Sectarian violence is ‘difficult to stop’

Published on November 22, 2005 - Experts warns of danger of religion in the equation

The ongoing violence in the restive south will become increasingly difficult for the government to control after a series of attacks on Buddhist temples and monks have threatened to turn the unrest into a religious conflict, an expert warned yesterday.

Kumar Ramakrishna, associate professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technology University, said militants had started to focus less on nationalistic elements in favour of waging a religious war against Buddhists.

Ramakrishna said that the latest round of orchestrated violence against Thai Buddhist civilians seems to be a departure from earlier methods employed by ethnic Malay insurgents who limited their attacks to security and government targets in the past.

Over a thousand people have lost their lives in the predominantly Muslim region since the violence erupted at the beginning of last year.

Speaking at a workshop in Kuala Lumpur for journalists from South and Southeast Asia, Ramakrishna said attacks on Buddhist temples and monks reflected the strong will of the militants to deepen the rift between Buddhists and Muslims.

Since the 1960s, conventional separatists in the deep South have engaged in “ethno-nationalistic” ideology in their struggle and they have refrained from attacking religious symbols because they believed Buddhists had a right to live in the region.

The first attack on a Buddhist icon took place on January 22 last year and the latest attack occurred at a temple on October 16 this year, when suspected militants cut the throat of a 76yearold monk and killed two teenage novices before torching the temple. Four monks have been killed in the violence and one has been injured.

He said the religious conflict could be boiled down to a matter of the division between “good and evil”.

“This kind of conflict is more difficult to negotiate than the ethno-nationalistic type,” Ramakrishna said.

However, the militants have not yet succeeded in broadening their religious conflict in the deep South and local Buddhists and Muslims still tolerate each other, he said.

The religious conflict is not welcomed by the local people because the militants have failed to put forward a sophisticated ideology to back up their campaign. The booklet “Ber Jihad di Patani”, confiscated from the dead body of a militant during the April 28 incidents last year, was merely a propaganda book that contained no theology, he said.

To counter the religious conflict, the authorities in Bangkok must make it clear that Muslims are good citizens of Thailand and can live well in the Kingdom, he said.

Thailand should find somebody who is wise enough to produce a message with Islamic terminology to counter the militants’ propaganda, the expert said.

The media should also make it clear that there are no religious conflicts in the deep South and the unrest is part of a political game played by the militants, he said.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
Kuala Lumpur

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Gun permits faked

People in the South were yesterday urged to ignore certificates circulating in the region that supposedly grant them the right to carry pistols.

Southern Border Province Peace-building Command (SBPPC) officials said the certificates were fake and the group of men selling them had no authority to do so.

Senior SBPPC official Colonel Surawut Chutiwit said the men were charging Bt3,000 for a piece of paper that states the owner has completed a weeklong government education camp and is allowed to carry any type of pistol. The paper is supposedly signed by Maj-General Sithichai Pratuangtin, former deputy commander of the Fourth Army Region, who retired a few years ago, said Surawut.

He said the certificates were fake and urged members of the public to notify officials if they were offered one.

He said they could call one of two hotlines, 1314 or 1340.