Thailand must consider allowing its alienated ethnic Malay Muslim minority to have greater say in managing their own communities if it is to resolve century-old tensions in the troubled south, Anand Panyarachun, chairman of a new national reconciliation commission, said yesterday.

?We have to think about the need for the people in the area to govern themselves,? Mr Anand, a highly respected former Thai prime minister, said. Within a unitary state, ?we can distribute power, we can distribute authority?.