Thailand Increases Security Measures At Tourist

[nogutsnoapplepie]

AM - Tuesday, 7 December , 2004 08:25:13

Reporter: Peter Lloyd

TONY EASTLEY: Thailand, a popular destination for Australian tourists, is developing a reputation for being the most violent-prone nation in South East Asia, and with a peak tourist period approaching, authorities are stepping up their security efforts.

Intelligence agents are watching out for members of the regional terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiah, particularly concerned about their involvement in southern Thailand.

Tensions have been running high in the Muslim south, with authorities bracing for retaliatory attacks for the mass suffocation of Muslim demonstrators held in custody in late October.

This report from South East Asia Correspondent, Peter Lloyd.

PETER LLOYD: In central Bangkok a uniformed police officer armed with an M16 rifle carries out a car boot search at a driveway security checkpoint. It is part of upgraded security measures at some prominent five star hotels popular with western holidaymakers during this, the peak tourist season in the Kingdom.

So far the violence has been happening far away in Thailand's three Muslim dominated southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, which have been the scene for a revival of a century old Islamic separatist movement.

In large part the insurgency is regarded as a homegrown affair, but the sometimes brutal response of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Government has been blamed for radicalising younger Muslims, perhaps even driving them into the arms of extreme Islamic movements like Jemaah Islamiah.

(sound of gunfire)

First there was the security forces storming on an historic mosque in April which led to the deaths of dozens of Muslim men inside. Then in October, the shooting and suffocation of 87 Muslim demonstrators in the small township of Tak Bai. Most the dead had been loaded facedown and piled one on top of the other on the back of army trucks. It brought the death toll from violence in the south this year to more than 500, and reportedly prompted US and Israeli intelligence to warn that a reprisal attack would be carried out in response.

The Tak Bai incident may at least have provided Thai intelligence with firm evidence of the involvement of foreign extremists in their domestic affairs.

Some of those who died have not been identified, nor have their bodies been claimed. It is suspected that they may be Indonesian nationals.

It's understood that dozens of Indonesian students at religious schools in southern Thailand are under surveillance, and suspicion of membership of Jemaah Islamiah.

Former government adviser and security analyst, Panitan Wattanayagorn, from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, says the insurgency has become more sophisticated.

PANITAN WATTANAYAGORN: The profile of the attack are quite sophisticated, as compared to the last few years. They are highly mobile, they are highly flexible, they are combining the guerrilla warfares and urban warfares, they are using a much better communication and control, you know, gears.

They are, of course, communicated very effectively. They also have money to run these kind of operations in various areas. This is the area of 10,000 square kilometres, and they can communicate quite quickly. They inducted new approaches every time when the authority try to counter, or try to attack them.

PETER LLOYD: Last weekend, the Thai Government countered in bizarre style, dropping 120 million origami folded paper birds during a day-long aerial bombardment of the region. Thai people from all walks of life had contributed to the mass paper folding campaign for peace.

But in a sign of the growing divide between the Buddhist north and Muslim south, some birds carried messages of hate: one said simply, "I want to kill militants".

In Bangkok, this is Peter Lloyd reporting for AM.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1259441.htm

[Pattayaguy1999]

I hope the Thais can walk the fine line between keeping peace in the southern provinces and not creating more martyrs by a heavy handed response to violence. Let's hope they get it right or all of Thailand could become subject to bombings.