I've been wondering lately if the instigators in the south, be they bandits, terrorists or whatever, will take there campaign of violence to other parts of Thailand. We've seen it with Chechens hitting Moscow. Think it will happen here? A songtao full of TNT chugging through a busy area like the minivans in Bali would hardly raise an eyebrow.

cv

Personally I hope they do. Unfair to expect the southern chaps to have all the fun.

Good clean up in CM would do the place a world of good. Screw the tourist industry of course, but at the end of the day who cares about that.

. Screw the tourist industry of course, but at the end of the day who cares about that.

It'll put a lot of people out of work, Judge...

Boon Mee,

I don't think you should take Judge's post seriously.

You're right. I am accused of sometimes being too literal-minded...

Yes, I think, some terrorist actions might occur also in Bangkok or anywhere in Thailand - it is very difficult to prevent such actions by fanatic militants. No place is safe in this world.

About South Thailand:

My first Asian country was Malaysia and my first trip to Thailand was from Malaysia 1972.

Check my homepage at http://www2.gol.com/users/johann

You will find many pictures of that region and I am visiting the Muslim South every year. Believe me, all these Thai Muslim you will see on my homepage do not want to have anything to do with all these separatist or fundamentalist movements.

Compared to 1972 - where was a curfew in SouthThailand during night-time and a very dangerous situation - now all is very peaceful. My vacation place near Thepa south of Songkhla has 80 percent Muslim population.

For me these few extremists in the Thailand South are outsiders, and I feel they do not have any support from the local Muslims, and also not from Malaysian Muslims of the other side of the border. It is also well known, that many of these resistance fighters in South Thailand (Muslim, Communist groups and so on) gave up fighting against Government related organisations during the last years.

Remaining SMALL militant groups, you find them also outside of Thailand, and always in history, there was a war there, a correction of a border-line and minorities as a leftover. Also Thailand border was changed after the WWII, and some parts of that area was former Malaysia.

Violence and bombings of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and Basks in Spain are good examples for that. Other examples are Cyprus (Turks and Greeks) Israel (Arabs, Jews) Kuwait (a former territory of Iraq), Kashmir (Hindu against Moslem) and so on and so on.....

Nobody however will questioning the future existence of Spain or Great Britain in Europe, because of the existence of some violent groups there.

Same about Muslims in the South, these small violent groups are too weak to force any change in Thailand or to cause instability of the Thai Government.

Johann