Tension escalated between Thai-land's Buddhist majority and its Muslim minority yesterday as the country's defense minister warned of a bloody war between the two communities.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra traveled to Pattani province in the heart of the Muslim-majority deep south in an attempt to head off a rising tide of violence.
In the latest of a series of attacks, two Muslim men were shot dead by unknown gunmen in separate incidents Sunday night in Yala province, 770km south of Bangkok.
Police said the motive of the killings was unclear but they suspected they might be part of a continuing effort to destabilize the region.
On Sunday the Islamic Central Committee of Thailand, along with Muslim leaders in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, announced they were suspending cooperation with central government authorities because of "disgraceful" behavior by Thai soldiers. The Muslim leaders objected to a search of a local ponoh Muslim school in Pattani by about 70 soldiers who were looking for weapons stolen in a raid on a Thai army camp on Jan. 4.
Reacting to Muslim leaders' announcement, Defense Minister Thammarak Issarangkura said the government would not tolerate any kind of rebellion in the south.
Speaking in a radio interview in Bangkok, Thammarak compared the Muslim militancy in the south to the communist insurgency that was widespread in the area in the 1970s.
"During that time, many people died," he said. "Do we want that situation to happen again? The rest of the country won't let the people of these three provinces disrupt the lives of all 59 million people in Thailand. If there's war, a lot of people will be killed in those three provinces."
Thammarak criticized the Mus-lim leaders for violating their own religion and the principles of the Koran.
"Their god does not teach this kind of thing," he said.
Police, soldiers, teachers and Buddhist monks have been the targets of shooting and bombing attacks in the past three months, mainly in the five southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces.
Government leaders have attempted to play down the attacks as being the result of local conflicts and banditry. But the rising number of attacks, combined with intelligence reports of Islamic separatist involvement, have forced him to take a more active role in easing tensions.
Thaksin had been scheduled to return to Bangkok yesterday from Phuket but instead traveled to Pattani.
He said he planned to go to Narathiwat later in the day and attempt to meet with local Muslim leaders.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS