4 Die in Separate Attacks in Thailand’s Deep South

Nasueroh
2016.03.03
Pattani, Thailand
160303-TH-killings-620.jpg The body of rubber tapper Chatchai Saethong, 55, is covered at the scene where he was shot dead and his corpse was burned in Baan Sesehnai, a village in southern Thailand’s Yala province, March 3, 2016.
Naseuroh/BenarNews

Four people including at least two civilians were killed in separate shootings within a 24-hour span in Thailand’s restive Deep South, local police said Thursday.

The four killings brought to 16 the number of people killed across the Deep South in shootings and bombings by suspected insurgents since Feb. 10, when Thai security forces raided a rebel hideout in Pattani province. Thirty-one other people were injured in 14 bombings and 18 shootings since then, officials said.

The recent spate of violence has taken place after a period of relative calm in the Deep South and while the Thai government has been negotiating with southern rebel groups to persuade them to reopen formal peace talks for the first time since 2013. Last year, the number of violent incidents in the region hit a record low since 2004.

Last month’s raid appears to have triggered a series of retaliatory attacks by rebels, a security source told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

“Since Feb. 10, there have been shootings more often. They seem like a vendetta,” the source told BenarNews.

The latest killings began Wednesday night with the slaying of a paramilitary officer in Yala province, and culminated with three more deadly shootings the next day in Yala and neighboring Pattani.

Two of the victims were shot dead and set on fire, according to police.

One of the two, identified as rubber tapper Chatchai Saethong, 55, was gunned down and his body burned at around dawn on Thursday as he rode his motorcycle in Baan Sesehnai, a village in Yaha, a sub-district of Yala.

“Chatchai was shot dead with a handgun while riding a motorcycle on the way to work in a rubber plantation,” Lt. Capt. Pol. Prachaya Hedhark told reporters.

Later Thursday, police in Yala’s Muang district found the body of Arnus Muso, 26, an intelligence officer with the 41st paramilitary regiment in nearby Raman district. Police said they suspect insurgents killed him Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, electrician Suthas Kraiwan, 44, was shot while working on a utility pole Thursday afternoon in Pattani, police Lt. Col. Wichain Khamsao told reporters.

And at dusk, a retired policeman Ong-art Boonma, 82, was shot dead and burned while riding his bike, according to a police investigator in Pattani’s Yarang district.

After receiving word of the four killings, the chief of the Thai Army’s 4th regional command called a meeting to discuss how to thwart more attacks.

Safe zones not yet achieved

The killings came a few days after the third anniversary, on Feb. 28, of the launching of efforts by the previous Thai government to negotiate an end to the separatist insurgency in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim and Malay-speaking region. More than 6,000 people have died in related violence since 2004, when the insurgency flared up again in the Deep South.

Those Malaysia-mediated peace talks faltered in December 2013. But the Thai junta, which toppled the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in May 2014, last year initiated efforts to revive formal peace talks through a series of closed-door meetings with representatives of MARA Patani, an umbrella body representing rebel groups and factions in negotiations with Thailand.

The ongoing efforts have yet to achieve “safe-zones,” or ceasefire zones, which were one of the pre-conditions for formal talks established by the government, MARA Patani Chairman Awang Jabat acknowledged in a videotaped message that was screened at a seminar in Pattani on Sunday.

“We have already noted that the local people have voiced their demand to set up safe zones,” Jabat said.

“Setting up safety zones in a conflict area has never been easy, and it could not be announced by just one side as we had heard. No one has ever done so,” he added.

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