Thailand To Withdraw Some Troops From Muslim South

[Darknight]

Thailand to withdraw some troops from Muslim south

31 Mar 2005 08:14:43 GMT

Source: Reuters

BANGKOK, March 31 (Reuters) - Thailand will pull out some of the thousands of troops policing its Muslim far south, after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's policy U-turn away from force in tackling unrest in which more than 600 people have died.

"There have been too many forces there," Thaksin told reporters on Thursday as lawmakers urged him in a rare joint session of parliament to withdraw thousands of police and soldiers from the Malay-speaking region.

"We need to pull some of them out and I have asked the ministers of interior and defence to work on the number," he said before attending the last day of the session aimed at seeking solutions to end the unrest.

Thaksin, pilloried for the deaths of 78 Muslim protesters in army custody and 32 lightly armed militants inside a mosque last year, pledged on Wednesday to use the legal process against suspected militants and non-violent means to control protests.

Heavily armed soldiers, mostly from largely Buddhist regions with little understanding of Islam, were unsuitable to fight "terror attacks" in the south so they would be shifted to peace-keeping and development work, Thaksin said.

There are no official figures on the number of security forces in the region, where separatists fought a low-key insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s.

Thaksin, often criticised for his intolerance of criticism, said he welcomed most advice during the two-day debate, the first parliamentary joint session since August 1997 when Asia's economic crisis, triggered by a Thai devaluation, loomed.

"About 95 percent of those comments were good and I've told officials to sort them out, respond immediately to those they can and pass on to policy makers those they can't, and we will respond as soon as possible," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya, who is in charge of national security, said one immediate response was that "only good people" with proper training in Islamic culture would be sent to work in the south.

Thaksin conceded at the start of the debate on Wednesday he had made mistakes and was ready to change policy to favour development and education as major tools in tackling the problems, confined mainly to three far south provinces.

His emphasis on rooting out the militants by force appeared to have had little impact on the daily killings which continue in the region