By Ian MacKinnon
Thursday, December 10, 2009

BANGKOK -- A series of bomb blasts wounded 14 troops and police officers Wednesday as the Malaysian and Thai prime ministers staged a historic joint visit to Thailand's insurgency-plagued southern provinces.

Five bombs exploded just ahead of the two men's arrival in military helicopters in the Thai border town of Bukit Ta. The leaders were to open the renamed Thai-Malay Friendship Bridge over the Sunai Kulok river to Malaysia.

The violence amid tight security for the trip to the mainly Muslim provinces bordering Malaysia underscored the depth of the problem Bangkok faces.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai premier, and Najib Razak, his Malaysian counterpart, had shown a united front ahead of their trip to the south, where at least 3,900 people have been killed in the past five years in the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani.

The blasts wounded four soldiers, two marines, five police officers and three local defense volunteers as they tried to remove booby-trapped banners bearing separatist slogans. Four of the bombs -- including two that exploded simultaneously -- went off in Yala, while another was detonated in neighboring Narathiwat province shortly before the two leaders arrived.

The leaders said the troubled provinces are part of predominantly Buddhist Thailand and will remain so, rejecting independence or autonomy for the region, which is impoverished but rich in rubber plantations.

Independence would "lead to the breakup of a country," the prime minister of mainly Muslim Malaysia told Thailand's Nation newspaper. "That's not a good thing for Thailand and the region, or for Malaysia."

Both leaders said some form of decentralization of power to the provinces -- as opposed to autonomy -- might provide a solution to the violence that was consistent with the Thai constitution.

-- Financial Times