June 16, 2007

  • It Takes Two

    Seriously.  Do people not get it?  You cannot negotiate with people who don't want peace talks.  It doesn't matter if your high school debate team won honors.  It doesn't matter if you graduated from Harvard or Yale in Political Science.  It doesn't matter one whit if you graduated cum laude or if you were last in your class.

    Negotiation takes two.

    Southern Muslim militants do not want negotiation.  They are making that abominably clear.

    People want them to show their true colors.  Well, they are, sweethearts.  It doesn't help if politicians are just being completely color blind.

    THAILAND: Schools Prime Targets for Malay-Muslim Rebels
    Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar

    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

    What really makes me laugh is this Bangkok-ite (cuz you just *know* this person is *not* from the South) saying, "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?''

    If I remember rightly, the military *was* doing it's job, when Bangkok-ites decided soldiers were being too harsh by actually going after the perpetrators who happened to be Muslim.

    This reaction was the basis of the argument against "Thaksin's heavy-handed strategy" to stop the terrorists.

    But according to the Bangkok-ites, it's the military's job to find and apprehend the culprits.  As long as they aren't Muslim, right?

    'Amazing that we've reached an age in civilization when Thailand will fall because the Thai Police are being out-policed by the Politically Correct Police.

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