Another Thai Begeaded In South

[cojones]

Buddhist beheaded, two shot dead in Thai south

09 Nov 2004 09:25:12 GMT

Source: Reuters

(Recasts with two more killed, Thaksin's anger)

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Suspected militants beheaded an elderly man, the second Buddhist decapitated in a week, and shot dead two Buddhist workers in southern Thailand in revenge for the October deaths of 85 Muslim protesters, police said on Tuesday.

The growing number of apparent revenge killings prompted a leading Islamic cleric to urge Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to apologise to families of the dead protesters, most of whom died of suffocation in army custody.

But Thaksin, who has said he regretted the deaths, responded by blasting his own officials for delaying extra payments to officials tackling the unrest in the largely Muslim and relatively poor region and to teachers.

The latest victim in more than 10 months of violence in the region was a 60-year-old rubber tapper, whose body and severed head were found in a plantation hut in Narathiwat province.

Beside the corpse were two hand-written notes saying the beheading was intended to avenge the Muslim protesters, 78 of whom died in overcrowded army trucks after a demonstration outside Narathiwat's Tak Bai police station, police said.

"This is trivial compared to the killings of the innocents at Tak Bai," one officer quoted the note as saying.

A week ago, the severed head and body of a Buddhist village leader in another part of Narathiwat were found two km (one mile) apart with a similar note of revenge.

A Buddhist couple was shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle while they were riding to work in neighbouring Yala province on Tuesday, police said.

APOLOGY WOULD SOOTHE

At least 22 people, almost all of them Buddhists, have been killed since the Oct. 25 Tak Bai deaths, which led to warnings from Muslim clerics and analysts that the "massacre" could trigger reprisal attacks.

Abdulrahman Abdulsahad, chairman of Narathiwat's provincial Islamic council, suggested an apology from Thaksin could soothe Muslim outrage.

"Generally speaking, people, not only Muslims, feel better if they hear an apology from someone who has done something wrong to them," Abdulrahman told Reuters. "No amount of money can match an apology from the prime minister."

Thaksin's response so far has been to promise more financial assistance to the impoverished region, which has a century-long history of often violent separatism from the rest of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

Thaksin, who won a landslide poll victory in 2001 and looks set to repeat the feat early next year despite the growing southern unrest, has shrugged off appeals for restraint.

He told the nation in a weekend radio address he would instruct the army and police to work "more decisively" to deal with militants.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, which was broadcast live, Thaksin slammed the Finance Ministry and the Budget Bureau for failing to speed up extra payments to officials in the south.

"Why can't they do it? How can we fight those bandits?" Thaksin asked.

"I wish I could be down there for three months to find out who really want to separate this region," Thaksin said. "This inefficient bureaucracy is really putting our country behind."

Even though many Buddhist Thais back the use of lethal force to quell Muslim unrest, the scandal over the Tak Bai incident, which drew international condemnation, refuses to go away.

Tuesday's Bangkok Post newspaper suggested the final death toll might be even higher after it reported that as many as 40 people were still "unaccounted for" after the protest, which ended when troops and police opened fire with live ammunition.

However, General Sirichai Thunyasiri, head of the multi-agency "Peace Building Command" in the south, said the report was wrong.

"This is impossible," Sirichai told Reuters.

Abdulrahman said about 15 families had approached his office saying that relatives who were believed to have joined the protest were still missing and were not among 22 unclaimed bodies already buried.

At least 450 people, Muslims and Buddhist officials and civilians alike, have died in the unrest, which erupted on Jan. 4 when gunmen killed four soldiers in a raid on an army camp, making off with more than 300 M-16 assault rifles.

[snowleopard]

" Abdulrahman told Reuters. "No amount of money can match an apology from the prime minister."

I don't think his apologies are worth that much really!