March 8, 2008
BANGKOK - Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday blamed foreign militants for separatist unrest in mainly Muslim provinces of southern Thailand.
The region along Thailand's southern border with Malaysia has suffered more than four years of separatist violence that has left more than 2,900 dead.
Thailand has long insisted that the conflict is entirely domestic, but Samak told reporters he believed foreign militants had a hand in the unrest.
"Other people are staging attacks on our soil. We have concluded that our people are not doing this kind of thing," Samak said at his weekly news conference.
"But I don't want you (media) to say anything about Indonesia or the Philippines. We must preserve good relations. Let me visit the region first and I will tell you more later," he said.
Thai officials have in the past accused extremists in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines of training Islamic militants, but have always backed away from the comments afterwards, according to AFP.
Samak also said he would discuss the situation with Malaysia during an official visit to Kuala Lumpur later this month.
The Thai government usually denies any foreign role in the unrest.
In January, the spokesman for the previous military regime said Al-Qaeda was financing the Thai insurgents -- only to be quickly contradicted by then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont.
After four years of battling the insurgents, Thailand has made little visible progress even in identifying the people or groups behind the attacks.
No group has claimed responsibility for the violence, and the government has yet to publicly identify any of the militancy's leadership.
