Schools close, monks leave temple as tension mounts

Schools close, monks leave temple as tension mounts

More than 1,000 schools have closed and some monks began
evacuating their temples as tensions intensified on Wednesday
between Buddhists and Muslims in southern Thailand, officials and
media reports said.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said local leaders from the
Muslim-dominated south told him on Wednesday that some of the
groups behind the escalating violence were receiving funds from
abroad. He did not elaborate.

Public schools will remain closed this week while government
officials discuss ways to increase security for teachers, some of
whom have reported death threats against them.

In recent days, three Buddhist monks have been slashed to
death by machete-wielding youths on motorcycles, three policemen
have been shot to death and two Muslim students slashed by
machete-wielding assailants.

On Wednesday, a 52-year-old policeman, Sgt. Maj. Suphat
Poptrakul was shot three times in the neck as he drove home on
his motorcycle in Pattani province, police Capt. Pracha Chuaydee
said in a telephone interview.

"He's in critical condition. Doctors are taking care of him
now," Pracha said.

Such attacks have increased in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala
provinces since the Jan. 4 torching of 20 schools and a raid on a
military armory that left four soldiers dead. The government has
blamed the attack and other violence on militant Muslim
separatists, with possible links to regional and international
terror networks like al-Qaeda.

Radio and television reports on Wednesday said as many as 20
youths have been detained for questioning about the killings, but
none has been charged.

The government has not arrested perpetrators of the recent
violence, "because local people don't want to give us information
or tips," Thaksin told reporters. He also admitted that
government agencies in the south were not cooperating in the
hunt.

"They accept that in fact there are groups causing the unrest,
accepting money from abroad," Thaksin said after presiding over
an annual conference of the country's local leaders, including
those from the south.

According to English-language newspaper The Nation, some
Buddhist monks in Narathiwat have evacuated their temples and
were heading for safer places outside the troubled region. Other
monks there and in other southern provinces have stopped making
their traditional morning rounds to beg for food, the newspaper
said. -- AP