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Thai officials urge reconciliation

A Muslim family stops to pray yesterday at the graves of unidentified Muslim fighters in Pattani, Thailand. The dead are suspected to be foreigners because their bodies remained unclaimed by relatives after last Wednesday's assaults on police posts in three southern Thai provinces that killed 107 of the attackers. PHOTO: AP

Buddhists and Muslims in southern Thailand held simultaneous prayers yesterday to repair community relations soured by a spate of suspected Islamic separatist violence and Bangkok's harsh military response.

With reinforcements pouring into the restive region, where troops and police shot dead 108 machete-wielding Muslim militants last week, the mainly Buddhist nation's army is keen to put a friendly face on its biggest deployment in over a decade.

Besides the five security forces killed in Wednesday's carnage, the army says a further 119 people -- mostly soldiers, police and government officials -- have died since unrest started with a January 4 raid on a military base.

Lieutenant General Pisan Wattanawongkeeree, head of the Southern Army Region, said it was time to let bygones be bygones in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, which have a centuries-long history of resistance to Bangkok.

"We are here today to embrace everyone, both Buddhists and Muslims," Pisan, a Buddhist, told Muslim clerics after a 20-minute prayer session in the army's Pattani regional headquarters.

"The nightmares have passed. I have told my soldiers to forgive what happened in the past. Those who have lost their lives are already gone. I would like the rest of the world to see the three southern provinces living in harmony," he said.

In the next room, saffron-robed Buddhist monks held a "merit making" ceremony for all those who have died in the unrest, which has dented Thailand's image as a haven of Buddhist peace and tolerance.

The shockwaves from the army's use of automatic weapons, tear gas and rocket-propelled grenades to storm a 400-year-old mosque in Pattani have spread over the border to Malaysia, where sympathy runs deep for their Malay-speaking cousins.

Malaysia's Islamic opposition has dubbed the shootout "the Pattani massacre," and questioned the army's decision to kill everybody inside the mosque, defiling a sacred building, rather than negotiating a more peaceful outcome.

Seven of those killed by security forces last week were foreigners, an army commander said Tuesday. This was cited as the first solid proof that fighters from neighboring countries have joined a Muslim insurgency.

Pisan refused to give details or identify the foreigners' nationalities. However, other Thai officials said the army is checking whether the seven were from Indonesia. The Jakarta government is battling Islamic-related separatism in nearby Aceh, as well as religious fighting in other provinces and al Qaeda-linked terror.

Immigration officials said seven Indonesians entered Thailand last month through a Thai-Malaysia border crossing and were not registered as having left the country yet.

The dead foreigners were among a group of bodies that remained unclaimed by relatives after last Wednesday, the bloodiest day in the region's recent history.

Under Islamic custom, the dead must be buried within 24 hours of death, so it is unlikely that if relatives were on hand that they wouldn't have claimed the bodies.

Soon after Wednesday's attacks, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said there was no foreign involvement in the unrest, and. the Foreign Ministry said the incident "has no connection whatsoever" with global terrorism.''

The attacks, and the ongoing violence in the south, have been blamed on separatist militants, although Thaksin and others have also suggested the possibility of drug traffickers using Islamic ideology as a cover for their activities.
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