Mixed reception greets Thai PM on tour in Muslim south
Mixed reception greets Thai PM on tour in Muslim south
Trirat Puttajanyawong, Reuters/Narathiwat, Thailand
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra went to the homes of alleged guerrilla leaders in the Muslim south on Friday, telling their families and friends that militants would be treated fairly if they surrendered.
However, his mixed reception from non-Thai-speaking locals, who either failed to understand him or who were too intimidated to talk, emphasized the problems faced by Bangkok's Buddhist government in the restive Muslim-majority, ethnic Malay region.
In the village of Tanyong Limoh, where Muslim youths murdered two captive marines last month in one of the grisliest episodes of 21 months of violence, Thaksin's attempts to speak to villagers were met by embarrassed silence.
"Does anyone know what happened that night? Anyone know? You can be rewarded," he told women and children lined up to meet the government delegation, which had roared into the quiet hamlet in a 50-vehicle cavalcade.
Eventually, an official jumped in to save his blushes, asking if anybody in the crowd knew the Prime Minister's name. A boy who gave the correct answer was given 500 baht (US$12), the equivalent of three days' unskilled labor.
Despite heavy security for Thaksin, who was traveling in an armored Mercedes, two bombs exploded nearby during his visit.
One small blast detonated beside a road 20 minutes after Thaksin's motorcade had passed, injuring a policeman. Another hit a restaurant, injuring two television crewmen who had traveled with Thaksin from Bangkok, police said.
Thaksin also visited the family of Sapaeing Bazo, a 69-year- old religious teacher who has a 10 million baht ($250,000) bounty on his head as a suspected mastermind of the unrest in which more than 900 people have been killed.
"When he contacts you again, please tell him that the prime minister has visited and guaranteed his safety," Thaksin told Bazo's wife, Sadina Sulong, sitting alongside her and her daughter in the living room of their two-storey home.
"If he doesn't feel comfortable, he could inform a provincial governor or fly to Don Muang Airport and I will pick him up. I am more than ready to give him justice," he said, referring to Bangkok's airport.
Sadina said she did not think the surrender of her husband would end unrest which has alarmed foreign investors and governments, who fear it could draw in the likes of al-Qaeda.
"What we are afraid of is a kangaroo court," Sadina said in Thai -- a second language for the Malay Muslims who make up the vast majority of the 1.8 million people in the violence-hit southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.
Going through a list of Thailand's most wanted, Thaksin also stopped off at the home of Romalee Utrasin, believed to be a leader of the BRN Coordinate, one of several separatist groups behind the intensifying violence.
"Please tell him the prime minister was here," he told a relative of Romalee, who is accused of involvement in a coordinated attack in July on the provincial capital of Yala in which two policemen were killed.
The government has flooded the region with 30,000 troops and police, but they have so far failed to make any headway in stemming the unrest.
Their presence in what used to be an independent Muslim sultanate until annexed by Bangkok 100 years ago has also stirred local anger.