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Politics : The Truth About Islam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (1207)	9/20/2006 11:08:26 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 20106

Thai general urges talks with Muslim insurgents (Gen Sondhi is 1st Muslim Head of Thai Army) Financial Times ^ \| September 1 2006 \| By Amy Kazmin in Bangkok ft.com Thailand must negotiate with leaders of an ethnic Malay Muslim separatist insurgency if it wants to end bloodshed in its troubled Muslim-majority southern provinces, the country’s army chief said on Friday. General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin said the violence, which has claimed more than 1,500 lives, would not be quelled if authorities only arrested the foot-soldiers of the militancy, but refused to talk to its instigators. “It is necessary to talk to make lasting peace,” Gen Sondhi, the first Muslim to head the Thai army, told Thai journalists on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The appeal for talks with insurgents came a day after bombs in 22 banks across the province of Yala exploded almost simultaneously, killing a retired official, and injuring 28 people. The highly co-ordinated attacks on the banks, including two state-owned Islamic banks, demonstrated the militants’ rising technical capacity, and their willingness to strike at the foundations of the economy of the region, an ethnic Malay Muslim-majority enclave in Buddhist-majority Thailand. “Nothing is spared,” said Sunai Phasuk, a political analyst with Human Rights Watch. “So far, they have targeted administrative structures, security forces, law enforcement, educational structures, and cultural structures, like Buddhist monks. Now they attack the economic structure, which means nothing put in place by the Thai state is accepted.” Since the renewed flare-up in January 2004 of a decades-old separatist insurgency, Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, has promised to shower the troubled region with money to accelerate economic growth, while also imposing a state of emergency that allows security forces to use harsh measures to crack down on suspected militants. Mr Thaksin has, in public, staunchly refused to engage in negotiations to end the long-standing conflict, which has at its roots resistance by ethnic Malay Muslims against forcible assimilation into the Thai state, and resentment at discrimination against them in jobs and education. Yet behind the scenes, some Thai officials have been quietly engaging over the last year with “certain individuals” – including prominent southern Thai Muslims in political exile – who are seen as potentially able to influence the insurgents. “The army has been trying to talk with the intellectual leaders of the militant groups,” Mr Sunai said. However, Mr Sunai said negotiations still faced formidable obstacles, including ensuring that those southern Thai Muslims in contact with officials could actually exert influence on the ground.