themselves, were essentially irredentist and religio-ethnicist. The dynamics of these motivations in international or inter-state relations have been well observed, articulated and analyzed by the doyen of American political science, Samuel Paul Huntington in his masterpiece, The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of the World Order, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996.

However, because of the rather artful diplomatic and political skills of the Bankok-based polity in managing inter-imperialist rivalries from the 19th to early 20th centuries, Siam (as Thailand was then called) was able to legitimatize its new territorial gains and politico-military influence in southern Thailand and northern Peninsular Malaysia.

Economic aid

Later, under the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty, the four states in northern Peninsular Malaysia were transferred from Siamese to British rule in a Siamese attempt to play off Britain and France against each other. At that period, there were serious frontier tensions between French colonialism in Indochina and Siamese own imperialist design in the Cambodia and Laos.

In return, Siam was given economic aid to build, among others, railways. Above all, Siam prepared to position itself as the buffer-state between British in Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and Burma on one hand, and French in Indochina on the other. According to historian J Kennedy, the British feared "a French idea of a canal across the Kra Isthmus" (ibid; p.243).

From a geostrategic point of view, a canal built across the Kra Isthmus would threaten the status of Singapore as the principal position of the economic and military interests of the British Empire in the Asia-Pacific region or, as the geographical concept then termed, "Far East". The idea of a canal across the Kra Isthmus still seems to challenge the economic foundation of independent Singapore at any time.

In any event, after acquiring Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu, the British organised them together with Johore, into the Unfederated Malay States (UMS). British Malaya was then constituted by UMS, the Federated Malay States (FMS) of Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan as well as the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements of Singapore, Penang, Province of Wellesley and Malacca.

Meanwhile, as Britain entered into an alliance with France and Russia in Europe in the early 20th century to check the rise of Germany, Siam sided with the former and, for the moment, conducted apparently balanced relationships with both Britain and France. In the subsequent World War I (1914-1918), Siam, together with imperial Japan and nationalist China declared war on Germany and its allies.

Of course, there was no independent Malaysia or Malaya yet. There was only the British Empire in the Far East in what are now known as Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Hostile situations

In any case, nothing really serious happened in those British colonies during World War I, with the exception of the mutiny of Indian troops in Singapore in February 1915, believed to be instigated by German agent-provocateurs. However, there were small-scale and sporadic anti-British unrests among Malays-Muslims in UMS, like Pasir Puteh in Kelantan in April 1915. (see Ban Kah Choon, Absent History - The Untold Story of Special Branch operations in Singapore, 1915-1942, Singapore, Horizon, 2002; pp. 1-60).

However, after World War I and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, international relations began an re-alignment in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. In Europe, Germany rearmed on a massive scale under the popular pressures of ethno-nationalism as well as the rise of the Nazis. In Asia, Japan became increasingly hostile to its former allies like the United States and Britain.

From an Anglo-French and European vantage point, World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, and the Americans also have another point of reference, namely the Japanese raid on the Pearl Harbour on Dec 7 1941. However, a more dispassionate and objective study has concluded that, from a global point of view, World War II began on Sept 1931 when Japanese troops seized the three northeastern provinces of China. (see Jeremy Black., World War Two - A Military History, London, Routledge, 2003; pp. 31-35)

If this global point of view is accepted, then southern Thailand and its local or domestic problems again become important for discourses and analyses which may yield additional insights into the current issues. For after the Japanese conquest of China's three northeastern provinces, the imperial troops drove not only westward toward Mongolia and southwestward toward China's heartland, but, more importantly, also southward toward Southeast Asia and Australia.

After the fall of the French homeland in June 1940 into the hands of Germany, Japan immediately exerted political and military pressures on the regional French colonial administration in Indochina. The local French regime succumbed and Japan was finally able to deploy and station massive troops there, especially southern Vietnam.

Meanwhile, inside Siam, central political power in Bangkok had already been seized by Field Marshall Phibul Songkram who staged a successful coup that overthrew the absolute monarchy in June 1932. The openly anti-Chinese and secretly pro-Axis nationalist ruled Thailand as a "virtual military dictator". (Michael Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Southeast Asia, London, Routledge, 1996; pp. 204-205).

However, he still maintained semblances of neutrality between the Allied and the Axis powers until December 1941 when his regime effectively allowed Japanese troops to enter southern Thailand from Indochina, and stage a massive land- borne invasion of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore on Dec 8 1941 from Pattani and Songkhla. Another point of amphibious entry was Kota Baru in Kelantan.

An hour and ten minutes after the Japanese landing at Kota Baru, Japanese fleets and aircraft raided the Pearl Harbour. (the exact timing was calculated and published by Ian Ward, Battlefield Guide - The Japanese Conquest of Malaysa and Singapore, Singapore, Media Masters, 1989)

Meanwhile, the Phibul regime in Bangkok continued to claim neutrality until it formally declared war on Britain and the United States on Jan 25 1942 or twenty one days before the fall of Singapore. That formal claim of neutrality had frustrated the secret British plan of launching Operation Matador which called for a pre-emptive strike into the southern Thailand to prepare defensive positions in anticipation of Japanese attacks from Pattani and Songkhla.(see Peter Elphick., Singapore V The Pregnable Fortress, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1995; pp. 143- 172)

Status quo restored

In any event, after the fall of Singapore, Japanese troops moved into Sumatra, Java and Timor after defeating the Allied forces in the Battle of Java Sea, and then attempted to invade Australia by bombing Darwin.

To reward the Phipul regime for its "co-operation" in allowing its troops to use Pattani and Songkhla as the staging groups for the invasion of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, Japan announced on July 5 1943 that Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu were to be transferred back to Thai's sovereign jurisdiction, thus restoring the status quo ante the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty. This transfer was formalized in a treaty between Japan and Thailand dated Aug 20 1943. (see Paul H Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941-1945, London, Hurst, 1998; pp. 85-91)

However, as Kratoska recorded, the transfer deeply offended Malay nationalist sentiment, for the Malays both in Thailand and what remained of Malaya became minority groups, the former a small proportion of the population of Buddhist Thailand, the latter outnumbered by the Chinese. (ibid: p.86)

It must be recalled here that some (not all) Malay nationalists such as those in the KMM (Kesatuan Melayu Muda or Young Malay Union) actively facilitated and supported Japanese invasion of British Malaya in the hope of expelling British colonialism in the name of Pan-Asianism (see Abu Talib Ahmad, The Malay Muslims, Islam and the Rising Sun, 1941-1945, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2003)

Seen in the light of this historical context, southern Thailand is a militarily critical position for the forward defence of the Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand in any conventional warfare against any northern threats.

Also, the politics of this position has also always been enmeshed with cross-border Malay religio-ethno nationalism, domestic Thai politics as well as international relations, especially inter-state alignment, de-alignment or re-alignment.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM). Wong is a former DAP member of parliament for Kampar (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.