Author: Rungrawee C. Pinyorat
Publication: SignOnSanDiego.com
Date: December 10, 2006
URL: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20061210-0930-thailand-buddhistflight.html
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra: In the
Kashmir Valley, the Kashmiri Pandits had to flee their homes because of the
threat from the Islamists. Their neighbours did nothing to help the Pandits
against the terrorists. The same is happening to the Buddhists in Thailand.]
Thailand's Muslim insurgency has prompted
hundreds of Buddhists to flee their homes in the restive south, creating refugee-like
communities of Thais in their own country.
So far, the migration is limited to a handful
of villages, but it has alarmed Thai authorities who fear the daily violence
of the three-year-old rebellion could provoke a larger Buddhist exodus and
leave the three southern provinces exclusively Muslim.
Buddhist monks have been beheaded, Buddhist
teachers slain, and leaflets distributed around Buddhist villages warning
that raising dogs and drinking alcohol are offensive to Muslims.
Buddhist monks in one province have halted
their alms-seeking rituals after coming under fire, and some Buddhist temples
have become military barracks and heavily guarded fortresses.
Suspicions are growing that some of the shadowy
groups behind the violence see Buddhists as "infidels" and want
them gone. A leaflet which the military says was distributed among Muslim
villages called for a separate Islamic state and compared the south to "Palestine
and Afghanistan."
"Increasingly, insurgent violence is
being used to scare away Buddhists and keep Muslims under control," said
a recent statement by the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
High-level officials have paid morale-boosting
visits to the displaced Buddhists and Queen Sirikit has funded construction
of a dozen heavily guarded Buddhist safe havens in the three provinces for
villagers fleeing Muslim-dominated villages.
Authorities have pledged to guarantee the
safety of Buddhists and are encouraging them to learn to use firearms, but
have issued no detailed plan of action.
Buddhists are 90 percent of Thailand's 65
million people but are a minority of 360,000 among 1.3 million Muslims in
the provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani. Here, insurgencies have waxed
and waned over various Muslim grievances since the once independent Malay
sultanate was annexed by Thailand about a century ago.
The latest round began in January 2004 and
has claimed more than 1,800 lives. They include soldiers, civil servants and
innocent bystanders. Unofficial statistics show that more than 900 of the
dead were Muslims, most of them killed as alleged government collaborators.
There are no official figures on how many have left their homes, though at
least some of them are Muslims.
The Buddhists feel targeted simply for being
Buddhists.
"Buddhists don't feel safe anymore because
they know insurgents want them out," said Srisompop Chitphiromsri, a
professor at the Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani who researches the
insurgency. "If people are being killed in their homes and in their communities
they have one choice: That's to move away."
The leaflet obtained from security forces
was signed by the "Islamic Warriors of Pattani State" and said the
south should be Muslim-only.
"This land must be liberated and ruled
by Islamic Law. This land does not belong to Thailand," it said. "This
is a land of war that is no different from Palestine and Afghanistan ... Muslims
and nonbelievers have to live separately."
Many are too poor to move, and there have
been no mass migrations, Srisompop said.
The nation is closely watching Niwej Sankharam,
a Buddhist temple in Yala city, now a safe house for some 230 Buddhists, with
teachers being brought in to teach the children in monks' residence halls.
The Buddhists fled here beginning Nov. 9 after
attacks on their two remote mountainous villages, which are now empty.
"I don't want to go back to my village
again. I have nothing left," said Thongchai Eamhiran, 36, whose wife
and father-in-law were fatally shot and house burned down.
He keeps a framed photograph of his slain
wife by his bedside in the basement of a pagoda where dozens sleep side by
side on the floor. "I just want a place where I can live peacefully,"
he said.
Some 40 Buddhist villagers from Narathiwat
fled to a temple and returned home after a few days' stay. Another 20 have
camped for two weeks at an abandoned police barracks.
Because of the shadowy nature of the insurgency,
it is impossible to get reaction from the perpetrators. But Muslim leaders
have condemned the attacks on Buddhists in their sermons, said Waedueramae
Maminggi, chairman of the Pattani Islamic Council.
"I regret what has happened," he
said in a telephone interview. "We want Buddhists to return home. We
want to give them encouragement and want security forces to protect them.
This is where they were born and they have the right to live here as much
as Muslims do."
Villagers at the temple are divided about
what to do next. Some say they hope to return home if their safety can be
assured. Others want the government to rehouse them outside the three provinces.
But the government and monarchy fear that would set a precedent.
Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn recently
visited villagers at the temple and encouraged them to return home. "If
you leave your houses and farms, you will need to start all over again,"
he said.
Another visitor, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont,
promised them, "We will try to ensure that you return home safely and
stay there safely in the future."
Surayud, installed after a Sept. 19 coup,
has pledged to make peace in the south a priority and reverse the hard-line
policies of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin favored a military
approach and rejected peaceful negotiations.
But the violence continues. On Oct. 22 five
monks in Narathiwat province were wounded during their morning alms walk when
a bomb killed two of their military escorts. Shortly afterward, all 300 monks
living at the province's 78 temples decided to forgo the traditional morning
ritual until their safety could be guaranteed.
One of the injured, Phra Khru Sangkarak Somchaichotiwaro,
said that monks were staying put for now, but noted that if they change their
mind it could herald a wider evacuation.
"If temples are abandoned," he said,
"Buddhists will be demoralized and they will leave."
Associated Press correspondent Sumeth Panpetch
contributed to this report.
