Thailand's Hard Line
Following the brutal oppression of demonstrations by the minority Muslim population, a bomb went off in Thailand yesterday, killing six people. It was the latest in a surge of violence in the south that has killed more than 500 people.
Here's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's response:
He told reporters he would use military muscle and economic sanctions to punish villages that were sympathetic to Islamic separatists.And so the cycle of violence begins again. More bombings, followed by a violent military response, cannot be far behind.
Some 1,580 southern villages have been surveyed for their co-operation with the government, and categorised as red, yellow or green, depending on the degree of violence found there.
...
"If the money sanctions do not work, I will send soldiers to lay siege to the red zone villages and put more pressure on them," he added.
Maybe if the Muslim protest had ended peacefully, instead of with nearly 80 people suffocated as they were transported away from the scene, the separatists would not have continued to resort to terrorist violence. Or maybe it would have happened regardless.
But if the government had given the oppressed minority the opportunity to protest peacefully, to have their voices heard and receive government attention without bombings, there is a small chance they could have stopped the cycle before it began.
posted by Sammy @ 12:08 PM
2 Comments:
Am sorry to say - "I very much doubt it" All comes down to Power.
Once they get it, they can't relinquish it, and do anything to keep it. ie Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Quite odd that you assume the Muslims of Thailand to be Western Liberals--as if they only want a say in the public choice regime of Thailand. What if pluralism doesn't work for the largely pre-modern Thailand? Isn't the allowance of Muslim protest merely an affirmation of long-term conflict? But, once again, with such a flimsy definition of "peace" anything this blog condones is "peaceful" and anything is opposes is "war-mongering."
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