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Permalink Reply by Joe on April 15, 2012 at 10:07

As the number of these atrocities keeps rising (and as our media and "human rights activisits" are almost totally silent about it, I looked around for a more recent report.  Even when sustained terrorist action is overwhelmingly against buddhists, the dhimmi liberals at Time can't help put muslims at the forefront as "the real victims"!  I've been following this jihad since 2004, as I was in Thailand at the start of it.  Whilst I can't find any figures analysing the religion of those killed, my estimate would be that 95% of them were buddhists. When one considers that buddhists were already a minority in that area, then any muslim deaths in 8 years of terrorism, are probably not statistically significant.

Robert Horn cites people saying that most of these attacks are not the work of jihadis.  I will try and dig up the report by the academic.  But as 85% of the buddhists who lived in that area have left since 2004, and since the Thai government is arming a citizen militia down there (because the army cannot defend the people), this article from Timeis misleading.  I'll add that information as I uncover.

Here's the report of Buddhists fleeing southern Thailand to escape the islamic terrorists: http://4freedoms.ning.com/group/buddhists/forum/topics/buddhists-le...

 

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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2095306,00.html

Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2011

The Real Victims in Southern Thailand's Insurgency

By Robert Horn / Bangkok

 

Usman Buesa taught the Koran. But spreading the word of Islam didn't protect him from those who profess to defend Islam. As the 24-year-old teacher in Pattani province in southern Thailand drove two of his young students home on the back of his motorcycle on Jan. 27, Islamic insurgents put a bullet in his head. Neither the students nor others who saw the shooting were willing to identify the killers. "They've been too traumatized or scared to talk," Usman's father told investigators.

Usman was one of almost 5,000 people who have been killed since 2004 in what Amnesty International is now labeling an "internal armed conflict" in the deep south of Thailand. The insurgency pits Islamic militants against the predominantly Buddhist Thai state, which has flooded the area with as many as 40,000 soldiers in its counter-insurgency operations.Since 2006, according to an Amnesty International report released on Tuesday, the militants have responded by deliberately attacking civilians. Ironically, the group says, a majority of the victims in the region's violence have been those whom the insurgents are supposedly fighting for: Muslim farmers, rubber tappers, teachers, shopkeepers and others. "These killings constitute war crimes," Donna Guest, Amnesty's deputy director for Asia and the Pacific, told a press conference in Bangkok. "There are no circumstances in which targeting civilians is justified."

Guest's contention that the violence meets the Geneva Convention's standard for an internal armed conflict would make the insurgents liable to be tried for war crimes — if they could be identified, much less apprehended. But those responsible for the dramatic upsurge in shootings, bombings and arson in the deep south since 2004 have often been described as "shadowy." Their organization remains nameless. They don't claim responsibility for attacks. They have never issued a comprehensive statement detailing their grievances, demands or goals. But the deadly violence has steadily intensified. A bombing in the border town of Sungai Kolok two weeks ago, for instance, killed six and wounded over 100. Notes left on bodies following attacks like this and other evidence indicates that most killings are "ideological," says Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty's researcher for Thailand. He says such attacks are likely intended to create an atmosphere of terror that would prevent anyone with questionable loyalties from helping the authorities.

Resistance against the central government has been a feature of life in Thailand's five southernmost provinces — Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Satun and Songkhla — since they were annexed in 1902. The Malay Muslims who make up the majority of the population here have long complained of discrimination and abuse at the hands of the Thai state. By the late 1990s, however, most residents had come to accept they were part of Thailand and older, better-known separatist groups were fading away. But in 2001, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's new government adopted a hard-line approach to the low-level resistance that still existed in the provinces. Soon after, violence exploded to unprecedented levels, although it has remained contained to the deep south.

Southern Thailand borders Malaysia, and as with most border regions, it is a nexus for smuggling and a wide variety of criminal activity. That has led some to conclude that a significant proportion of the violence is rooted in crime rather than ethnic or religious grievances. "It is irresponsible for Amnesty International to say that the 5,000 deaths are the work of insurgents," says Marc Askew, a political scientist from the University of Melbourne who has studied the violence in the region. He said that 30% to 40% of attacks are probablyrelated to criminal activity. Col. Parinya Chaitilok, a spokesman for Thailand's Fourth Army, which is responsible for security in the deep south, said he believes that only about 20% of attacks on civilians are the work of insurgents. "They don't usually attack civilians. They usually attack us, the security forces,'' he says.

