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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai PM Orders Stepped-Up Security in Muslim South |
| 2005-02-14 |
| Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered security forces on Monday to become more pro-active in their efforts to restore peace in the largely Muslim south, where more than 500 people were killed last year. Thaksin, who won a second term in a landslide last week but not one seat in the far south, also said he wanted government agencies to improve cooperation and accelerate efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the relatively poor region. "Our policy on the region won't be changed, but I just want them to tighten up and speed up their work and strengthen their campaign to be more pro-active," Thaksin told reporters after a two-hour meeting in Bangkok. Thaksin, due to start a three-day visit to the region on Wednesday, told the meeting he wanted the police, army and civil servants to coordinate better to capture suspects and prevent incidents, officials said. Nevertheless, top security officials said the daily violence which began in January last year might not end during Thaksin's second four-year term. "I can't confirm that it will be 100 percent peaceful," General Sirichai Thunyasiri told reporters after the meeting when asked if peace would return in Thaksin's second term. Thaksin's unprecedented election victory -- he is the first elected Thai leader to win another term -- has been greeted by more violence in the three far south provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. Militants have assassinated civil servants and civilians, targeted troops and police with remote-controlled bombs and set schools on fire. On Monday morning, eight people were wounded in two bomb blasts in the area where a low-key separatist war was fought in the 1970s and 1980s. Suspected militants detonated a bomb in front of a school in Narathiwat's Joh Airong district aimed at a joint security patrol that guards teachers traveling to and from work, police said. The bomb missed the patrol, but a second bomb detonated 15 minutes later about 100 meters (yards) away wounded 8 soldiers and police who came to examine the site of the first explosion. On Sunday, two Narathiwat village chiefs were killed in separate ambushes. But Thaksin played down remarks by some Islamic leaders and academics that the latest wave of violence was retaliation for the alleged abduction and killing on innocent people by police and soldiers. "There are no more abductions and killings. This is propaganda by those troublemakers who are instilling fear into people's mind and persuade them to distrust the authorities," Thaksin said. If he decides to get as nasty with the Muzzy Killers as he is with drug dealers, the 'Slamists are in for a rough and tumble ride - and this is one Muzzy encroachment / infestation that will fail. The Thais know how to play nasty. |
| Posted by:.com |