Southern Thailand Prays For Peace

Southern Thailand prays for peace

Sentiment is to let bygones be bygones

THAILAND: -- Buddhists in southern Thailand have held simultaneous prayers to repair community relations soured by a spate of suspected Islamic separatist violence and Bangkok's tough, military response.

With reinforcements pouring into the region, where troops and police shot dead 108 machete-wielding Muslim fighters last week, the mainly Buddhist nation's army is keen to put a friendly face on its biggest deployment in over a decade.

Besides the five security forces killed in the carnage on 28 April, the army says another 119 people - mostly soldiers, police or government officials - have died since a wave of unrest started with a raid on a military base on 4 January.

Lieutenant General Pisan Wattanawongkeeree, head of the Southern Army Region, said it was time to let bygones be bygones in Thailand's three southernmost and Muslim provinces, which have a centuries-long history of aggression towards Bangkok.

"We are here today to embrace everyone, both Buddhists and Muslims," Pisan, a Buddhist, told Muslim clerics after a 20 minute prayer session in the army's regional headquarters in the provincial town of Pattani.

"The nightmares have passed. I have told my soldiers to forgive what happened in the past. Those who have lost their lives are already gone. I would like the rest of the world to see the three southern provinces living in harmony," he said.

In the next-door room, saffron-robed Buddhist monks held a "merit making" ceremony for all those who have died - both victims and perpetrators - in the unrest, which has dented Thailand's image as a haven of Buddhist peace and tolerance.

The shockwaves from the army's use of automatic weapons, tear gas and rocket-propelled grenades to storm a 400-year-old mosque in Pattani have spread over the border to Malaysia, where sympathy runs deep for their Muslim Malay-speaking cousins.

Malaysia's Islamic opposition has dubbed the shootout "the Pattani massacre", and questioned the army's decision to kill everybody inside the mosque, defiling a sacred building, rather than negotiate a more peaceful outcome.

As the uproar continues unabated, senior security officers said fighters had turned down their attempts at negotiation and refused to cease fire.

--Reuters 2004-05-04