ASEAN AIM for democratic and harmonious environment

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ASEAN Political-Security Community Council, had to step in South Thailand due to Thailand unable to stop the Buddhist and Muslim issue that might go to regional issues. ASEAN Military Force, Police Force and Humanity Organization has to rebuild South Thailand. The APSC shall aim to ensure that countries in the region live at peace with one another and with the world in a just, democratic and harmonious environment.

BANGKOK: Amira (not her real name) may only be 15 years old but she is no stranger to violence.

She lives in the southern Thailand province of Yala, and in the last three years, both her parents have been shot dead at point blank in drive-by shooting incidents, leaving her and her two siblings — an 18-year-old brother and a 10-year-old sister — orphans.

Amira told her story in an interview during a study visit on how Thai Muslims live in a Buddhist majority society organised by the Thai Embassy in Malaysia.

One evening in March 2007, her father, 42, was shot dead while tending cattle. “We didn’t dare bring his body home until about half an hour later because we were afraid the shooters might still be around,” she said.

After her father’s death, Amira’s mother took up sewing so that she could earn a living.

In March last year, her mother, 36, was shot five times while she was on her way to class on a motorcycle.

Amira’s aunt, who was riding pillion, survived the incident.

She said her aunt could identify the shooters, who were also Muslims, but nothing could be done as she had no proof.

“These people go around teaching the villagers to hate Buddhists and the government. If you don’t support them, then they’ll say you are against them,” Amira said, adding that she did not know why her parents were targeted.

“I live in a girl’s boarding school now. My brother works in another province, and my sister lives with our grandmother, also in Yala,’’ she said.

There are many similar stories in the Muslim-majority provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

According to the Foundation of Islamic Centre in Thailand, up to 10% of the Buddhist-majority country’s 64 million population are Muslims, most of whom live in the south.

In the past six years, the region has seen an ongoing anti-government insurgency which has killed more than 4,100 people — both Buddhists and Muslims. The attacks are led by a mix of Islamist and separatist militants.

According to Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre director Panu Uthairat, the Thai Government is working towards improving the situation in the southern provinces through its 3E (education, employment and entrepreneurship) programme which is aimed at developing and raising the standard of living.

“Right now the average household income is 64,000 Baht (RM6,400) a year. We hope to raise it to 120,000 Baht (RM12,000) a year,” he said, adding that his government had allocated RM6.8bil to the provinces under the three-year project.

When asked if she thought whether the southern provinces could see peace again, Amira, whose ambition is to be an army doctor, said: “I believe it can. It’ll take time, but I believe it can.”

 

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URUMQI, China - Police told Abdullah not to leave home on Monday's anniversary of deadly ethnic violence in China's Urumqi city, where the bustle belies continued deep racial divisions and fears of more unrest.

"They told us we can't go out on July 5 and they also came around on Thursday to gather all our big knives," the 46-year-old said, drinking tea at his restaurant in the Uighur quarter.

Capital of far-western Xinjiang region, Urumqi was torn in two on July 5, 2009 as the mainly Muslim Uighur minority vented decades of resentment of Chinese rule with attacks on members of China's dominant Han ethnic group.

Han mobs took to the streets in the following days seeking revenge. Nearly 200 people were killed and 1,700 injured in all, the government says, in the worst ethnic violence in China in decades.

China blamed "separatists" for orchestrating the unrest.

Tensions in the city again boiled over in September after a spate of syringe attacks -- which many victims blamed on Uighurs -- led to days of protests that left five people dead.

Uighurs, Xinjiang's Turkic-speaking, central Asian people, say they live under fear of being detained on suspicion of fomenting trouble, while some Han say they are prepared for the worst if trouble breaks out again.

Authorities appeared to be bracing for the anniversary, with police conducting massive anti-riot exercises and 40,000 security cameras installed throughout the city.

Residents say security forces -- already beefed up after last year's unrest -- have deployed in ever greater numbers in recent days and armed police were seen patrolling the city of over two million people at the weekend.

