BANGKOK — Diplomats are warning that Thailand’s war against Islamist guerrillas in the south could escalate into an international security crisis similar to those in Afghanistan and Yemen.
More than 5,000 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed in bombings and gun battles in Thailand’s south since 2004, and the government has spent more than $3.5 billion in a failed effort to quell the insurgency.
“There may come a day when the troubles of the south will become the troubles of the region as a whole. And I dare say this, it might become a magnet for people to create havoc from elsewhere,” said Asif Ahmad, British ambassador to Thailand.
“We’ve seen it in Yemen. We’ve seen it in Afghanistan. You cannot be immune.”
David Lipman, European Union ambassador to Thailand, noted that nearly “two people per day are being killed on average at the moment in south Thailand, so this is obviously very, very worrying.”
Mr. Lipman said the EU does not “wish to interfere in any way with an internal conflict problem in Thailand, but we would like to interact” with Thai leaders and share experiences in countering terrorism.
“We have experiences in Northern Ireland, in the Basque country [of Spain]. There are many experiences that we can share,” the EU ambassador said.
The British and EU ambassadors made the remarks in their opening speeches at a forum, “Roadmap to Deep-South Resolution: Government Concerns and Policy Responses 2011-2014,” at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on Wednesday.
Several Thai military and political officials also spoke, describing how Bangkok is searching for ways to quell the violence, address the needs of Thailand’s southern Muslim minority, and improve the impoverished region’s education system, economy and security.
About 59 percent of the people killed in the southern insurgency have been Muslim, and about 38 percent Buddhist. They include soldiers, religious leaders, teachers, students, workers and others, totaling 5,243 deaths since January 2004, according to official statistics.
At least 535 people were killed last year in the conflict after 521 died in 2010.
The Islamist separatists’ hit-and-run war is mostly confined to the three southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, where Muslims make up 94 percent of the population along Thailand’s mountainous border with Muslim-majority Malaysia.
The Buddhist kingdom of Thailand annexed the region more than 100 years ago, but a new generation of militants has renewed a decades-long fight for autonomy or an independent nation to be called Pattani.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been criticized for not doing enough to solve the underlying causes of the violence.
Minority ethnic Malay-Thai Muslims in the south frequently complain of random killings by poorly disciplined security forces.
Thailand is a non-NATO ally of the U.S., and the kingdom’s security forces have received some training from the U.S. military.
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