Thai seeks Islamic help to resist insurgency

Bangkok, Feb 17: Authorities in southern Thailand will organise meetings of Muslim religious leaders to counter the use of faith to justify Islamic separatist violence in the region.

Muslim clerics from across the country will gather in the insurgency-racked southern region to debate the use of religion by Islamic militants in support of their actions.

According to the chief of the high-level politico-administrative body set up to tackle the three-year-old violence in the south, this was necessary as the militants were increasingly giving a religious colour to their campaign of violence.

''No one can debate this very issue with the same authority as the cleric,'' said Pranai Suwanrath, Director-General of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC).

More than 2,000 people have been killed in separatist violence in the three southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat since January 2004.

Leaflets distributed by the militants cite faith-based grounds for the violence.

The SBPAC chief said a large number of the separatists were students influenced by the decades-old separatist demand based on the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious distinctness of Thailand's Muslim-majority region.

The official, however, denied that any attempt would be made to influence the clerics during the discussions and that they were free to arrive at their own conclusions.

Mr Suwanrath admitted that authorities were losing to the militants in the propaganda war.

The SBPAC is a non-security body working to promote peace in the three southern provinces. It has been trying to reach out to all sections of society, listening to their complaints and suggestions.

It is also trying to promote fraternal contacts between Buddhist and Muslim young people amidst concerns that followers of the two faiths are drifting apart in the region.

UNI