Thai PM turns to origami for peace in restive Muslim south
Thai PM turns to origami for peace in restive Muslim south
Nopporn Wong-Anan, Reuters/Bangkok
Struggling to end 10 months of unrest and bloodshed in
Thailand's Muslim south, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has
turned to origami to shore up support for his security policies
ahead of a 2005 general election.
The unconventional peace initiative, in which 63 million Thais
are being urged to make paper birds to stop the violence which
has claimed nearly 500 lives, has become an overnight national
sensation with everyone from children to soldiers.
Around 10,000 troops in the south and hundreds of thousands of
health ministry volunteers are busily folding paper birds.
Electronic road signs in Bangkok are urging Thais to get
folding, so the Air Force can "bomb" the south with a hoped for
63 million symbols of goodwill on Dec. 5 to mark the birthday of
King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
"I agree with the prime minister that these paper birds will
help relieve some tension down there," factory worker Mana
Seekasin, 47, told Reuters as he put a paper dove in a huge box
outside Government House in the capital.
But analysts and Islamic leaders say goodwill gimmicks will
not ease the unrest if the mainly Buddhist government continues
to ignore entrenched state prejudice and religious discrimination
in the Muslim-majority south bordering Malaysia.
"The key obstacle to solving problems in the south is that the
majority of Thais look at Muslims as second-class citizens,"
National Islamic spiritual leader Sawas Sumalyasak said on
Friday.
"Using religion to treat people differently is against the
constitution," said Sawas, who is also president of Thailand's
Central Islamic Committee.
Thailand's three southernmost Malay-speaking provinces, where
80 percent of the population is Muslim, has always had an uneasy
relationship with Bangkok.
The region was home to a low-key Muslim separatist insurgency
in the 1970s and 1980s, but fresh violence exploded in January
this year when gunmen raided an army camp, killing four soldiers
and making off with more than 300 assault rifles.
Since then, symbols of the Thai state, from schools to monks
to Buddhist and Muslim policemen or civil servants have come
under almost daily attack from gunmen or arsonists.
Thaksin, who won a landslide election victory in 2001 and who
looks set to repeat that success in February, has employed a
variety of strategies to ease the unrest, but everything from
martial law to lavish cash handouts has failed.
Analysts fear the longer the violence drags on, the higher the
chances international militant groups such as al-Qaeda, or its
Southeast Asian affiliate Jamaah Islamiyah, might get involved,
possibly taking the fight to Bangkok.
The violence took a new twist on Oct. 25 when soldiers clashed
with thousands of protesters in front of Tak Bai police station
in Narathiwat province. Seven Muslims were killed in the clashes,
but another 78 died of suffocation while being transported to an
army camp.
Since then at least 30 people, almost all of them Buddhists,
have been killed in apparent revenge attacks.
Thaksin's origami scheme is not favored by all.
"I disagree with the idea of making birds from banknotes and
sending them to Muslims because Muslims never help non-Muslims,"
wrote one person identified only as "Army" on www.manager.co.th.
"Therefore we should put spells on pieces of paper we use to
make birds for those vicious Muslims."
Recipients of the gesture in the deep south, whose problems
Thaksin has variously blamed on drug dealers, gun-runners, local
politicians, Muslim teachers and separatists, also want something
more concrete.
"Paper birds mean nothing here," said Narathiwat Islamic
Council President Abdulrahman Abdulsahad, adding that his office
was still getting reports about protesters missing since the Tak
Bai incident, and of survivors suffering kidney failure.
"The government should make it clear who is responsible for
missing people and help those who need urgent kidney treatment,"
he said.