The message was as clear as it was gruesome -- a note left on the headless body of Cheam Nadkaew warned that other Buddhists would meet the same fate as the rubber tapper if the police did not stop arresting "innocent" Muslims.
Cheam, 63, a Buddhist who lived with his wife in a remote Muslim village, on Saturday became the latest victim in the litany of killings blamed on Islamic separatists in Thailand's deep south.
To drive home the message, the killers had flung Cheam's head in the village street while the body was left in the rubber plantation he managed several kilometers away.
One month after security forces shot and killed 107 suspected militants in a single day, Thailand's government is still struggling to find a strategy to control the separatist movement in the three Muslim-dominated provinces of this predominantly Buddhist kingdom.
"They (the government) smile outwardly but actually they are deathly scared from inside. They say one thing and think another," said Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, head of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.
"The government is aware the situation in southern Thailand is serious but they are trying to play it down because they want to cover up their incoherent approach to the problems," he said.
Initially the government blamed the violence on drug dealers and personal disputes, then on corrupt politicians, and finally has acknowledged the outbreak of a Muslim separatist movement.
But critics say the government is deceiving itself that economic deprivation in the traditionally poor provinces is to blame for the unrest, while ignoring possible links to such groups as al-Qaeda, and its regional arm, Jemaah Islamiyah.
In interviews last week with several government, police and army officials in the south, all of them acknowledged they were dealing with separatist insurgents, but insisted the militants had very little local support.
They said a small number of religious teachers are "brainwashing" jobless and gullible young people with the separatist ideology, sometimes giving them physical training in jungle camps, and occasionally using black magic to instill a false sense of invincibility in the recruits.
"The No. 1 reason is the separatist teachings by religious leaders who are twisting the Koran out of context," said Major-General Krai-rerk Khantongkum, military adviser to the army commander of the southern region.
The seeds of the separatist struggle were sown in 1902 when three provinces -- part of the Islamic kingdom of Pattani -- were annexed by Thailand, then known as Siam.
The movement drew strength from alienation and a sense of discrimination among the Muslims, who had little say in the administration of the territory and were closer to neighboring Malaysia in culture, language and religion than their Buddhist compatriots.
Separatist sentiment, which had periodically flared in the region, exploded again this year with a Jan. 4 raid on a military armory in Narathiwat and the torching of 21 schools, seen as symbols of Buddhist dominance.
Since then, suspected militants have killed more than 100 people -- policemen, government teachers, Buddhist monks and village headman, all seen as embodiments of government discrimination.
"The problem is old but it has burst now. Whenever there is oppression, it will burst," said Hama Sai, a religious school teacher in the village of Tasah in Pattani.
"Everyone wants to be free," Said said.
He said Muslims don't get jobs in the government easily, and the curriculum in schools is imposed by the central government in Bangkok.
Emboldened by their past successes, the insurgents -- mostly poorly armed teenagers -- launched their most daring attack ever on April 28, raiding 10 security outposts. Shouting "God is Great" and waving machetes, they were met by well-prepared troops and policemen. After the shooting stopped, 107 militants and five security forces were dead.
But officials still have no idea -- or are refusing to say -- how many armed militants are active in the area. One military official privately said there are less than 100 but acknowledged that their supporters number in the thousands.
Saturday's beheading of Cheam -- apparently an innocent victim picked at random -- marked a new, more brutal phase in the violence.
"If you bastards continue to arrest innocent Malays, we will damn sure kill more innocent Thai Buddhists," said the note on his body, reflecting the hatred in the south for the police, who are accused of heavy-handed tactics including arbitrary arrests and kidnappings.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS