Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event.

As’salamualaikum Wr. Wb...

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event. My name is Adam John. I am British and live in Sweden. Maybe some of you are wondering why this mat salleh is talking about Patani.

Patani is important to me because my wife’s family come from Patani. Therefore, my children and also Patanian.

I also believe that everyone has the right to self-determination and that people must be able to express their political opinions freely. For me, that’s the most basic human right.

I’m British so I’ll talk about Britain’s role in the Anglo-Siamese Treaty and Britain’s responsibility to support a peaceful political solution for Patani

When Britain signed the Anglo-Siamese Treaty in 1909, Siam had already conquered Patani and arrested the last Raja in Patani. But when Britain signed the treaty, it was symbolic. It meant that Britain legitimised Thailand’s sovereignty over Patani and ignored the wishes of the Patani people.

The root cause of the conflict we see today which is reported in the media as the violence in Thailand’s ‘Deep South’ or ‘Southern Border Provinces’ cannot be understood unless we go back to the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty and understand that Britain gave consent to Siam to ignore the Patani people’s right to self-determination.

The Patani people have many legitimate grievances against Thailand’s government such as forced cultural assimilation in the past and now living under martial law and having their basic human rights denied.

But the root cause of the conflict always comes down to Bangkok and Britain’s decision to ignore the Patani people’s right to self-determination.

Britain must recognise its role in creating the root cause of the conflict, which has gone on for decades and killed roughly 7,000 people in the last 15 years alone.

This means that the conflict in Patani is not simply Thailand’s domestic problem. It is an international problem and Britain has a responsibility to support finding a peaceful political solution.

Britain says that it respects universal human rights and democratic freedoms. The British government says that it sees freedom of expression as a basic human right. So why doesn’t Britain support these rights in Patani? The Patani people should demand this from Britain.

It’s not just Britain’s responsibility to help. Britain also has its own experience in respecting the right to self-determination of its own people.

Britain is a union of the four countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All of Ireland apart from six counties in Ulster left the union in 1922 and became the Irish Free State under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

In 2012, the Scottish and British governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement which set the terms of a Scottish independence referendum.

Scotland had a referendum in 2014. The Scottish people were asked to vote whether to leave or stay in Britain. 55 percent voted to stay in Britain so Scotland remained a part of Britain. The results were respected by the Scottish government and the British government. The Scottish people’s right to self-determination was respected.

Thailand will soon have an election. My question to all Thai citizens is how long can Thai people demand their own right to express their political opinions freely, and at the same time ignore the Patani people’s right to self-determination?

Sumber : Wartani, 10 Maret 2018.