Samsuding: "We are not bandits!"
Thai-Malay Muslims who operate or work in tom yam kung (hot and spicy shrimp soup) restaurants in Malaysia have always been held in suspicion by Thai security officials of being supportive of the separatist cause in the deep South.
The Isra news agency had a chance to talk with three members of the tom yam kung club in Hat Yai on Saturday April 21. The two men are Abdul Waha Kama, Apichart Lemso, owner of Lala restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, and Wan Sam Suding or Samsuding Wasu Kadoh, president of the tom yam kung club.
Samsuding was mistakenly identified as Samsuding Khan, a leader of Pattani United Liberation Organisation, by some local Thai media. He was pictured at a recent meeting with Pol Colonel Thawee Sodsong, secretary-general of Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre, who was recently in Malaysia reportedly to help troubled Thai workers in the tom yam kung business. However, the colonel’s meeting was mistakenly reported as a mission to hold talk with the separatists.
Samsuding told Isra news agency that his group’s meeting with the Thai media in Hat Yai was intended to show that they were not linked to the separatists and were not involved in any illegal activities against the Thai state.
"We are not bandits or thieves. We went to Malaysia to work so that we could make some revenue to send our children to schools. We don’t our children to follow our footsteps to open restaurants in a foreign land. But we want our children to become MPs or government officials," said Samsuding.
The president of tom yam kung club maintained that Pol Col Thawee’s recent visit to Malaysia was to help the Thai restaurant operators and workers so they could work properly in Malaysia.
He assured that all the tom yam kung restaurant operators were not linked to the separatist groups. But he admitted that he could not say for sure any of the Thai workers were involved with the separatist movement or not because they have never been any background checks.
Samsuding noted that it would be very difficult to pursue a normal life for anyone who suspected to be linked to the separatists. He cited the case of his own children who were questioned by their school friends when it was reported in the Thai media that he was suspected to be a separatist.
Samsuding’s niece, 18-year old Ms Natharika Torsuwan, who is studying at an international school in Malaysia, told Isra news agency that her friends had asked her about Samsuding whether he was a separatist as reported by the Thai media. She said she was said that he was wrongly implicated.
The Isra news agency also talked with three Thai workers who were recently arrested by Malaysian immigration officers for overstaying their visas and for working without permits.
One of the workers said that he spent only 27 days behind bars because the owner of the restaurant where he worked as a cook bailed him out otherwise he would have been jailed of up to three months.
After the release, he was deported back to Thailand and his name would remain in the blacklist of the Malaysian immigration officers of up to four months.
Apparently not discouraged by his arrest, the worker said he would try to get a loan from the Islamic Bank so that he could get a proper work permit to work in Malaysia.
Franking speaking, he said he would not work in Malaysia if he had a choice. But because there are no jobs in the three southernmost provinces and because he needs money to feed his family and an ageing mother he has to work abroad, he added.