Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 -- Partitioning of the Malay Heartland

Book Excerpt
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Extract of Anglo-Siamese Treaty, 1909 (bold added):-

Delineation of Boundary

Commencing from the most seaward point of the northern bank of the estuary of the Perlis River and thence north to the range of hills which is the watershed between the Perlis River on one side and the Pujok River on the other; then following the watershed formed by the said range of hills until it reaches the main watershed or dividing line between those rivers which flow into the Gulf of Siam on the one side and into the Indian Ocean on the other; following this main watershed so as to pass the sources of the Sungei Patani, Sungei Telubin, and Sungei Perak, to the point which is the source of the Sungei Pergau; then leaving the main watershed and going along the watershed separating the waters of the Sungei Pergau from the Sungei Telubin, to the hill called Bukit Jeli or the source of the main stream of the Sungei Golok to the sea at a place called Kuala Tabar. This line will leave the valleys of the Sungei Patani, Sungei Telubin, and Sungei Tanjung Mas and the valley on the left or west bank of the Golok to Siam and the whole valley of the Perak River and the valley on the right or east bank of the Golok to Great Britain.

The island known as Pule Langkawi, together with all the islets south of the midchannel between Terutau and Langkawi, and all the islands south of Langkawi shall become British. Terutau and the islets to the north of mid-channel ... to Siam.

Source: Bangkok Treaty (“Anglo-Siamese Treaty”) signed on March 10, 1909, with ratifications exchanged in London on July 9, 1909. (Great Britain, Foreign Office, Treaty Series 1909, No. 19, Command 4703, London)

Malay lands affirmed as Siamese territory by Great Britain in the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty:-

1) The four Monthon Pattani districts of Patani, Jala (Siamised as Yala), Teluban (Saiburi) and Menara (Narathiwat);

2) The old Patani districts of Tiba (Thepha) and Cenak (Chana) in Monthon Nakhon Si Thammarat (old Ligor);

3) The Kelantan district of Tabal (Takbai) and slivers of Kelantan territory on the northwest and west banks of the Golok river;

4) The old Kedah principality of Setul (Satun), somehow detached from Kedah/Monthon Saiburi at the 11th hour of the Treaty reputedly in part-exchange for Kelantan’s Tumpat district;

5) The Terutau (Tarutao) and Butang island groups, including Pulau Terutau, Pulau Butang, Pulau Udang, Pulau Singa, Pulau Belitong, Pulau Besi, Pulau Tengah, Pulau Cabang, Pulau Nipis, Pulau Rawi, Pulau Petra and Pulau Bulan;

6) All historical Malay domains up to the 11th degree parallel.

Map: Partitioning of the Malay states per the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty.

The Malay states were neither consulted nor participated and viewed the arbitrary division of their territories as a sharing of the loot by two foreign powers. Britain dropped extra-territorial rights on the Malay Peninsula up to the 11th Degree Parallel (Kra) per the old 1897 Anglo-Siamese Secret Convention. Historical Malay lands up to Kra thus recognised by Britain as Siamese territory.

(Click to Enlarge)

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Unauthorized reproductions of this map strictly prohibited and subject to legal proceedings.

A cursory reading of the Treaty would elucidate the inevitable conclusion that it was an incomplete project. The arbitrary nature of the demarcation gives the document a distinct work-in-process flavour, the interim stage of a bigger scheme. On both coasts, the international frontier cuts across the heart of Malay villages and communities, effectively dissecting families and kinfolk into two separate nationalities. In the east, the insignificant Golok River, more a glorified meandering stream, became the international frontier that, even today and for practical reasons, is not entirely accepted and viewed as an unnecessary irritant by the Kelantanese and their Patani kinfolk. The Treaty should, hence, be seen as a prelude to subsequent agreements to reflect further adjustments to the frontier per the blueprint of the 1897 Anglo-Siamese Secret Convention. Thus, Patani conspicuously was not mentioned by name in the Treaty; an unfinished matter to be fought on another day. But that day never arrived. The outbreak of the First World War and the tumultuous period leading to and during the Second World War preoccupied the Western World and effectively marked the end of their Southeast Asia land grab. Decolonisation in the decade following the end of the Second World War saw the withdrawal of European powers, with Southeast Asian states gaining independence within the borders carved by their old colonizers. Thailand, Siam’s new appellation, was consequently saddled with vast tracts of “alien” territories in its southern frontier, inhabited by a bitter, resentful and disenfranchised populace who could not comprehend nor accept the logic of their land being governed by an alien race with a distinctly divergent language, culture and religion. The old Patani Kingdom was stuck in Thailand; an unwitting pawn of an unfinished political chess game played by others, indeed, a cruel accident of history and a flailing socio-political appendage tethered painfully to the soft underbelly of the Thai nation to this day.

The 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty has been a catalyst for turmoil from the onset, and remains the worst travesty of justice in the history of the Malays of the peninsula. The Patani Malays, the very people affected by the terms of the treaty, were neither consulted nor participated in the negotiations. Likewise for their Malay brethrens under British rule. To expect the Malay race to simply accept this arbitrary partitioning of their World, without any political recourse, and indeed to compel the Patani people to languish in an undefined national existence devoid of their ethnic, cultural and linguistic identity, and to deny them the affirmation of their race and national heritage on their own soil, is to go against the most basic, the most primal of human instincts, and an insult to the Malay nation and the people of the Nusantara. The need of a human society to defend and perpetuate its heritage in its homeland is a force no empire in the history of mankind has been able to contain. Repressed societies are sustained and will eventually thrive from their inner strength, a need to survive, and will almost invariably exhaust and dissipate the fragile resolve of the colonising power.