Southern Thailand under martial law

By Frank Bures
The Christian Science Monitor

	APICHART WEERAWONG / AP Thai rangers patrol yesterday after this week's attacks in the country's southern provinces that have been linked to Islamic insurgents.
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In the latest attack, 10 gunmen armed with grenades and assault rifles opened fire on a police station in Aye Yerweng in Yala province near the Malaysian border early yesterday.

On Monday, bombs killed two policemen in the city of Pattani, near the Malaysian border. The bombings followed violence over the weekend in neighboring Narathiwat Province, where arsonists attacked 20 schools and militants raided an armory, killing four soldiers and stealing more than 100 rifles.

Yala and two neighboring provinces are under martial law after the violence erupted Sunday.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, citing intelligence reports, said the attackers were "mainly involved with crime, arms smuggling and narcotics" and "commuted" among Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

However, Defense Minister Thamarak Isaragura told a private radio station: "We think the group is trying to draw attention from international terrorist groups for possible support."

The region has a reputation for lawlessness, where gunrunners supply insurgents as far away as Sri Lanka and Indonesia. It is also home to Muslim separatist movements who fought a low-scale war in the 1970s and 1980s before taking up an amnesty offer.

After the August capture in Thailand of Hambali, the suspected operations chief of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network, there has been speculation that Thailand's predominantly Muslim south was used as a haven to plan attacks by foreign groups.

Thailand's 63 million people are mainly Buddhist; six million are Muslims, most of whom live in the five southern provinces.

The unrest casts doubt on the efficacy of the Thai prime minister's drive to improve relations between Muslims and Buddhists.

"You've never seen this degree of coordination, planning and tactical confidence. It's confirmation of what has been increasingly apparent over the past two years," says Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based security analyst with Jane's Defense Group. "Which is that the Thais have an insurgency problem on their hands."

The region was annexed by Thailand in 1902 as a buffer against British Malaya. Historically, the Islamic Sultanate of Pattani is considered by some to be the cradle of Islam in Southeast Asia. When the area was taken over by Buddhist Thailand, it had been mostly autonomous for several hundred years and has chafed under Bangkok's rule ever since.

Thais and Malays differ in languages, religions and sensibilities.

Prime Minister Thaksin has promised some $700 million in development aid for the south, which includes the opening of an Islamic university in Narathiwat. But sporadic violence since late 2001 has fueled criticism that the integration push is failing.

The government's efforts to integrate southern Muslims into the economic and political fabric of Thailand have run up against longstanding cultural barriers.

"In Thailand, part of the criteria for unity is being the same," says Thongchai Winichakul, professor of Thai history at the University of Wisconsin. He notes that while acceptance of Chinese has improved in recent years, Thailand's Muslims remain a people apart.

Thailand's active role in the U.S.-led war on terrorism has further estranged those in the south who see the global conflict as a war on Muslims.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Thai government has been moving closer to Washington, D.C., and was recently granted "major non-NATO ally" status, alongside such countries such as Japan, Australia and Israel.

"Muslims' perception of the American government's policies and actions certainly has been negative throughout the region and the world," says Chaiwat Satha-Anan, director of the Peace Information Center at Thammasat University.

In Thailand's southern border provinces, Osama bin Laden remains a popular folk hero, and his image can be seen on taxis and T-shirts throughout the region.

Many analysts agree that the international situation has inflamed the local one, but there's less consensus on the strength of possible links between al-Qaida and local separatist groups such as Barisan Revolusi Nasional and Mujahideen Islam Pattani.

Information on the latest attacks provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.

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