Thai town's trade dies as Malaysia tightens border

Thai town's trade dies as Malaysia tightens border


Border ties: A worker packages Thai-produced rice sold at a hut in the Thai border town of Pekan Mundok, March 1. Business in this dusty, once-bustling Thai village has gone quiet in recent days after Malaysia tightened its border. Picture: AFP
PEKAN MUNDOK, THAILAND

Monday, March 5, 2007

THE morning crowd from Malaysia usually consisted of housewives. They jumped onto rickety wooden boats from Bukit Lata, in northeastern Kelantan state, for a two-minute ride across the filthy Golok River to Pekan Mundok town in Thailand's insurgency-hit Narathiwat province.

But the housewives have stopped coming in recent days after Malaysia tightened its border, and business in this dusty, once-bustling Thai village has gone quiet.

The merchants who sell everything from rice to wild birds and fishing equipment from dilapidated zinc-covered shops worry Malaysia's crackdown on illegal border crossings will further undermine southern Thailand's impoverished economy. And they say Thailand's proposal to extend a wall along the frontier will only worsen their plight.

Tighter security at the border came after Thailand's army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and his counterpart from Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi agreed last month to boost their cooperation in a bid to end three years of separatist unrest in the south of the majority Buddhist kingdom.

There is no official border post at this town, and until recently residents on both sides could cross at will, albeit illegally. That has changed.

"Look, the Malaysian police (are) over there," Bakri Che Mat, 42, a Muslim Thai, said as he pointed to two Malaysian security personnel armed with M-16 rifles on the other side of the river. "They have been there for a week now and Malaysians can no longer cross," he said. "I do not know why the police are preventing Malaysians from coming here. It is safe here. No bombs here," he said.

Residents on the Thai side depended on income from their southern neighbours "for our survival", he added.

At their recent meeting, the Thai and Malaysian leaders said they would continue efforts to end dual nationality for people on both sides of the frontier.

Many southern Thais also hold a Malaysian passport, which security forces say makes it easier for insurgents to slip back and forth across the border to escape arrest.

Militants responded to the leaders' cooperation by staging almost 50 Lunar New Year bombings, shootings and arson attacks that left nine dead in the south, where a majority are Muslims like their Malaysian neighbours.

In the biggest clash since those bombings, at least eight separatist militants were killed Friday in a gun battle with Thai troops who raided an insurgent training camp in Narathiwat near the border, security officials said.

Walking on the deserted red-stone track, which passes for a main road around Pekan Mundok, leaves a visitor with an eerie feeling, as if one is being watched.

The town has only about 500 residents but close to 50 merchants, a testament to the amount of business that used to come from Malaysia. Now they can only sit around, waiting for customers who no longer come.

Hamid Harun, 60, who sells birds and fishing gear, said life was "really difficult now". "I used to earn about 300 ringgit (US$86) daily, but now on some days, nothing at all," he said.

"Please don't let your Muslim brothers suffer," Hamid urged Malaysia, adding that trade links benefited people on both sides of the border.

Bakri, who sells rice on the Thai side, said his daily revenue of about 500 ringgit (US$143) dropped by at least 70 per cent in the past week. "Tourists from Bangkok are not coming here because of security fears in the south and now Malaysians are not crossing over. We are as good as dead now." AFP