New recruits chosen from Islamic schools

Violence in the deep south would intensify as the recruitment of young militants from Islamic boarding schools accelerated unless the government changed solution from military mean to political way, Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said yesterday.

In its latest report "Recruiting Militants in Southern Thailand", the ICG said the insurgency movement managed to recruit their fighters mostly from private Islamic schools in the region.

Of some 100,000 students in the Islamic schools in the deep south, the report quoted Thai officials as saying there were about 1,800-3,000 were recruited into the militancy.

Thai military estimated there were some 4,000 Muslim fighters in the unrest region. The government deployed some 40,000 all kinds of armed forces to search and destroy them.

A spate of violence erupted in the predominantly Muslim region since the beginning of 2004 has killed more than 3,500 people so far. Nobody claimed responsibility and the authority has been struggling to contain the violence since then.

Malay-Muslim in southernmost provinces Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat have fought to release frustration from Bangkok domination for over a century.

The militant recruits are driven by a desire to defend their ethnic and religious identity from what they perceive as oppression by the Thai Buddhist state, the ICG's report said.

"Recruiters appeal to a sense of Malay nationalism and pride in the old Patani sultanate," says Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, Crisis Group's Thailand analyst.

"They tell students in these schools that it is the duty of every Muslim to take back their land from the Buddhist infidels."

Although some Islamic schools have been used as breeding ground for insurgent activities, the government should not close down troubled schools, Rungrawee said in a separate interview.

"It should focus its effort in addressing the grievance of Malay Muslims by recognizing their distinct cultural identity, ending human rights violation and opening more political space for them," she said.

Some Islamic boarding schools including Jihad Witthaya in Pattani and Islam Burapha in Narathiwat were crackdown and shut down since their students and teachers involved in violent cases.

 Recruitment young Musim to the movement has also been fuelled by human rights violations of the Thai government, the ICG's report said.

The arrest or killing of a relative is a strong incentive to join the movement; so are cases of torture and enforced disappearances.

Senator Worawit Baru said the government should change the way of handling the restive south since the military solution has been used over the past five years have never worked. "The military should admit it fails and allows the government to try other ways," he said in an interview.