Pattani, Thailand - Suspected separatists shot dead a
Buddhist monk and wounded another Friday as the monks were collecting
alms, days after masked assailants killed 11 in an attack on a mosque
in Thailand's violence-wracked deep South.
Sombat Srisuwanwichian, 60, was killed by assailants wielding an
AK-47 rifle and pistols while accepting alms from the Buddhist
community in Yala town, 700 kilometres south of Bangkok, police said.
Another monk with him was wounded and taken to hospital.
Buddhist monks and temples have been targeted in attacks by
militants in the majority-Muslim deep South - comprising Narathiwat,
Pattani and Yala provinces - since a long-simmering separatist
struggle in the area took a nastier turn in 2004.
Over the past five years, at least five monks have been killed and
scores injured in the area, forcing many in the monkhood to flee the
area, where 80 per cent of its 2 million people is Muslim.
Friday's attack on the two monks was seen as revenge for a brutal
assault Monday on a mosque in the Cho Ai-rong district of Narathiwat
province that left 11 Thai Muslims dead and a dozen seriously
injured, police said.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjaijiva on Friday called for a speedy
conclusion to the investigation of the mosque massacre, which has
been widely blamed on the Thai military by villagers in the area.
Six unidentified assailants wearing ski masks opened fire on both
entrances of a mosque while about 100 Thai Muslims were attending
evening prayers inside.
'We need to solve this crime to restore confidence in the
authorities among the people,' Abhisit said Friday morning before
departing for Cambodia.
Some fear a hasty investigation would simply lead to more
injustice in the region, which has a long history of abuse by
authorities in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
'The ones most affected by the mosque incident are the villagers,
because not only were their relatives killed but now the soldiers
will be looking for suspects and rounding people up,' said Nimu
Makajae, an Islamic community leader in Yala.
General Anupong Paochinda, the commander-in-chief of the Thai
army, has denied that any soldiers were involved in the attack on the
mosque.
'I think the massacre was the work of a 'third hand,' designed to
increase hatred between Thai Buddhists and Thai Muslims,' Nimu said.
There are an estimated 66,600 army and paramilitary troops based
in the deep South, where about 3,500 people have died in escalating
violence over the past five years.
In 2004, after Muslim militants raided an army depot in
Narathiwat, killing four soldiers and taking 300 weapons, the
military went on the offensive against separatist groups, leading to
an attack on the ancient Krue Sae Mosque, which killed 32, and a
violent crackdown on protestors in Tak Bai, where 78 people died from
suffocation and various injuries while being taken to prison.
Since 2006, the military has launched a campaign to win the
'hearts and minds' of the local population, emphasizing development
work, while improving its intelligence gathering.
On Thursday, the cabinet approved a budget of 54 billion baht (1.6
billion dollars) to be spent on development projects in the
three-province region over the next three years.
The southern conflict is complicated by vested business interests
in the border region, where smuggling and crime is rife and the
military enjoys a huge budget.
Parliament was scheduled June 15 to launch debates on next year's
budget, which was slated to reduce military spending on all but the
most necessary items in light of a revenue shortfall this year.
The deep South comprised the former Islamic sultanate of Pattani
more than 200 years ago before being conquered by Thailand.
With closer cultural, religious and linguistic ties to
neighbouring Malaysia, Thailand's deep South has been the scene of a
long-simmering separatist struggle that escalated with the 2004
militant attack on the army depot.
Army reprisals on the insurgents further antagonized the ethnic
Malay segment of the local population against the Thai government.
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