New violence hits S.Thailand after "peace bombing"

New violence hits S.Thailand after "peace bombing"

Reuters
Bangkok

Fresh violence flared in mainly Muslim southern Thailand on
Monday, hours after the Air Force dropped an estimated 100
million origami "peace birds" to try and quell a wave of unrest
which has claimed nearly 500 lives.

Police said a bomb exploded at a road intersection near a
market in the southern province of Narathiwat on Monday morning,
injuring at least one soldier.

Late on Sunday evening, shortly after around 50 Thai Air Force
planes "bombed" the largely Muslim region with paper birds as a
symbol of peace, a roadside bomb exploded 100 km away in the same
province, injuring a senior government official and damaging the
car in which he was traveling, police said.

The home of a teacher in Narathiwat, one of three provinces
near the Malaysian border hit by violence, was burnt to the
ground. In neighboring Yala, a school building was slightly
damaged by fire, although nobody was injured, officials said.

In another incident, two gunmen shot dead a former prosecutor
in Pattani province on Sunday, police said.

The bird campaign, launched by Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra weeks ahead of a general election, caught the
imagination of the predominantly Buddhist country, even in
Bangkok where sympathy for the Malay-speaking south is limited.

Everyone from cabinet ministers to cab drivers huddled in
groups to fold birds -- they were meant to be doves, a symbol of
peace, but most turned out to look more like cranes -- after
Thaksin called on all 63 million Thais to make one.

Probably the biggest origami airdrop in history was meant to
sow peace, harmony and goodwill in the region, where an
insurgency began in January with a raid on an army camp in which
300 assault rifles were stolen.

The mood in the three southern provinces, where a low-key
separatist insurgency was fought in the 1970s and 80s, soured yet
further in October when 85 Muslims died after a demonstration.

Most suffocated or were crushed to death in army trucks in
which they had been stacked "like bricks".

The origami initiative, carried out to mark the birthday of
revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, had its critics among some
Muslim leaders who said it did not gel with local culture and
should not be a substitute for more traditional peace efforts.