Thai Muslim insurgents have stockpiled more than 7,000 fire-arms and trained with Indonesian militants to wreak violence in southern Thailand, a former regional army commander said yesterday.
Retired Army General Kitti Rattanachaya, who was praised for maintaining the peace in southern Thailand during the 1990s and has been a security adviser to the current administration, said the current government's mishandling of the situation could cause it to deteriorate.
"There is still no light at the end of the tunnel. Eighteen months after the government started deploying massive numbers of troops into the region, the situation is getting worse," Kitti said.
"The separatist movement has complete control of the people. Only the land belongs to us, but the people belong to the movement, 100 percent," he said.
A decades-old Muslim separatist movement in the deep south of Thailand died down in the late-1980s after the government granted an arms amnesty.
The violence surged again early last year, resulting in more than 880 deaths during the past 18 months.
The southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala are the only Muslim majority areas in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
Southerners have long complained of discrimination in education and jobs.
Kitti said the separatists have stockpiled more than 7,000 guns, many of which have been stolen from the army and police, including in an attack on an army camp that launched the latest wave of attacks.
Kitti cited various intelligence sources as saying that at least seven Indonesian Muslim militants have gone to the south to provide military training for the Thai insurgents.
"Things are getting worse because the government doesn't accept the fact that this is a movement of terrorists and separatists," he said.
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