A bad start for the new year in the Deep South?
The dawning of the Year of the Dragon was marred with a fatal bombing giving a bad omen that it could be another year of bloody violence in the restive Deep South.
Two days after the people in Mayo district of Pattani celebrated the New Year’s Day, suspected insurgents on Wednesday January 3 detonated a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) at the foot of a bridge on Ban Klong Chang-Ban Khao Wang road in Ban Klong Chang, Mayo district as a pick-up carrying a group of soldiers passed through.
The powerful explosion completely wrecked the truck which plunged into the roadside ditch and killed the unit commander, 25-year old Lt Direksin Rattanasin and the driver, 26-year old Sgt Yutthana Jampamee whose body was found about 20 metres from the truck wreckage.
It was reported that the soldiers were on their way to join New Year’s celebration with local health officials Tambon Koh Chan. But suspected insurgents apparently got wind of the troopers’ visit and planted a 15-kg bomb at the foot of the bridge leading to the tambon’s office.
A look back at the statistics of violent incidents took place last year which was compiled by the Isra news agency showed that the unrest situation in the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat plus some parts of Songkhla has not improved compared to the situation one year earlier.
For last year, there were 671 violent incidents with 535 people killed and 1,049 others injured compared to 652 violent incidents with 521 deaths and 941 injured recorded in 2510.
For the past eight years since the start of a new round of insurgency war when suspected insurgents raided an army’s armoury in Narathiwat on January 4, 2004 and stole 413 firearms, mostly M16 assault rifles, a total of 5,243 people have died and 8,941 people injured.
Of the 5,243 deaths, there were 4,215 civilians, 351 soldiers, 280 policemen, 148 teachers and other educational personnel, seven Buddhist monks and 242 suspected insurgents and other criminals.
Of the 8,914 people injured, 5,855 of them were civilians, 1,712 soldiers, 144 educational officials, 23 monks and 34 suspected insurgents.
Besides the deaths and injuries, the insurgency war has also produced 2,290 widows and 4,455 orphans.
Throughout the past eight years, successive governments since the Thaksin regime had poured about 160 billion baht in expenditure budgets into the region to pacify the Islamic insurgency and for development projects. A breakdown of the budgets on yearly basis from the year 2004 are as follows: 13,450 million baht in 2004; 13,674 million baht in 2005; 14,207 million baht in 2006; 17,526 million baht in 2007; 22,988 million baht in 2008; 27,547 million baht in 2008; 16,507 million baht in 2009; 19,102 million baht in 2010; and 16, 277 million baht in 2011.
For the current fiscal year, the government has set aside 16, 277 million baht for military operations and development projects in the Deep South with the bulk of the budget, 6,100 million baht going to the Internal Security Operations Command which is in charge of military operations.
According to the statistics, there were altogether 12,604 violent incidents during the past eight years thus averaging 2.77 incidents on any single day. Of the violent incidents, there were 6,834 shootings, 2,265 bombings, 1489 arson attacks and 2,016 incidents of other forms of violence such as beheadings, protests, kidnappings, assaults and desecrating of the Thai flag.
Besides the 413 weapons seized from the armoury at the Fourth Development Battalion in Cho-airong district of Narathiwat on January 4, 2004, an addition of more than 1,200 firearms have also fallen into the hands of suspected insurgents in ambushes and attacks of security forces. Of these stolen weapons, only 484 pieces were recovered, including 140 M16 assault rifles, 66 AK47s, 203 handguns and53 shotguns.
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Caption : The powerful explosion completely wrecked the truck which plunged into the roadside ditch and killed 2 soldiers in Mayo district of Pattani.
Photo by : Mr Pares Lohason from Komchadluek newspaper