Posted on 04/12/2007 3:39:21 PM PDT by JimSEA
Another bomb at bus terminal, four others defused; communal emotions run high
A bomb exploded in a busy market yesterday, wounding 11 people as hundreds of angry Buddhists gathered in the town centre to call for tougher security measures.
The bomb, packed with shrapnel, was placed next to a pork stall inside a water pipe left behind by construction workers. Police believe the explosion was set off by mobile phone. Two soldiers and a police officer were among the injured.
A second bomb went off in the bathroom of Yala's main bus terminal, but there were no injuries.
Reports of four other bombs had police rushing around Yala city to defuse them. The incidents forced the authorities to cut off signals for mobile phones in the province for most of the day.
Yala's main city, meanwhile, was crawling with soldiers, armoured carriers and Humvees, forcing local business to a virtual standstill.
Yesterday's incidents came one day after suspected insurgents shot and burned a recent graduate, Patcharaporn Boonmart, 26, apparently in retaliation for Monday's shooting of four unarmed Muslim youths by a group of Village Defence Volunteers (VDV). Six other Muslim youths were injured.
Her grieving relatives yesterday said they could no longer trust the authorities. "We don't believe in the provincial authority or the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre any more," Prasert Boonmart said.
"We want to meet the prime minister and the Army chief."
Army spokesman Colonel Akara Thiproj defended the actions of the VDV, saying the Muslims had provoked the drama by throwing stones at them.
In downtown Yala, 200 residents vowed to continue their rally around the coffin of Patcharaporn in front of City Hall until they get a personal assurance from Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont that security for Buddhists will be improved.
The dead woman's father, Kin Boonmart, who led the protest, said he was not moving until his demands were met. Streams of mourners passed Patcharaporn's closed coffin to pray and light incense.
A graduation photo of her was placed on top. A nearby chalkboard showed a tally of Buddhists killed in the South each month.
Demonstrators called on the government to scrap the reconciliation plan and create Buddhist-only militia units at village level.
The gathering was the latest sign of fraying tempers among Buddhists in the Muslim-majority region where more than 2,000 have died since January 2004.
A young Muslim woman in downtown Yala, who asked not to be named, pointed out that
more than half of the 2000-
plus people killed since January 2004 were Muslims but their deaths did not attract the same kind of media attention or public sympathy as those of the Buddhist victims.
She pointed to Monday's shooting of the four unarmed Muslim youths in Tambon Kern Banglang in Yala's Bangnang Sta district.
Akara's decision to defend the actions of the VDV drew a storm of criticism from Muslim community leaders and academics, who accused him and the Army of paving the way for sectarian violence.
Kasturi Mahkota, the foreign affairs chief of the exiled Patani United Liberation Organisation, said he was not surprised at Akara's statement. Such comments were in line with the government's attitude towards the Malay community, which had paved the way for more violence, pitting one community against another.
In Hat Yai, speaking to a large crowd at a seminar, Chaiwong Maneepileuk, president of the Newspapers Association of Southern Thailand, accused the Army of trying to cover up Monday's shooting of the four Muslim youths.
He said the Army only decided to come clean after it realised it was unable to cover it up and then blamed it on insurgents.
"I am a stakeholder in this country and I don't want to see violence. But I can't report lies to the public. The consequences are just too grave," Chaiyong said.
The Nation
Yala
Neither the woman or the reporter bothered to point out that, except for some 200 terrorists killed by the military, all of the Muslims were "moderates" killed by the same Islamist fanatics who killed the Buddhists. The implication in the article that the Buddhists are also murderers is totally and completely false. Yet the World press has, in the past, picked up this "mutual guilt" crap and run with it.
Thailand??
Nah, just a nappy ROP alert.......
Maybe neighboring Harvarda is to blame.
Do you look for Thai stories??? [I do!]
Yes, I live there about half the year.
Lots of lib elites in BKK (the same ones who hated and ultimately undermined Thaksin) would get on various forums and spew about how “brutal” the government was being with the muzzies, and how a new approach, based on talk, instead of force, was needed. To them I say ... well?........
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