Amnesty was quick to stress that the government's security forces are also guilty of abuses. A 2009 report issued by the group alleged that security forces routinely used torture on suspects. "That use of torture is ongoing," Zawacki says, adding that a major problem is the impunity with which security forces operate in the region. No soldier has even been charged with torture, an unlawful killing or any other form of abuse. Zawacki gives credit, however, to recently elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for being open to offers of help from Indonesia in seeking solutions to the southern problem, noting that Indonesia had learned valuable lessons in negotiating an end to a long-running insurgency in its western province of Aceh in 2005.

On the other hand, the Yingluck government's recent nomination of a retired general, who was responsible for the shelling of southern Thailand's holiest mosque in 2004, to a top national security position may be an indication the administration is going to take an even harder line against the insurgents. As the new government considers its options, the death toll in the south keeps rising.

Permalink Reply by Joe on April 15, 2012 at 11:48

1. cross-border people smuggling/crime is the problem.

The article from Timesays: 

"Southern Thailand borders Malaysia, and as with most border regions, it is a nexus for smuggling and a wide variety of criminal activity. That has led some to conclude that a significant proportion of the violence is rooted in crime rather than ethnic or religious grievances."

This can be proven to be nonsense.  And if I can provide the evidence to undermine this, why can Time'sregional expert not do so?  (Obviously, he could, but chooses not to do so).

Thailand is also bordered by Burma, Cambodia, and Laos; so let's see what the relative levels of wealth are, to estimate where most people smuggling is likely to occur.

Here is the per capita GDP for Thailand and 3 of the neighbouring countries.

Cambodia	795
Lao	1177
Thailand	4608
Malaysia	8373

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

There are no statistics available for Burma (Myanamar(but it is highly likely (given the lack of tourism, and the sanctions imposed by many countries) that the per capita GDP of Burma is no higher than that of Laos or Cambodia. Therefore, we can assume that the people trafficing is probably at the same level as from Lao and Cambodia.

The question is: why would there be people smuggling into Thailand from Malaysia, if the standard of living is almost twice as high in Malaysia? I know why - islamification and occupation.

And since there is undoubtedly people smuggling into Thailand from Burma and Laos (I've met people in Thailand who were smuggled in), why isn't there far worse violence in the west, north and east of Thailand, since there is far more incentive for people from those countries to get into Thailand, than from Malaysia. Indeed, it is far more likely that it would be Thais going to live in Malaysia, since the standard of living in that country is double that of Thailand.  We can see from this report on the BBC, that drug smuggling from Burma into Thailand is at "epidemic" proportions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/772800.stm  Yet, strangely, despite the economic disparity, the people smuggling and the drug smuggling, there is no epidemic of assassinations where Thailand borders Burma.

This is all very strong evidence, that the claim about the origin of the violence where Thailand borders Malaysia is false.

Also, of note is the racism of the writer.  Until recently, Malaysia was not even mostly Malay.  And Thailand consists of many ethnicities (Thai, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Lao, etc.), and only 30% of Thailand's muslims live in the southern 3 states of Thailand.

This is emphatically not an ethnic conflict.  As I've shown, it is impropable that it is principally criminal activity motivated by money (although that's not to say that the muslim terrorists are not involved in crime to fund their murders).  There is no evidence that those killed have had any involvement in crime - Time's own principal victim in the story is not portrayed as a criminal.  Many of those assassinated have been buddhist monks. 

2004 - http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/01/more-buddhist-monks-killed-in-tha...

2009 - http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/12/idUSSP361306

2011 - http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/03/thailand-jihadists-murder-buddhis...

Many of those assassinated have been teachers, assassinated in their classrooms, in front of children. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/thailand0910webwcove... 

It is disgraceful that Time would ignore these significant facts.

This jihad is an expansionist project on the part of muslims in Thailand and Malaysia.  There is also evidence of them being externally trained: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers14/paper1321.html

Permalink Reply by Joe on May 6, 2015 at 19:52

I've been predicting for some time that the terrorists would move north and start attacking tourist locations.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/11/koh-samui-car-bomb-sev...