[Tlc] WASHINGTON POST: Rights Group Documents Brutality Of Insurgents in Southern Thailand

[Michael Montesano]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR200708
2701355.html


Rights Group Documents Brutality Of Insurgents in Southern Thailand
By Nora Boustany
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/nora+boustany/>
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 28, 2007; Page A09 
Separatist militants in Thailand
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Thailand?tid=informline
> 's mostly Muslim southern provinces have stepped up a decades-long,
low-intensity insurgency into a wave of brutal bomb attacks,
assassinations, machete hackings and, in some cases, beheadings and
mutilations in the past 3 1/2 years, an extensive Human Rights Watch
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Human+Rights+Watch?tid=
informline>  report said today.
Interviews with witnesses, family members, academics, lawyers,
journalists and human rights activists painted a bloody picture of the
predominantly ethnic Malay provinces of Pattani
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pattani?tid=informline>
, Yala, Narathiwat
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Narathiwat?tid=informli
ne>  and Songkhla
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Songkhla?tid=informline
>  from January 2004 to last month.
Of the 2,463 people killed in attacks during that time, a total of
2,196, or 89 percent, have been civilians. "Violence against civilians
is being used by separatist militants to scare Buddhist Thais away from
these provinces, keep ethnic Malay Muslims under control and discredit
the Thai authorities," said Brad Adams, Asia
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Asia?tid=informline>
director at Human Rights Watch.
Village-based militants who call themselves the Patani Freedom Fighters
have emerged as the core of a more violent generation of separatists
bent on carving up the southern border provinces between ethnic Malay
Muslims and so-called "infidels." They claim the land is a religious
"conflict zone" that must be freed from what they term a Buddhist Thai
occupation.
More than 3,000 attacks have targeted civilians since January 2004,
including attacks on schools. Teachers, public health workers, hospital
staff and infants in their mothers' arms have been victims of violent
rampages that have terrorized inhabitants.
Summary executions based on ethnicity have been carried out by
green-clad gunmen with assault rifles, who ambush victims along country
roads, the report said.
Ethnic Malay Muslims suspected of collaborating with Thai authorities or
known for their opposition to the militants have also come under attack.
Those Malay Muslims are treated as "traitors or hypocrites" for
betraying what Human Rights Watch described as "a radical blend of Malay
nationalism and Islamist ideology."
One example was the killing of the son of one Muslim Malay village
chief. Usman Jaema told Human Rights Watch that his 15-year-old son was
hacked with machetes and axes in January 2004 by separatists who wanted
to warn the chief not to oppose their operations.
"There are around 10 Muslim youths in this village who join the
militants. They have been trained to become guerrilla fighters. They do
not like me," Jaema was quoted as saying. "After the attack, my
villagers look down on me. They said I could not protect my own son,
then how could I be able to protect them? Some of them even said that it
might be practical to give support to the militants to ensure their
safety."




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