The danger of living in Panareh district

The killing of a family of three Thai Buddhists in Panareh district of Pattani province on October 13 was believed to be part of a terror campaign waged by Islamic insurgents to force the Thai Buddhists out of the deep South and to drive a wedge between them and their Malay Muslim neighbours.

          A senior provincial official who used to spend many years working in Panareh district told the Isra new agency he suspected that insurgents had wanted the Thai Buddhists to leave the strife-torn region.  He said that there are now only six families of Thai Buddhists still living in the municipal area out of some 12 families.

          The latest family of Mr Adikorn Ungrangsee was murdered on October 13.  Suspected insurgents arrived at the house of the victim who bought fish from the fishermen and shot him dead together with his sister, Ms Suree, and his Common Law wife, Ms Urai sae Chang.

          The murder took place six days after some 200 locals from Tambon Kok Krabue, Panareh district, lodged a petition with Lt-Gen Udomchai Thammasarorach, commander of the Fourth Army Region, asking for paramilitary rangers not to be pulled out of their base at Wat Mahingsaram temple in order to give them the protection against the insurgents.

          The official said that Thai Buddhists still remain in 18 villages in the district, living among their Malay Muslim neighbours, making it a bit difficulty for the security forces to protect the Thai Buddhists.

          Of late, an alarm system has been installed at the houses of Thai Buddhists in the municipal area.  Unfortunately, the system has proved to be a failure as security forces were unable to respond fast enough to help the victims as evident in the case of Mr Adikorn’s family.

          Besides the violent incident on October 13, eight other incidents were reported in January and February this year resulting to the death of 13 Buddhists and Muslims and six wounded.  But the most gruesome incident took place on October 16, 2005 at Wat Promprasit when uspsected insurgents hacked to death a month and a lay assistant and burned down three living quarters.

          Panareh district has altogether 10 tambon and 53 villages with a population of about 40,000 with 68 percent of them being Muslims.  Most of the people make a living from fishing, farming or animal raising.  It is also the home of the Halal food production centre..

          Panareh which means a beach for drying fishing nets in Malay used to be a peaceful district wellknown for its beautiful beach and very fine-grained sand.  Today, it has become a danger zone especially for Thai Buddhists.

          Pol Maj-Gen Pichet Pitiseththapan, the commander of Pattani provincial police, however, admitted that he could not confirm for sure that the October 13 murders were perpetrated by insurgents, noting that there had been several killings in the province which were related to conflict of business interests and contraband smuggling.

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