Pattani, Thailand - Suspected separatists Tuesday shot dead
a 55-year-old female teacher in southern Thailand, bringing the
death toll among teachers in the area to 115 in the past five years,
the authorities said.
Laekah Issara was shot in the head as she rode her motorcycle to
school in Raman district of Yala province, 750 kilometres south of
Bangkok, police said.
Issara was the 115th teacher slain in the majority-Muslim region,
comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces, since a separatist
struggle erupted in January, 2004.
In Pattani province, a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded at
Saiburi police station Tuesday, killing one policeman and leaving two
others critically injured.
Acting on a tip, police went to inspect the motorcycle, which had
traces of blood on it, and decided to put it on their pickup to take
back to the station. It exploded outside the station, Pattani Police
Chief Major General Kirin Ginkeow said.
An estimated 3,500 people have died in clashes, bombings, revenge
slayings and beheadings in the troubled region over the past five and
a half years.
On Monday, the decapitated body of Kim-siang sae Tang, 53, a Thai
national of Chinese decent, was found dumped inside a worker's hut on
a rubber plantation in Than-toh district of Yala.
It was the 31st beheading in the region, according to military
sources.
The insurgents, an amorphous group of various Muslim militants
fighting for greater autonomy or complete independence from the
predominantly Buddhist state, have adopted eye-for-an-eye tactics to
avenge any show of force by the authorities.
Since June 8, when unidentified assailants opened fire on a
Narathiwat mosque, killing 11 and injuring 13 people at evening
prayers, there has been an escalation in violence against non-Muslims
in the south.
Altogether 13 people have been slain since the mosque incident,
including a Buddhist monk who was shot dead while he collected alms
Friday morning.
Leaflets have been distributed in the region warning that revenge
would be exacted for the mosque slayings, which have been widely
blamed on the authorities although the outcome of an investigation
into the attack has yet to be concluded.
Of the 300,000 Thai Buddhists who lived in the region, about
70,000 have left since separatists raided an army depot in January
2004, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 weapons, leading
to an escalation of the region's long-simmering separatist struggle.
The incident sparked a series of brutal government crackdowns,
which turned many of the area's 2 million people, 80 per cent of whom
are Muslim, against the central government.
Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent
Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200
years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Thai rule.
Analysts said the region's Muslim population, the majority of whom
speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from
the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.
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