Suspected separatists kill female teacher in Thailand

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.