Posted on 03/11/2007 4:50:43 PM PDT by Flavius
THANNAM THIP, Thailand -- A shallow river, deep jungles and a 12-mile wall mark the divide not just between Thailand and Malaysia but between Southeast Asia's Muslim and Buddhist worlds.
This ragged stretch of border is viewed by some as a potential front in the Muslim insurgency wracking southern Thailand, mysterious in its goals and undeterred by either government crackdowns or peace overtures.
Analysts have been divided over whether Thai insurgents are plugging into a broader Islamic movement. But an Associated Press investigation conducted over the past three months indicates the separatist rebellion, which has already taken the lives of more than 2,000 people, is indeed making outside connections:
Young Thai Muslims -- thousands, by Thai government estimate -- are being educated in neighboring Muslim countries and the Middle East, with an unknown number returning as recruiters or actual participants in the insurgency. Some may be receiving military training while abroad.
Reports persist that some Indonesians or other foreigners are training and fighting with the rebels, though none has been captured, and the reports are unconfirmed.
Islamic radicals around the world are increasingly setting their sights on the insurgency. An Arab Web site appeared in January, dedicated exclusively to southern Thailand and believed the first of its kind. Couched in Islamic rhetoric, the site backs independence for southern Thais.
Malaysia denies providing any support, mindful that the insurgency could infect its own predominantly Muslim population. But the Thai government is worried enough to be proposing a longer wall than the barrier the Malaysians built in Cold War times to stop smugglers and communist guerrillas.
"We know when some of them cross the border and report it to our Foreign Ministry and the Malaysian military, but nobody ever gets caught," said Lt. Chatchai Kitkhunthot in this frontier village. He was one of several Thai army officers and local officials who pinpointed infiltration and escape routes across the border on maps and the ground.
"Basically the southern Thailand conflict is becoming more regionalized. But we are at the very early stage of it," says Rohan Gunaratna, who heads the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore and wrote "Inside al-Qaida: Global Network of Terror." Islamic militancy is spreading in Southeast Asia, he says, and, "What is happening in Thailand will not be an exception."
Others disagree, likening the insurgency to the Muslim uprising in Indonesia's Aceh province, which shunned foreign help and was resolved with U.N. mediation.
People on both sides of the border share ethnicity, language and religion -- Islam. Muslim-run soup restaurants on the Malaysian side are suspected of being funding sources for the rebels, and this has become an irritant in relations between two countries that are mainstays of the Southeast Asian alliance.
The insurgents, according to the Thai military, number 3,000 to 5,000, with some 10,000 to 12,000 sympathizers out of a Muslim population of 3 million in the southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani that border Malaysia. They are secretive, brutal, effective, and "we don't know when or where they will attack next," says Col. Wichai Thongdaeng, an army spokesman in the south.
An independent sultanate until it was merged into Thailand a century ago, the southern provinces have seen rebellions come and go. In the latest, which began in early 2004, the rebels have torched schools, bombed banks, beheaded some 25 people and shot teachers, policemen, government officials and ordinary citizens. More than half the victims have been Muslims suspected of collaborating with authorities -- teachers, civil servants, policemen.
In one recent incident, says army Lt. Jenkila Somboon, three Muslim rubber tappers were shot to death because their village was getting too friendly with the soldiers.
Little is known about the insurgents, or "juwae" -- the local word for fighters. They have revealed no program, leadership roster or even a name. Their only public forms of communication are threatening leaflets. But Thai intelligence officers who have interrogated defectors or captured insurgents say that at least some of the groups are fighting for an independent Islamic state.
"If you go to work, we will kill you cruelly. We will wait for you 24 hours a day, follow you wherever you go," said one recent leaflet obtained by The AP, ordering Buddhists in one area to leave within three days. It's not known whether they left, but the insurgency has already displaced hundreds of villagers.
International Risk, a Hong Kong-based consultancy, calls the insurgency the world's "new terrorism front line," but its shadowy nature accounts in part for the differing assessments of outside involvement.
Thai leaders and intelligence officials say that loose, personal ties but no formal links currently exist between the domestic militants and networks such as al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah, Southeast Asia's foremost terrorist organization.
The main conduits for militancy, they say, are Thai Muslims who study in Muslim countries ranging from Malaysia to Libya, then come back and spread their knowledge in religious schools. These form the breeding grounds of the insurgency, which Thai officials believe also attract funding from the Middle East.
Insurgency in Thailand
Region of conflict: Thailand's three southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia, an area about the size of Connecticut.
Insurgents: The Thai military says hardcore insurgents number some 3,000-5,000 with another 10,000-12,000 sympathizers. The rebels seem to seek a state separate from predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
Government forces: More than 30,000 military and police are fighting the rebels. An earlier iron-fisted policy has been replaced by emphasis on winning "hearts and minds" and apologizing for past misdeeds, but violence continues.
The victims: More than 2,000 people have been killed by suspected insurgents, over half of them Muslims believed to be collaborating with the authorities. Thai security forces, sometimes employing brutal tactics, killed nearly 200 suspected alleged rebels in two notorious incidents in 2004.
btt
btt
I dunno. I don't know a whole lot about the muslim thing, but I have seen and heard their chants of "Death to the infidels!!".......maybe that is part of this "mystery", eh?
FMCDH(BITS)
It's all about Iraq, isn't it?
Yep, it's all about Iraq and...
India and the Sudan and Algeria and Afghanistan and New York and Pakistan and Israel and Russia and Chechnya and the Philippines and Indonesia and Nigeria and England and Thailand and Spain and Egypt and Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and Ingushetia and Dagestan and Turkey and Kabardino-Balkaria and Morocco and Yemen and Lebanon and France and Uzbekistan and Gaza and Tunisia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Mauritania and Kenya and Eritrea and Syria and Somalia and California and Argentina and Kuwait and Virginia and Ethiopia and Iran and Jordan and United Arab Emirates and Louisiana and Texas and Tanzania and Germany and Australia and Pennsylvania and Belgium and Denmark and East Timor and Qatar and Maryland and Tajikistan and the Netherlands and Scotland and Chad and Canada and China and...
...and pretty much wherever Muslims believe their religion tells them to:
"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... nor follow
the religion of truth... until they pay the tax in acknowledgment
of superiority and they are in a state of subjection."
Qur'an, Sura 9:29
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
This is not a religion. It is a lie. It codifies who to murder and from who to steal. It offers no charity even to its own. It is a charter for gangsters to rally to loot others, even their own. Calling Islam a religion is like saying Hillary loves everybody. The remedy for Islam is simple. Kill so f'king many of them so the rest give up Islam. In other words, use their method against them.
The problem is that a carrot-only policy only works for rich countries like the US. Poor countries who have beaten guerrilla movements have typically focused on using the stick heavily while extending the carrot. This includes Thailand, which has defeated both Muslim and Communist insurgencies in the past. China was ultra-successful because it killed the opposition together with their entire families. Thailand probably can't go that far, but it can go further than this military dictatorship has gone to date.
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