Suspected separatists kill Buddhist monk in Thailand's deep South

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.