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Martial law declared, and security troops reinforced in southern Thailand. After a series of violence hitting through three southern provinces on Sunday and Monday, the government has taken tough measures to curb the situation there under criticism of having underestimated situation there.
Early Sunday, a group of some 60 unidentified people launched simultaneous attacks against military camps and schools in three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, all of which laid some 1,000 kilometers south of Bangkok and close to Malaysia.
Diverting the security's attention by setting up fire at 20 schools in the region, the assailants robbed military arsenals of more than 100 guns and killed four soldiers.
Authorities said that the attacks were coordinated actions of separatists in the south, a region plagued by sporadic violence against security personnel in decades. But the government has long defined the violence as attacks by common bandits.
Fresh nightmare of violence continued in the south until other two policemen were killed Monday afternoon in Pattani in two bomb blasts.
Astounded by the heightened violence and regretting for the losses, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra gave related authorities a seven-day ultimatum to hunt down culprits responsible for the attacks.
The furious prime minister also lashed the intelligence and security agencies for being under-utilized and working out of sync. "Some loose screws need tightening. Those in disrepair will be flushed out of the system," he threatened to transfer officials failed to prevent the attacks from happening.
Three thousand of troops were sent to the three provinces as reinforcement, and military personnel were allowed by the martial law to search and detain suspects without charge or court warrant.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Surakiat Sathirathai went to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday for talks with Malaysian leaders on issues of border security and cooperation so as to bring back suspects that might withdraw to the Malaysian side of the border to flee from Thai law enforcement.
Despite the efforts to address the worst violence in the south in 10 years, the government has been blamed for being insensitive to the situation, which led some sporadic violence upgrade into the coordinated attacks.
The extent of the problem has been underrated, said the opposition Democrat's chief adviser and former prime minister Chuan Leepai, adding that it is wrong for the government to treat the rebels merely as common bandits.
An editorial published on Monday by The Nation newspaper called on the government to look squarely at the reality in the south. "Our leaders must stop describing the perpetrators as amateur bandits who just want to steal weapons and then sell them illegally," said the article.
The three provinces, home to most of Thailand's Muslim population, have been disturbed by sporadic violence over past decades. Mostly, the government attributed the attacks to bandit groups, but this time Thaksin clearly blamed local separatists for the attacks.
In the past three years, more than 50 officials were killed in armed clashes in the south. The clashes were at the time labeled as acts by organized criminal gangs who wanted to rob weapons to be sold to overseas.
Now, when the government was tightening security measures to address the problem in the south, analysts warned against extreme measures and said that the lack of understanding would further alienation between the central government and the southern community.
They thought that the imposition of martial law could add more fuel to the fire, especially a curfew expected to be announced later on Tuesday.
Experts also worried that the situation in the south would provide international terrorists good opportunity to wage their attacks. Last year, police arrested four suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members in the south for planning attacks against foreign targets in Bangkok.
The Thai cabinet is also blamed for too much focusing on economic development but ignoring building on good understanding with local people.
The Nation newspaper said their recent telephone interviews with a number of Muslims in the south showed a high level of anxiety and mistrust.
Experts here believe that respect to the Muslim's habit and belief and common understanding between the government and the south community is the key to solve the problem from the root.
"The government must work much more closely with community and religious leaders in the south," said an editorial published by Bangkok Post on Tuesday.
The article said, "The government will gain the trust of the southerners when they see good will and concern for local security."
(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2004)
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