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April 27, 2006
Thailand: Islamic Schools To Become Relief Centers
News from ETNA News states that more than a hundred Islamic schools, or pondok, will be adapted to become relief centers for refugees from the violence of the insurgency in the Southern provinces. The redeployment of the schools, close to the border with Malaysia, was announced by the caretaker Education Minister, Chaturon Chaisang.
He announced today that 100 to 120 more pondok will be added to 70 which already run government aid programmes for victims of the violence connected with the current insurgency. More than 1,200 people have been killed since February 2004, which is driven by the desire of Muslim militants to return the three provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala (as well as two districts of Songkhla province) to their original status as an independent sultanate, called Pattani. In the eighteenth century, the Sultanate was invaded by Thailand, and was officially annexed into Thailand a century ago in 1906. Currently the population of these provinces is 80% Muslim.
The relief programme had been initiated last June, and a total of 5,667 villagers have been assisted. The budget for the operation has so far cost 600 million bhat, or $15 million US. Families eligible for relief include those who have had a family member missing for three or more months.
The first family to become recipients of aid was Somchai Neelapajit, a Muslim human rights lawyer, who disappeared on 12 March 2004. We reported on this on January 12 this year, when a senior policeman, Maj. Nguen Thongsuk, was charged with "coercion" with the lawyer's disappearance. He had been seen bundling Somchai into a car in a Bangkok car park, and was given a three year jail sentence.
On January 13 the then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (who stepped down on April 4) confirmed that Somchai had been murdered, but did not elucidate. At the time of his abduction, Somchai was chairman of the Muslim Lawyers Association and vice-chairman of the Human Rights Committee, and had taken on the role of defending individuals accused of involvement in the separatist insurgency.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 27, 2006 7:24 PM
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