{"id":52,"date":"2016-09-18T16:24:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T16:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2016-09-18T16:35:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T16:35:14","slug":"thailand-malaysia-plan-border-wall-to-halt-illegal-flow-of-goods-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2016\/09\/18\/thailand-malaysia-plan-border-wall-to-halt-illegal-flow-of-goods-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand, Malaysia plan border wall to halt illegal flow of goods, people"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

Thailand, Malaysia plan border wall to halt illegal flow of goods, people<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n

Thailand and Malaysia will discuss plans to build a wall along their shared border, Thai officials said on Thursday, a day before Malaysian Prime Minister\u00a0Najib Razak is set to meet his counterpart in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

People-trafficking and the smuggling of drugs and weapons are among the transnational crimes that have flourished along the 640-km (398-mile) Thai-Malay border, until a crackdown by Thailand last year disrupted regional trafficking routes.<\/p>\n

Najib is to meet Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on an official visit that will focus on security cooperation and investment.<\/p>\n

The wall is on the agenda for the meeting, said a Thai foreign ministry official.<\/p>\n

“It will be on the agenda during Najib’s visit, but it will not be the biggest item on the agenda,” foreign ministry spokesman Chinawut Setawat told Reuters at a regional meeting in the Laotian capital of Vientiane.<\/p>\n

“It is still at the memorandum of understanding phase,” said Colonel\u00a0Yutthanam\u00a0Petchmuang, a spokesman for Thailand’s Internal Security Operations Command.<\/p>\n

Malaysia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.<\/p>\n

Najib’s visit follows three deadly bomb attacks in southern Thailand over the past month, including a wave of bombs in tourist towns in August that Thai police have linked to Muslim separatists operating in the country’s south.<\/p>\n

The porous Thai-Malay border has also been a site for the smuggling of weapons, drugs and illegal oil. After taking power in a May 2014 coup, Thailand’s junta promised what it called a “zero tolerance” policy of human trafficking and launched a nationwide crackdown on vice and crime.<\/p>\n

In January 2004, a shadowy separatist insurgency by ethnic Malays resurfaced in Thailand, after simmering for decades. Since then, 6,500 people have been killed, says Deep South Watch, a body that monitors the violence.<\/p>\n

Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were once part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until they were annexed by Thailand in 1909.<\/p>\n

Two issues in particular have spurred the interest of Malaysia and Thailand in building a border wall, said Srisompop Jitpiromsri, director of Deep South Watch.<\/p>\n

“The first is to stop the flow of illegal goods, whether it is petrol, drugs or human trafficking,” he told Reuters.<\/p>\n

\n

“The second reason is that insurgents operating in Thailand regularly cross the border and use Malaysia as a safety base.”<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Yet it remains unclear how far the wall will reduce crime.<\/p>\n

“There are still many logistical issues to address before building the wall,” Srisompop said. “It’s a tremendously long area.”<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Vientiane; Additional reporting by Cod Satrusayang in Bangkok; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/uk-thailand-south-malaysia-idUSKCN11E1HI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thailand, Malaysia plan border wall to halt illegal flow of goods, people Thailand and Malaysia will discuss plans to build a wall along their shared border, Thai officials said on Thursday, a day before Malaysian Prime Minister\u00a0Najib Razak is set to meet his counterpart in Bangkok. People-trafficking and the smuggling of drugs and weapons are among the transnational crimes that… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,15],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-malaysia","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}