June 17, 1998, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Flagging Asian Economies Stymie Muslim Guerrillas -- Insurgents Are Being Pushed Out Of Areas With Natural Resources, by Uli Schmetzer,

June 17, 1998, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Flagging Asian Economies Stymie Muslim Guerrillas -- Insurgents Are Being Pushed Out Of Areas With Natural Resources, by Uli Schmetzer,

MUSLIM SEPARATISTS have been tolerated in some Asian countries for decades, but they're no longer welcome in areas with valuable resources that need to be tapped.

BANGKOK - Separatist Muslim guerrillas in Thailand and other Asian nations, survivors of government military sweeps and police actions, are finally being routed from their sanctuaries by an unexpected foe: the region's economic crisis.

Governments seeking a way back to prosperity are targeting untapped natural resources in remote and mineral-rich areas, and many have joined with neighboring nations to wipe out the cross-border insurgencies that have scared away investors.

These "last frontier" campaigns have led to the collapse or weakening of once-powerful Muslim separatist movements on Mindanao in the Philippines, in China's northwestern Xinjiang province and in Thailand's southern provinces.

Only a few separatists left

In a part of the world where trade has become the first priority, the days of separatists hiding with sympathetic neighbors may be over.

Abdul Halim, a recruiter and instructor in Thailand's Muslim insurgency, surrendered last month after 15 years of guerrilla warfare. Together with other senior Muslim rebels, he accepted a government amnesty and money to begin a new life.

"The surrender had the right psychological effect," said Somchai Virunhaphol, president of Thailand's Muslim Welfare Organization, a nongovernment charity. "In reality, only a few separatists are left who believe in the old principles. The rest have become bandits or drug traffickers."

Only last year, the powerful Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which had waged a civil war with the Philippine government for decades, made peace in return for a greater measure of autonomy and a stake in the development projects of Mindanao, the richest of the Philippine islands but also one of the most backward as the result of the insurgency.

Closer commercial ties with China and lucrative cross-border trade have seen Central Asian Muslim nations withdraw their tacit support for Muslim separatists who flee across their borders after carrying out anti-Chinese terrorist actions in the vast province of Xinjiang.

Bombs still explode

In Mindanao, Muslim splinter groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front continue the struggle for an independent Muslim state. And bombs explode now and then on buses in China's Xinjiang province.

In Thailand's deep south, the 4th Army has taken over the fight against isolated incidents of sabotage and bomb attacks, which many Muslims say are often carried out by agents of local officials trying to convince Bangkok that they need bigger budgets to fight the rebels.

Muslim separatist movements in Asia are relics of the medieval days when the Turkish Ottoman empire pushed overland through Central Asia to the borders of China. As the empire contracted, it left behind a Turkic people loyal to Islam.

About the same time, in the 14th and 15th centuries, Arab traders sailed to Southeast Asia and converted Indonesia and Malaysia from Hinduism and Buddhism to the Koran.

What made Halim abandon the struggle for a separatist Muslim state covering four small provinces of southern Thailand was an apparently tacit accord between Thailand and Malaysia to hand over Muslim rebels.

For years the rebels had carried out militant actions in a part of southern Thailand that used to comprise seven Muslim sultanates. After their attacks, the rebels usually fled across the border, taking sanctuary among sympathizers in Malaysia.

This all began to change after both Thailand and Malaysia suffered an economic meltdown last year and their currencies lost 30 percent to 40 percent of their value against the U.S. dollar. The struggle for revival has led to the tapping of the countries' last natural resources. The south of Thailand and the north of Malaysia are rich in natural gas, timber and minerals.

The separatists have been operating in a border area that was set aside by government planners as an economic free zone, a triangle between Malaysia's north, Thailand's south and Indonesia's northern Sumatra island.

In addition to the push for development, the rebels' cause has been weakened by recent government decisions to lift the ban on veils and scarves for Muslim girls who attend public schools, allow the Yawi language in schools and no longer force locals to change their names.

"There are no real grievances left, and the majority of Muslims these days don't care about a separate state as long as they can practice their religion and keep their culture," Somchai said.