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.