Buddhists are arming themselves in Thailand. Strategy Page;
July 22, 2005: The Islamic militants are trying to do some ethnic, and religious, cleansing in the Moslem south. The three southern provinces have a population of some 1.8 million, and only 360,000 of those are Buddhists (the religion of the majority of Thais, who are ethnically different from the Moslems, who are Malays). The terror campaign is having some success, as some ten percent of the southern Buddhists have left the south in the past six months. But many of the remaining Buddhists are arming and preparing to defend themselves, and stay in the south.�
[…]
July 14, 2005: In the southern provincial capital of Yala, five bombs went off, and a gun battle with Islamic terrorists left two policemen dead, and 17 civilians and three policemen wounded. One terrorists suspect was killed in the shoot out. One of the targets was a power station, which caused a local blackout. The other targets were a convenience store, a bank branch, a department store and a restaurant. The bombs went off at the same time, about 7 PM. In addition to the bombs, fires were set in some houses, a market and a factory. Earlier in the day, a bomb went off near a hospital, and two teachers were shot dead.��
The government is buying 24,439 assault rifles and machine guns, and seven helicopters, to equip troops fighting Islamic terrorism in the south.��
July 13, 2005: The Islamic terrorists war against education in the Moslem south is working. So far, about ten percent of the 10,000 teachers in the south have fled, and another 25 percent plan to leave. The Islamic terrorists see schools as the major obstacle to radicalizing the Moslem youth in the south.
Please keep us up to date on this. I’m fascinated to know how Buddhists will deal with terrorism. I somehow doubt that appeasement will be involved.
Hey, guess which countries are providing substantial funding and wahhabi wingnuts to stoke this separatist terrorism:
“Southern Thailand is home to the Yala Islamic College, run by hard-line Wahhabi cleric Ismail Lufti. He has an estimated 8,000 followers installed throughout southern Thailand in key Islamic posts and the college, which like most Islamic institutions in southern Thailand is funded by Saudi money, has about 800 students who are reportedly taught hardcore Wahhabi doctrine. ”
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/689/in1.htm
More:
“Thai officials suspect returnees from Afghanistan, plus Wahhabi-financed religious schools, have influenced some Thai Muslims at more than 100 small, private Islamic campuses in the south.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0401/S00107.htm
More:
“With more than a dozen Arab teachers from across the Middle East and a seemingly endless flow of funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait…The 1,500 students there dress in Arab-style clothes and are taught a strict interpretation of syariah law in the Arabic language.
The south’s largely unregistered pondoks (Islamic schools) – which offer religious education, a regular curriculum and training in Arabic and the local Yawi dialect – are meanwhile now recognised by the Thai government as breeding grounds for radical separatists.
A number of the Muslim separatists killed on April 28 – when more than 100 Muslims were gunned down on their motorcycles by soldiers acting on a tip-off about a planned series of raids on army posts across the south – taught at or were students in these local Islamic schools.
Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Thamarak Isarangura has said the Thai government believes there are military training sites in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt where Thai Muslim separatists are trained to execute terror attacks back at home.”
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3985
completely O/T, but wondering, Kate & other dog lovers, whether you’d seen this? Hilarious. h/t blogette
http://www.zefrank.com/orchidectomy/index.html
Close off muslim immigration until they get their act together.
My Thai sources (HottieAsianWife69 on MSN chat) tell me that Thai-Saudi relations are further strained by a story that has received little western press:
“Most notorious were the revelations of high-ranking police involvement in the “Saudi jewel case” involving the theft in 1989 of some U.S.$20 million worth in jewels from a Saudi prince by his Thai servant who later fled to Bangkok. Seven police and one civilian went on trial during the year for their role in this case, which had involved seven murders, including the wife and son of a key witness on August 1. ”
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/WR95/ASIA-08.htm
“[127] The police system, for example, is in dire need of reform. Rampant corruption and criminality of the police has not been curbed. This is highlighted by the five year-old Saudi Arabian jewel-theft case. The case began in 1990 when jewelries worth US$20 million belonging to the son of the Saudi King were stolen. This sordid affair now involves the killing of three diplomats, the disappearance of a Saudi businessman, and the murder of the wife and son of a witness. The slow police investigation has fueled rumours that “influential figures” much higher than police generals are involved. Top police officers have been officially implicated in the case. In July 1995, some of the jewelry was recovered and returned, placating the Saudis to some extent. See, “Curse of the Jewels”, FEER (29 September 1994), pp. 14-15.”
http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/cty-AJCHX5A.htm
And:
“Former police commissioner Lt-General Chalor Kerdthet was yesterday sentenced to two life terms in prison after being convicted of abetting in the brutal double murder of a mother and her 8-year-old son in 1994.
Assigned to resolve the Saudi jewellery theft case in 1990, Chalor spun a web of crime leading to his involvement in abduction, ransom demands and killing, as well as other serious offences that made the crime he was supposed to be solving pale in comparison.
The murder of the wife and son of jeweller Santi Srithanakhan in 1994 happened four years after the discovery that many pieces of jewellery returned by the Thai police – earlier stolen from the palace of a Saudi prince in 1989 – were in fact fake, the Criminal Court stated in its verdict.
Chalor was in charge of tracking down a Thai worker, Kriangkrai Techamong, who had stolen the jewellery.
Chalor solved the case and personally delivered the recovered jewellery to a Saudi prince.
Saudi authorities, however, said that many items of the retrieved jewellery were fake, especially the “blue diamond” piece which had a great sentimental value to the Saudi royal family.
The former police commissioner was again put in charge of the case.
Chalor had earlier been convicted of abducting Santi a number of times with the aim of forcing him to reveal the whereabouts of the missing pieces of jewellery.”
http://www.aseannewsnetwork.com/2002/12/saudi-jewel-case-chalor-given-life.html
saudis. it figures.
anywhere you go in the world. if there are muslims, there are problems.
OMFG!! If friggin Buddhists(BUDDHISTS!!) are allowed to defend themselves then why aren’t we? I don’t know why this stuff suprises me, I really don’t.