Schools close in province hit by Muslim insurgency
Schools close in province hit by Muslim insurgency
Agencies, Bangkok
More than 300 schools in a southern Thailand province hit by a Muslim insurgency closed their doors on Thursday, with fearful teachers saying they won't return until the government can provide adequate protection, an education official said.
Following the recent killings of three teachers, representatives agreed on Wednesday that public schools in three southern provinces would go on strike, but most in Yala and Narathiwat provinces remained open on Thursday. The reason was not immediately known.
"All public schools, of which there are more than 300 in Pattani province, are closing because the teachers and students are too scared to go to school," said Chien Sriruang of the Teachers' Association of Pattani in a telephone interview.
Pairat Wihakarat, who heads the Southern Teachers Association, said a meeting would be held on Thursday to decide whether to close schools in the other two provinces.
More than 570 persons have died since Muslim militants early this year rekindled a decades-old dream of a state separated from the Buddhist-dominated country.
Many Muslims in the south complain of discrimination and insensitivity by government officials and especially the police force, which has become a prime target of the insurgents.
In a related development, thousands of police reinforcements are being sent to Thailand's south after warnings of a bombing campaign targeting tourist spots before the first anniversary of a separatist insurgency, police said on Thursday.
"Two thousand police reinforcements from across the country will officially start working in the Muslim-majority provinces on Jan. 1," the southern region's police commissioner, Lt. Gen. Manoch Kriwong, told AFP.
National police chief Kowit Wattana said the reinforcements were part of measures to deal with a potential increase in attacks in the new year to mark the anniversary.
Security officials have said Islamic militants in the south are planning major attacks in the southern provinces and the capital Bangkok around Jan. 4, the anniversary of a raid on an army base that sparked the insurgency which has claimed more than 560 lives.
A security source has told AFP that one reason for planned attacks in Bangkok was to prevent the government of the mainly Buddhist kingdom from sending additional forces to the south.
Kowit said the officers would remain in the south for one year to help provide long-term stability.
Bangkok residents should be on the lookout for suspicious packages and saboteurs disguised as camera-clicking tourists, the Thai army says in a new anti-terror handbook.
The seven-page booklet, entitled Joint Thai Cooperation in Maintaining Public Security, is being handed out amid fears that the capital may be targeted by militants.
"Entertainment places should be on the lookout for abandoned motorcycles, check trash bins, and tourists who prefer to stay in the shadows without ordering a drink," the handbook says.
It says department stores packed with holiday shoppers and foreign tourists should check vehicles entering parking lots. Shops selling chemicals should keep records of foreign customers.
The booklet urges people to watch out for saboteurs posing as tourists snapping photos or videotaping potential targets in the sprawling city of 10 million people.
"They may study places for sabotage by counting the number of steps they need to walk, and when confronted, would pretend that they are lost. They would be interested in finding nooks and crannies where they can stash explosives.
"Their eyes are constantly surveying areas and they like to whisper to their companions. They would avoid using credit cards to complicate any attempts to trace them, and when asked about their nationality, would look uncomfortable," the handbook says.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Thursday played down another warning, this time by his security advisor, that separatists were planning a string of attacks.
The advisor, Gen. Kitti Rattanachaya, was quoted by local media as saying southern separatists planned to strike tourist resorts and open their bases to foreign Islamic extremists.
"This is just speculation from him," Thaksin said.
"I have many intelligence sources and I don't know that," Thaksin told reporters, adding: "He is only an advisor so how is he going to know more than me?"
Thaksin on Saturday said many of the militants were training and finding sanctuary in Malaysia, sparking a diplomatic row with that country. The row spread to Indonesia when the premier accused extremists there of fanning the insurgency by training and indoctrinating Thai militants.