International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Advance Access originally published online on November 23, 2007
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 2008 8(2):175-190; doi:10.1093/irap/lcm024
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Malaysia's 2005-2006 refugee stand-off with Thailand: a security culture analysis
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1890 East-West Road, Moore Hall 416, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Email: peterfh{at}hawaii.edu
In September of 2005, Malaysia–Thailand relations were stressed by an incident in which 131 Thai Muslims fled across the Southern Thai border to seek refuge in Malaysia. The Malaysian government initially refused to return these ‘asylum seekers,’ and eventually chose to internationalize the situation by calling on the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Malaysia's decision to internationalize the issue points to potential instability in Malaysia-Thailand bilateral relations and reflects several internal political problems faced by United Malays National Organization (UMNO) central decisions makers. This paper seeks to explain the Malaysian central government's security perspective on the northern border region. To do this, I employ Muthiah Alagappa's framework for security culture analysis in an attempt to understand Malaysian security culture from the perspective of that culture's central decision makers themselves. (Alagappa, M ed., (1998) Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.)
Received for publication September 15, 2006. Accepted for publication October 10, 2007.