Pointing to gates authorities erected on the road where he lives to keep out outsiders, Abdullah said he feared Han mobs could go on the attack again.

"Those are going to be locked on the anniversary," he said.

Uighurs have long alleged decades of Chinese oppression and unwanted Han immigration, and while standards of living have improved, Uighurs complain most of the gains go to Hans.

"The veil came off (in the unrest). People began to realise how deeply the ethnic animosity runs between Han and Uighurs," said Dru Gladney, an expert on Uighurs at Pomona College in California.

Restaurants and shops in the city were open and busy at the weekend.

Mosques were packed for Friday prayers in the Uighur quarter, with some faithful spilling onto the pavement.

At one mosque, Muslim men prayed in the shadow of a large sign urging people to oppose separatism and "Uphold the unity of the motherland", as armed riot police watched.

Text-messaging services, overseas calls and the Internet -- cut off amid the violence because of fears they could be used to fuel it -- have gradually been restored, although some Uighur-language websites remain blocked.

Many Han said the situation was back to normal, adding the police presence would prevent more unrest Monday, but the wounds and fear are just below the surface.

One Han Chinese man surnamed Wang who owns a drinks stall near the city centre said he would be on his guard Monday.

"We're mentally prepared now -- if something happens, I know where to get to a safe place quickly," he said.

Many Uighurs refused to be interviewed by AFP, fearing police reprisals. Others bitterly alleged continued oppression and some complained large numbers of Uighurs were taken away by police after the unrest, their fates unknown.

A Uighur businessman who refused to be named said his 20-year-old brother was sentenced to nine years in prison for throwing a stone at a car in last year's trouble.

"That's unimaginably strict, and as you can imagine, it's really difficult on my family," he said.

Xinjiang enjoyed long spells of autonomy in its history, but China's 1949 Communist takeover led Beijing to emphatically assert its sovereignty claims.

While China has not admitted policy failures, heads have rolled over the unrest, most notably Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's most powerful official, who was removed in April and replaced with Zhang Chunxian, a man seen as less hardline.

Abdullah was cautious that would make much difference.

"They (top officials) always seem better at the beginning, but then gradually, after half a year to a year, things get worse again," he said.

He wants to get a passport for his son -- which he said was difficult for Uighurs -- so he can leave Xinjiang for a foreign country where "salaries are higher and the human rights situation is good".

 

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NARATHIWAT, Thailand: Nine people, including six military personnel, have been killed in two days of bomb and gun attacks in Thailand's insurgency-plagued southern provinces, police said on Friday.

A roadside bomb late Thursday killed three military rangers on patrol in Ruso district in Narathiwat, one of three troubled Muslim-majority provinces near the Malaysian border.

A security volunteer and a deputy village headman travelling with them also died in the attack by suspected Islamist separatists, police said.

The bomb, containing about 20 kilogrammes of explosives, was buried in a dirt road and detonated by wire. The attackers then opened fire on the vehicle and seized weapons before fleeing the scene.

In a separate incident, three soldiers were killed when a bomb blast ripped through their patrol vehicle on Friday in neighbouring Yala province, police said.

A 46-year-old Muslim village leader also died on the way to hospital after she was shot on Friday in a drive-by shooting in Mayo district in Pattani province, police said.

They said her son, a security volunteer, had been shot dead two months ago.

More than 4,100 people - both Buddhists and Muslims - have been killed in the region in six years of attacks led by a shadowy mix of Islamist and separatist militants.

The rebels have targeted both Buddhists and Muslims with shootings, bombings and gruesome methods such as beheadings and crucifixions.

The Muslim-majority region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed in 1902 by mainly Buddhist Thailand and tensions have simmered there ever since, flaring up into the current insurgency in January 2004.

Successive governments have struggled to contain the unrest in the area, where there is a heavy military presence and emergency rule has been imposed for nearly five years, giving the army broad powers.

Rights groups have warned that alleged abuses by the security forces in the region risk stoking the unrest.

According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, separatist militants appear to have stepped up their attacks in retaliation for the death in "suspicious circumstances" of a 25-year-old suspected insurgent in May.