New Thai PM to go rebellious Muslim south

BANGKOK, Nov 13: New Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, pursuing a campaign for peace in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south, will go to the region again this week, this time to talk to scared minority Buddhists, officials said today.

His first visit was to apologise for the hardline policies of ousted predecessor Thaksin Shinawatra in a region where more than 1,800 people have been killed in nearly three years of separatist violence, and his second to talk to Muslims about peace.

His third in two weeks, however, will be to visit Buddhists in fear after insurgents, who have never spelled out their goals or claimed credit for attacks, stepped up their assaults in apparent response to his peace overtures.

In recent days, more than 200 Buddhist villagers fled to take refuge in a temple after militant raids on their families and homes in Yala province and monks in nearby Narathiwat province stopped their early morning rounds to collect alms.

The 300 monks from 71 temples were scared to go out as intelligence reports suggested they were now a prime militant target, Somboon Bunkhet, the province's head of Buddhist affairs, told Reuters by telephone.

''They have realised their attacks on soldiers or teachers will no longer make sexy news headlines, so they have shifted their target to monks,'' he said of the rebels.

''Such attacks would be heart wrenching for every Buddhist,'' he said as a Bangkok newspaper ran a photograph of a monk guarded by four soldiers in an Humvee army truck while collecting alms.

The monks, who had been escorted by soldiers on the daily ritual which provides their food, would rely on people bringing it to them, he added.

At least 10 monks have been killed in the latest separatist insurgency in a region where 80 percent of the people speak a Malay dialect and many are alienated to Bangkok.

Teachers and schools, symbols of the government of predominantly Buddhist Thailand, have been frequent targets, but members of both religions have been killed.

Analysts say violence in the far south, a Muslim sultanate until annexed by Bangkok a century ago, will go on despite the government appointed by the military after a September 19 coup to oust Thaksin replacing his iron fist with an olive branch.

But the u-turn, which has also featured a pledge by Surayud to find a place for Islamic Sharia law in the region and the revival of a once-trusted administrative body Thaksin abolished, could undermine support for the violence, they say.

REUTERS