BANGKOK,
Jun 15 (IPS) – The soldiers assigned to provide security for students
and teachers at a school in the violence-torn southern province of Yala
on Friday were part of a new plan by the military-appointed government
in Bangkok. But they never made it.

A roadside bomb detonated near the military vehicle before
the soldiers got to the school, resulting in the death of seven
troopers. The perpetrators also opened fire on the soldiers, according
to news reports.

This strike, which the local police blamed on Malay-Muslim insurgents,
brought home the increasingly difficult task the Thai military is
facing in protecting schools in the southern provinces of Narathiwat,
Yala and Pattani, which lie close to the Thai-Malaysian border.

In Pattani, a few days earlier, a bomb went off outside a
public school, killing one soldier and injuring another. That happened
around the time two female teachers were shot to death in front of
their students at a primary school in Narathiwat. This week also saw
insurgents torch 11 schools in Yala.

The roadside explosions, part of an increasingly vicious
separatist conflict, also point to the growing accuracy with which the
militants are striking their targets. On May 31, Thai troops were hit
by a roadside bomb in Yala that killed 12 soldiers, making it the most
deadly attack on government forces since the eruption of violence in
January 2004. Early May saw a similar strike when a roadside bomb
killed seven Special Forces men in Narathiwat province.

“The militants are learning; they are getting better as long as this
conflict goes on,” Zachary Abuza, a United States academic who has written
extensively on terrorism in South-east Asia, told IPS. “Earlier they
had a few bomb makers, but now there is a proliferation.”

This conflict, which has seen the death toll cross 2,200 over
the past three-and-a-half years, has other grim tallies. This month saw
the 30th person beheaded by the insurgents. The victim was Surachai
Nalumalinee, 36, whose head was found 10 m away from his body,
according to the police. He was among four people who lost their lives
near a village in Narathiwat.

This clash, which pits an estimated 30,000 Thai troops in the
south against militants whose strength and proper identity remain
unknown, is also showing signs common in other insurgencies across the
world. Of concern to human rights groups monitoring the area are the ‘tit-for-tat’ killings.

“The local people have now come to expect retaliatory strikes
from government troops dressed in civilian clothes — or vigilantes –
after each militant attack,” says one human rights activist who spoke
over the phone from Yala on condition of anonymity. “They have many
examples. They point to the shooting of ustadz (Muslim religious
teachers).”

The Jun. 12 murder of Abdul Raman Sama, a 60-year-old
religious teacher, well respected in his community, is a case in point.
It led to some 500 Muslim women and children demonstrating in front of
a mosque to protest the killings. The locals, according to sources IPS
spoke with, blame Thai troops for the killing.

In fact, the targeting of state schools by attackers has come to
symbolise the most disturbing trend that shows little sign of abating.
Its continuation, furthermore, is proving to be deeply embarrassing to
the government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, a former army chief,
who was named to lead the government following a military coup in September last year.

“A new surge of violent attacks on teachers and schools by
separatist militants has seriously disrupted education in Thailand’s
southern border provinces,” Human Rights Watch (HRW), the global
rights lobby, said in a statement released Thursday. “Officials in
Narathiwat province have been forced to close more than 300 government
schools in all 13 districts this week after insurgents killed three
teachers on Jun. 11.”

“Insurgents are terrorising teachers and students, which they consider
symbols of the Thai state,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. “These attacks are grave crimes and cannot be justified by any cause.”

According to available reports, over 75 teachers have been killed, while
over 70 have been injured or made disabled for life due to attacks by
the militants since early 2004. The number of schools that have been
torched or attacked during this period is nearing 200.

Growing anger in Bangkok towards the attack on schools was
reflected Friday in a hard-hitting editorial that appeared in ‘The
Nation,’ an English language daily. “The military has a very high
opinion of itself that is not matched by its performance as a fighting
force,” it said in the commentary, titled ‘Close schools until army
performs’. “Insurgents have succeeded in everything that they have set
out to do, while the military has failed to achieve any of what the
public expects.”

“How many more teachers have to be killed in cold blood in schools or
on their way to and from work in remote communities infested with
insurgents before the military comes to its senses and starts defending
civilians?” it asked. “Schools in areas infiltrated with insurgents
must be closed down for the whole semester, if necessary, and should not
be opened until the military is able to secure them and guarantee the
safety of the teachers, children and the local population.”

The Surayud administration received early notice about what the
militants had in mind regarding the schools in the south. Barely weeks
after Surayud launched a peace offensive in the area, including an
unequivocal apology to the Malay-Muslims residents for part atrocities
by the state, the militants struck. They killed five teachers and burnt
down 12 schools. These acts of terror spread fear by the end of
November, resulting in an unprecedented 1,000 schools in the three
provinces closing down before the term ended.

The three provinces are home to this Buddhist country’s largest
minority — the Malay-Muslims. The area was part of the Muslim kingdom of
Pattani till it was annexed in 1902 by Siam, as Thailand was then known.
The Malay-Muslims have complained about cultural and economic
discrimination for decades.

Malay-Muslim animosity to Bangkok’s policies emerged in the 1950s, after
the Thai government forced the southerners to sacrifice some of their
religious and cultural identity for a predominantly Thai-Buddhist one,
including the pressure to take on Thai names.

A Malay-Muslim rebel movement that emerged in response to such
policies in the late 1960s struck back to wage a separatist campaign.
State-run schools became early targets, since these institutions were
viewed by the militants as being tools for Bangkok’s assimilation
policies. (END/2007)

from http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38191

I
also had a number of flare guns. Some fired large flares a long distance, and
others fired smaller flares. Some were single shot and others held a clip of
eight flares. Flares are much more efficient than shotgun shells. A shotgun
makes a nasty hole in things, and that’s it. A flare makes a similar hole, but
then also sets things on fire. Most flares must be extinguished with a chemical,
as water spreads the fire in small explosions. If you fire a series of flares
into a pirate’s boat he then has more problems than you to deal with, so
pirates will usually depart quickly once they see the flare
gun.

The governments of many countries actively operate as
pirates. Indonesia and Malaysia are the leaders of the pirate business. Since
they have proper military vessels, which a flare gun is not going to scare off,
you must avoid the parts of the world where they operate. This information is
not found on CNN or in Time magazine. For whatever reason, it is not widely
known outside of the marine community. . . .”

from Awakening Waves by Richard S. LeVine