Thai police hit wall of silence in Muslim south

Yala (Thailand), Mar 1: When Lieutenant Colonel Jirasit Lormae arrived at the scene of the murder of a Muslim man in southern Thailand and asked what had happened, villagers told the policeman in faltering Thai they knew nothing.

However, whispers in the crowd in the local Malay dialect suggested they had noted an unusual absence of military patrols on the day the man, who was on a government list of suspected Muslim separatist rebels, was gunned down.

The case shows why authorities in the predominantly Buddhist country are struggling to contain a three-year rebellion in the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala, where 80 percent of people are ethnic Malay Muslims and have few ties to Bangkok.

Fear of reprisals from either the police, the army or the mysterious militants behind an insurgency that has claimed 2,000 lives since 2004 prevents anybody from talking, leaving police with little to go on.

''We can't rely on witnesses because they don't know what will happen to them after they talk to police,'' said Jirasit, who is a rarity in the force -- an ethnic Malay Muslim who speaks the dialect. ''They just lie to you.'' The lack of cooperation from the public goes further.

Increasingly, whenever police take people into a station for questioning, crowds of veiled Muslim women and children lay siege to the building, demanding their release. Invariably, police let the suspects or witnesses go to avoid violence.

Jirasit, the senior officer in Yala town, said it was also common for officers to arrive at the scene of a crime to find evidence has already been tampered with or removed.

''We didn't find any bullet cartridges as villagers were spraying the road with water,'' Jirasit said, recalling the shooting of the Muslim man.

Army, Police Gulf

Militants are also becoming more sophisticated, luring bomb squad officers with a small explosion, then hitting them with a follow-up blast, detonating it with a mobile phone, or a remote-control if the police and army are jamming phone signals.

Jirasit also complains about a lack of cooperation between the police and soldiers in the region. Martial law means police have to seek permission from the army every time they want to raid a house.

And unresolved cases are piling up on desk of Jirasit and his 15 colleagues -- most of them junior officers paid just 8,000 baht (230 dollars) a month, who have to go out buy their own cameras, firearms, flak jackets and even transport.

''Our lives are hanging by a thread so we have to buy flak jackets for ourselves,'' said newly graduated Sub-Lieutenant Kittpong Pooduangchit, who sometimes has to ask his parents for money to get by.

Jirasit says the contrast with Bangkok, which was hit by a series of small blasts that killed three people on New Year's Eve, could not be more telling.

''There are 200 investigators with several police generals working on eight bombs in Bangkok, but down there are 15 of us handling dozens with me as the most senior officer,'' he said.

Reuters