Say Anything Blog

By RUNGRAWEE C. PINYORAT, Associated Press Writer

300 Thai schools to close amid attack

BANGKOK, Thailand - More than 300 schools in Thailand’s restive south will close indefinitely Monday after attacks by suspected Muslim insurgents left two teachers dead, a regional representative for teachers said.

The closure affects all primary and secondary schools in the province of Pattani, where two teachers have been shot and killed by suspected insurgents in the past two days.

In one of the killings, attackers shot a school principal Friday, and then set his body on fire. The principal became the 59th teacher or school official killed in three years of violence, said Bunsom Thongsriprai, president of Teachers’ Association in Pattani.

“Teachers can’t bear what has happened,” Bunsom said. “They are paranoid, worried and afraid.”

Bunsom said that Pattani’s 336 public schools, which serve about 100,000 students, would reopen when teachers feel safe.

More than 1,800 people have died from violence in Thailand’s three southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat — since an Islamic insurgency flared in January 2004. The majority of Thailand’s population is Buddhist.

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On Thursday, 96 schools across Yala were ordered closed as a safety precaution after a school was burned down the day before in broad daylight. It was one of several schools in the province recently targeted by arsonists. The Yala schools were expected to reopen Monday.

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Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtat said Friday that insurgents had stepped up violence to keep residents from accepting new peace overtures from the authorities.

”They have intensified violent attacks to intimidate and terrify people,” Boonrawd said, adding that the shadowy groups behind the violence have not accepted government offers to hold talks.

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Let’s see...no US involvement, lots of murders and other forms of violence, targeting innocent teachers, and refusing to negotiate.  Instead, they rely on terror and intimidation.

Maybe the MSM, if they report this at all, will find a way to blame it on President Bush and US foreign policy; or maybe that’s just the way radical Islam rolls…