Muslim Militants Brainwashed Into Mounting Attacks: Thai PM

KRONG PINANG, Thailand: -- Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Friday that Muslim militants involved last week in one of Thailand's bloodiest uprisings had been brainwashed by extremists.

"Many widows did not know what their husbands were doing, but learned only after they had died that they were made to take an oath, drink special water and keep secrets," Thaksin said in this sub-district in Yala, one of three provinces where rebels mounted disastrous attacks on security forces April 28.

Thaksin's statements echo those made by captured suspected militants, who reportedly said their leaders told them they would be invincible and invisible to authorities.

Speaking as he began his second day touring the restive south, Thaksin visited rubber plantations and met with local villagers in an effort to mend authorities' deeply strained ties with the Muslim community after the bloody uprising last week left 108 attackers and five police and soldiers dead.

On Thursday he met with families of some of the Muslim rebels who died in the clashes and expressed his regret over the incidents which he said stemmed from "poverty and misunderstanding".

Thaksin paid a visit under tight security at the official residence of the chief of Krong Pinang, a flashpoint where 16 rebels were shot dead by security forces in last week's unprecedented violence.

He ventured into a nearby rubber plantation before dawn and, in an effort to show solidarity with local residents, tapped rubber trees in front of a phalanx of media cameras before visiting security forces and then talking to villagers.

Residents told the premier that their livelihoods had taken a turn for the worse as the threat of violence had prevented them from tapping their trees in the middle of the night, when the rubber yield is highest.

Thaksin also vowed to tackle poverty, which he has labeled as one of the roots of the southern unrest, and sought to reassure frightened communities that safety was gradually returning to the troubled region.

"In the area where the military is fully deployed, villagers can live their lives as normal but it will take time for people who live in those areas without the military. I am confident that the situation will gradually improve," he told reporters.

It is Thaksin's fourth visit to the south since January, when a raid on an army weapons depot heralded a spate of violence that has seen almost daily attacks on government officials, police, soldiers and Buddhist monks.

The trouble is the worst seen in decades in the southern provinces bordering Malaysia, the scene of a sporadic Muslim separatist movement which until recently was thought not to have significant public support.

--AFP 2004-06-08

Thatskin should just order all the mosques closed before this happens again

lies, lies, and more lies....