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SOUTHERN VIOLENCE:
Ex-teacher, 65, beheaded;four others gunned down
Published on June 16, 2005
Interior Minister Chidchai blames influential groups and militants for latest increase in deadly attacks
An elderly Buddhist man was beheaded - the fifth such killing since violence spiralled a year and a half ago - and four people were shot dead in the three southernmost provinces, police said yesterday.
The body of retired teacher Kamol Chunetr, 65, was discovered in Pattani’s Yaring district late on Tuesday.
Patrolling soldiers found his head in a bag two kilometres from his home.
“We believe his murder is linked to the unrest in the South, but we cannot yet rule out personal conflict,” a police officer in Yaring was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
A note was left with the victim’s body, saying “You arrest one innocent person, I will take two lives”.
Kamol was the second person decapitated in the past 10 days in the deep South, following a 59-year-old plantation worker in neighbouring Yala province, whose head was also left by the roadside with a similar note.
Four Muslim men were killed in three shootings, police said.
Matauhe Batuseng, 47, was shot in the head by two men on a motorcycle as he worked at a rubber plantation in Narathiwat’s Bacho district. Two men riding a motorcycle gunned down Yako Kabo, 48, a former deputy village headman, after they reportedly followed him to his home in Pattani’s Yarang district.
Mayeesaw Sa-i, 43, a local headman in Pattani’s Sai Buri district, and his driver, Adiming Isa, were killed on Tuesday night when their pickup truck was raked with assault rifles.
Interior Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya called the southern violence a mixture of Islamic radicalism and local “influential groups” involved in illegal activities. Chidchai, speaking at King Mongkut’s Medical College, likened the situation to a chess game.
“When one side puts the other in check, the other side must respond. But it must be done within a framework of rules, which for us means doing our best within the law,” he said without elaborating on what he meant by a “framework of rules”.
Security officers on the frontline, on the other hand, said the only rules appeared to be those set by the insurgents. Many officials see themselves as “sitting ducks” waiting to be picked off.
Chidchai admitted that the violence has been on the rise but warned that it would be a mistake to blame it all on Islamic insurgencies. |
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