Thai Buddhists Forced to Take up Arms Against Muslim Separtists

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Beheadings, arming of Buddhists raising tensions in Thailand's Muslim-dominated south

Customers no longer come to Kaboh Sulong's teashop on a narrow village road _ not since suspected Muslim insurgents walked into it in broad daylight, coolly shot a Buddhist cloth vendor and then cut off his head. "He was sitting there when he was shot," said still-terrified shop owner Kaboh Sulong, pointing to a wooden table where Lek Pongpla was relaxing when two gunmen came in. Police said the gunmen shot Lek in front of several other customers. As Lek staggered away, the assailants beheaded him, stuffed his head in a sack and dumped it nearby. It was one of six beheadings in south Thailand last month. The incidents have raised tensions in the area to what's probably their highest level since a long-simmering Muslim separatist movement launched an armed struggle early in 2004. More than 860 people have been killed, triggering a growing exodus by Buddhists _ an overwhelming majority in Thailand, but a minority in the Muslim-dominated south _ and sowing suspicion among neighbors in once-peaceful towns and villages. "I am very scared and don't want to go anywhere, especially at night. Women are now being attacked," said Piyathida Thongchuay, 34, a Buddhist living in the same district of Narathiwat province where Lek was beheaded.

Piyathida said her mother and 3-year-old son were preparing to leave the area, but she plans to stay behind until a pending transfer comes through for her husband, a policeman.

A dozen Buddhists have already left this village, located in one of four districts designated as insurgent-rife "red zones." Almost all the ethnic Chinese Thai shop owners in a nearby market have also fled the violence, which Buddhists say sometimes targets "un-Islamic" practices and institutions. Buddhist monks have been slashed to death and temples bombed. Vendors who sell pork are receiving threatening flyers saying it's sinful to sell the meat _ forbidden under Islam _ in Muslim areas. About 360,000 Buddhists live in Thailand's southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, home to about 1.3 million Muslims. The region, once a separate Islamic kingdom, became part of Thailand in the early 20th century. But a deep desire for independence persists, along with Muslims' feelings that they are second-class citizens. While the central government ponders how to restore peace _ wavering between iron-fisted crackdowns and socio-economic betterment _ authorities are handing out thousands of weapons and are training about 10,000 Buddhists to use them, raising fears that an "eye-for-an-eye" mentality will prevail. "I feel vengeful because they killed my husband. I want to protect myself, as there is no one who can protect me now," said 51-year-old Sa-ngeam Boontho. Unknown assailants killed her husband, a policeman, in September. Sa-ngeam and about 40 other Buddhist villagers _ some who'd never touched a weapon and feared doing so _ were being taught how to aim rifles. "We have no intention of harming anyone, but we will not let anyone behead us," Gen. Napol Boonthap told the trainees in Pattani province on the grounds of temple, which under Buddhism should be a sanctuary of nonviolence. Several Islamic leaders have condemned the beheadings and other violence. "Such acts are very cruel and beyond the imagination of any human being," said one such leader, Nidir Waba. He added that people have lost much confidence in the government, which has failed to stop the brutal killings. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said Muslim insurgents were using this "insane" method to terrify Buddhists and force them from the south. "Beheading (in some Islamic countries) is a form of punishment. Such acts post a direct challenge to the Thai state as it shows that insurgents have seized the right to punish from the authorities. Hence, it greatly bothers the government," says political scientist Chaiwat Satha-anand. The decapitations indicate that the conflict between the insurgents and the state has escalated to a new level, Chaiwat said. The region's deputy police chief, Maj. Gen. Thani Thawitsri, believes that beheadings are "an imitation of the situation in Iraq," where Islamic insurgents have decapitated kidnapped Westerners while demanding the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. Thailand's Muslim insurgents "have many menus to choose from, such as, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq," he said. Some Muslim leaders believe the beheadings are a retaliation against authorities' alleged extra-judicial killings of suspected insurgents. Government officials deny such killings. "Somebody has tried to spread that rumor. The government has never had such a policy. We strictly adhere to the rule of law, justice and transparency," said an army spokesman, Lt. Gen. Palanggoon Klaharn.

http://asia.news./050702/ap/d8b33uv00.html

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