[Tlc] T-Southern violence

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from a member.
Thanks,
justin

EDITORIAL
The terror of beheading

    Published: 24/02/2009 at 12:00 AM Bangkok Post 
    Newspaper section: News

The southern insurgency continues to grow more savage and thus more troubling. In just three days violent gangs have ambushed, killed and beheaded four people. These abominable acts of mutilation against two soldiers and a married couple in Yala province are not isolated cases. Since mid-2004, the separatists have cut off the heads of at least 47 of their murder victims, barbaric acts now approaching nearly an average of one per month.

As in the conflict itself, most of the victims have been civilians, and the majority have been Muslim.

Beheading is an uncivilised act and cannot be justified no matter what the alleged provocation. Such atrocities are meant to terrorise security forces and peaceful civilians alike.

Last week, separatists ambushed a 10-man ranger patrol which had escorted teachers to a school near Bang Lang National Park. They isolated a pair of soldiers and barbarically killed them and mutilated their bodies. On Sunday, a gang ambushed Kongphet Janyarerk and his wife Yenjai as they rode to the Raman district rubber plantation where they worked as tappers. Again, they murdered their prisoners and cut off their heads.

The beheadings are strong proof of foreign terrorist influence on the shadowy southern gangs. This has been a long-standing worry for security forces. They have been largely in the dark for more than five years about the extent of contact between the separatists and overseas terrorists.

Whatever the direct communication, there is little doubt that the violent southern insurgents have been heavily influenced by overseas terrorists.

The atrocious act of decapitating murder victims occurred in Thailand only after the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group adopted such violence in the Philippines. It increased in Thailand as al-Qaeda in Iraq kidnapped and publicised the beheading of victims over clandestine internet webcasts.

Security officials have been seriously investigating the overseas links of insurgent groups in southern Thailand since shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Pakistan began expanding its cooperation with allies and informed Thailand that an estimated 700 young Thai Muslims had attended the terrorist training camps run by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before the US invasion destroyed the centres.

There have been other clues made public about the extent of cooperation between international terrorism and the southern gangs. The tactic of roadside bombs detonated by mobile phones was clearly adopted by the Thai insurgents from terrorist groups in Iraq.

Like the al-Qaeda group, Thai separatists have used the internet, both to publicise their warped cause worldwide and for recruitment and secret discussions.

At least one senior operative of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group was arrested in the South, and two Thais sympathetic to JI remain jailed in Cambodia.

But the southern gangs have their own agenda and have remained largely aloof and independent from the goals of JI and al-Qaeda for a Southeast Asian caliphate.

Clearly, the local people of southern Thailand remain dedicated to peace. The insurgents use any atrocity, no matter how unjustifiable, to terrorise and try to control the region.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has promised to seriously study the South, and to adopt new measures to restore social progress and peace. This is welcome news. The atrocity of beheading is unbearable and no effort must be spared in stopping it.
 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu