Author:
Publication: CNN News
Date: November 7, 2004
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/11/07/thailand.violence/index.html
Buddhists in Thailand have implored
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to end violence targeting them on an
almost daily basis in the south of the country.
Nearly two dozen people have died,
many of them Buddhists, in a series of revenge attacks after a government
crackdown on a riot two weeks ago left 85 Muslims dead.
On Sunday Thaksin visited a temple
in Tak Bai district in Narathiwat province, where as many as 1,000 Buddhists
living in the mainly Islamic region had gathered to express fear over revenge
attacks and frustration over finding those committing the crimes.
"We are being treated like second-class
citizens here," Reuters news agency quoted a Buddhist woman shouting at
the site just a few meters (yards) from where security forces beat seven
protesters to death last month.
"We have been given false hopes
by the government. I am urging you Mister Prime Minister to take drastic
and decisive actions against those who have been behind the violence."
Police say they suspect Islamic
insurgents are behind the attacks, but no arrests have been made and nobody
has claimed responsibility.
Thaksin has been under fire after
78 protesters died of suffocation while being transported to a detention
center at a military barracks in Thailand's restive, predominantly Muslim
south following a riot.
While Thaksin said early on that
Ramadan fasting was a contributing factor in the deaths of the protesters,
he later admitted that security forces made mistakes handling the rioters
and set up an investigation.
Thaksin, who hosted last year's
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, will not attend this month's
meeting in Chile, news agencies quoted his spokesman as saying on Sunday.
"APEC is a trade forum that has
been moving forward smoothly, but several domestic incidents, including
the south, need the prime minister's close attention," Reuters quoted chief
government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair as saying.
In the latest violence, two Buddhist
residents were shot dead hours before Thaksin arrived for the visit in
which he also met security forces on the escalating violence, Reuters reported.
Violence has troubled the Muslim
south of predominantly Buddhist Thailand for decades, but has worsened
this year, with more than 400 people dying so far.
Southern residents, who are mainly
ethnically Malay and not Thai, claim the Buddhist administration in Bangkok
discriminates against them.
Thailand's government has blamed
the rise in violence on domestic separatists taking a cue from other Muslim
extremist movements around the world.
There is also speculation that international
Muslim extremists are present in the region or that insurgents are retaliating
against Thaksin's heavy-handed war on drugs, which affects the economically
desperate region.
