Stop apologizing to
Muslims.
Tell them to take responsibility and stop the violence.

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (AFP) – Seven soldiers were killed Wednesday in a
bomb attack by separatist insurgents in Thailand’s restive south,
military and police said.

The soldiers were returning from a training session in an army pick-up
truck when insurgents remotely detonated a 20-kilogramme (45-pound)
roadside bomb near a school in Narathiwat province.

The military report into the incident said that insurgents opened fire
after the bomb exploded to ensure all the troops were dead, before
snatching the soldiers’ M16 rifles.

Police in the area said the militants had scattered spikes on the road
to prevent rescue workers from reaching the scene of the blast, which
left a two-metre (six-foot) wide crater.

The soldiers were part of a military programme that was supposed to
work to improve relations with residents of the region, police added.

from http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070509/wl_asia_afp/thailandsouthunrest

Compared to the Thaksin government, General Surayud has
been far more active in trying to tackle violence in the south, which
is widely blamed on an Islamic insurgency. He has visited the region
and offered to negotiate with the rebels, something his predecessor
never did.

But these efforts do not seem to have made any
difference on the ground, where the bombings and drive-by shootings
continue almost daily.

Gen Surayud’s record in office has been mixed

“Policy-wise, this government has done the right thing
in the south, but implementing the policies they have come up with is
another thing,” said security analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn.

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6234439.stm

The idea to grant amnesty to militants in the far South is a
positive gesture for national reconciliation and the restoration of
peace in the troubled region – but only if the military-installed
government is able to fine-tune the process.

Prime
Minister Surayud Chulanont got the idea from Fourth Army Region
Commander Viroj Buacharoon. The same concept was used successfully to
weaken the Communist movement in the 1980s by granting fighters amnesty
and welcoming them back home to help develop the nation.

Article
7 of the now abolished anti-Communist law, granted amnesty for members
of the Communist movement who joined the insurgency in the jungle
without committing any crimes.

The amnesty imposed with
Prime Minister’s Order 66/2523, during Prem Tinsulanonda’s
administration, aided political efforts to defeat the Communists.

Prime
Minister Surayud Chulanont, who was then a junior soldier, probably got
a good impression from that triumph, as he saw a massive defection of
Communist fighters – notably former student activists who joined the
Communists after the massacre at Thammasat University in October 1976 -
emerge from the jungle in the early 1980s.

However, the current situation in the restive South is totally different from Prem’s time.

The
militants have completely changed from those that Thai officials
confronted previously. In the 1980s, the government had a clear picture
of what Communists – and later, separatists – looked like. Their
guerrilla wars might have had their own rules but it was not beyond the
ability of a uniformed army to take them on.

The
new generation of southern militants is a different story and the
government, both the current and the previous administration, has never
treated them as an enemy in a war – but merely culprits who commit
crimes against security forces, and sometimes simply against individual
security officials.

***

From a
legal point of view, those who surfaced to create violence in the
restive region were people who clearly committed crimes. Killings,
shooting, bombing and arson are all crimes under the Penal Code.

For those who have not yet committed a violent crime – an amnesty is unnecessary.

However, the boundary between crime and terrorism in the context of the deep South is blurred.

It
remains unclear as to whether people who have not killed others, but
are accused of masterminding violence in the predominantly Muslim
region – such as Spae-ing Basoh, the former principal of Thammawithaya
school in Yala – should be able to apply for amnesty.

The
fugitive Spae-ing, with a Bt10 million bounty on his head, is wanted in
connection with many violent crimes in the restive south, but his
arrest warrant doesn’t say he has killed anybody or planted any bombs
himself.

If the authorities take a criminal view of him, the amnesty might not be applicable.

However,
one group that should apply for Surayud’s amnesty are the militants’
supporters and sympathisers, who helped provide logistics, distributed
anti-government leaflets, lay spiked nails along roads or staged
demonstrations to demand the release of suspected militants.

However,
if authorities are strict about criminal laws as they were previously,
these people would be supporters of crime, and so an amnesty would not
help them get off the hook.

The amnesty is not a bad idea,
however, if the government takes a new perspective and does not act
like the police in assessing people’s involvement from a criminal point
of view.

It is worth considering amnesty for people like
Spae-ing also, if the authorities believe he is an influential person
who can manipulate violence in the region – or at least get many young
militants to listen to him.

To grant him amnesty would
also boost the possibility of dialogue between the authorities and
militant leaders, which could pave the way to end the conflict and
create real national reconciliation.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation

from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/05/04/politics/politics_30033356.php

Bomb blasts cut power in Thai south

A string of bombs planted by suspected Islamic rebels cut power in
Thailand’s restive south on Wednesday and seriously injured a senior
police commander.

Three Buddhist men were also shot dead, with one later beheaded in
the Muslim-majority southern region where a bloody separatist
insurgency has killed more than 2,000 people since January 2004.

Five bomb blasts early Wednesday in Narathiwat province caused a
power blackout in 80 percent of the provincial capital, local police
said, with telephone and Internet lines also down. Power was restored
Wednesday morning.

Deputy provincial police commander Colonel Noppadon Phueaksomon lost a leg and arm in one of the blasts, police said.

Three of the bombs exploded in Narathiwat town, while two hit the district of Tak Bai near the Malaysian border.

“The militants wanted to black-out the whole town,” said Colonel Viroj Panichphol, a deputy police commander.

“Police have instructed security forces to intensify security
measures for fear that militants may be planning a large scale attack.”

In Narathiwat province late Tuesday, militants shot dead two
Buddhist men aged 51 and 50. They then beheaded the 50-year-old, police
said.

In nearby Pattani province, a 23-year-old police officer was shot dead by suspected militants, also late Tuesday.

Violence has escalated in the region bordering Malaysia the past six
months, despite moves by the military-backed government to bring peace
to the troubled provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.

Junta spokesman Colonel Sunsern Kaewkumnerd told AFP that army chief
and junta leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin was in the south
Wednesday, but was unable to give further details of his visit.

from http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070418/1/47whv.html