Suspected Islamic insurgents shot and killed a local politician yesterday as Thailand's prime minister admitted his government has been unable to do anything to stop the escalating violence in the Muslim-dominated south.
Daoh Kareeuma, 56, an elected official of a village administration in Yala province, was ambushed by two gunmen as he arrived home after going round his village on a motorcycle, police Captain Jirasak Wichaicharoenying said.
The death raised to 59 the number of people killed this year in the almost daily cycle of violence gripping the southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, the only Muslim majority areas in the predominantly Buddhist country. The government says the culprits are Islamic separatists, who have targeted policemen, village officials and others belonging to the Buddhist majority.
Also yesterday, two gunmen shot and seriously injured the husband of a woman who works in a village administration office, said police lieutenant Ith Boonrith.
The government's increasing desperation was evident in Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's most recent comments on the issue.
"We seem to know everything about what the bad guys are doing but we cannot do anything to solve even a single problem," he said on Thursday. "Troubles in the south have affected the country's image very, very, very much."
He also complained that the insurgents easily go across the border to neighboring Malaysia because they hold dual citizenship.
Thaksin has said he plans to visit Malaysia on April 9 to meet with his counterpart Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to press for cooperation in tracking down the insurgents. Malaysia has not confirmed the visit.
"Villages on the Malaysian border are safe havens ... It's easy for them. They killed people here and went to Malaysia and openly held meetings about breaking away" from Thailand, Thaksin said.
He said he was not making accusations against Malaysia but only asking for their cooperation.
Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said yesterday the government will hold a meeting of security officials on Monday to prepare evidence of the insurgents' Malaysian incursions, which Thaksin would present to Abdullah.
Thailand had successfully dealt with a decades-old separatist insurgency in the area in the late 1980s.
But it resurfaced two years ago before gaining strength this year to pose the country's biggest domestic security challenge.
Fears of a major attack on civilian targets during the Thai New Year festival, known as Songkran, April 13-15, have been raised since armed raiders stole a huge quantity of explosives from a quarry in Yala on Tuesday.
On Thursday, officials ordered all 10 quarries in southern Thailand to hand their rock-blasting explosives to the army for safekeeping. Also Thursday, another large unprotected cache was found stored in an abandoned marble mine.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS