Tension escalated between Thai-land's Buddhist majority and its Muslim minority yesterday as the country's defense minister warned of a bloody war between the two communities.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra traveled to Pattani province in the heart of the Muslim-majority deep south in an attempt to head off a rising tide of violence.
In the latest of a series of attacks, two Muslim men were shot dead by unknown gunmen in separate incidents Sunday night in Yala province, 770km south of Bangkok.
Police said the motive of the killings was unclear but they suspected they might be part of a continuing effort to destabilize the region.
On Sunday the Islamic Central Committee of Thailand, along with Muslim leaders in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, announced they were suspending cooperation with central government authorities because of "disgraceful" behavior by Thai soldiers. The Muslim leaders objected to a search of a local ponoh Muslim school in Pattani by about 70 soldiers who were looking for weapons stolen in a raid on a Thai army camp on Jan. 4.
Reacting to Muslim leaders' announcement, Defense Minister Thammarak Issarangkura said the government would not tolerate any kind of rebellion in the south.
Speaking in a radio interview in Bangkok, Thammarak compared the Muslim militancy in the south to the communist insurgency that was widespread in the area in the 1970s.
"During that time, many people died," he said. "Do we want that situation to happen again? The rest of the country won't let the people of these three provinces disrupt the lives of all 59 million people in Thailand. If there's war, a lot of people will be killed in those three provinces."
Thammarak criticized the Mus-lim leaders for violating their own religion and the principles of the Koran.
"Their god does not teach this kind of thing," he said.
Police, soldiers, teachers and Buddhist monks have been the targets of shooting and bombing attacks in the past three months, mainly in the five southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces.
Government leaders have attempted to play down the attacks as being the result of local conflicts and banditry. But the rising number of attacks, combined with intelligence reports of Islamic separatist involvement, have forced him to take a more active role in easing tensions.
Thaksin had been scheduled to return to Bangkok yesterday from Phuket but instead traveled to Pattani.
He said he planned to go to Narathiwat later in the day and attempt to meet with local Muslim leaders.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS