Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has agreed to a peace
plan put forward by a high-level panel to end an insurgency in
Muslim-majority provinces, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The centerpiece of the plan announced on Monday by the
independent National Reconciliation Commission is to create a new
regional body to mediate the conflict that has claimed 1,300 lives
in the last two years.
Government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said the premier had
tasked his top deputy, Chidchai Vanasathidya, with implementing the
plan.
"He assigned Chidchai to properly implement the proposals made
by the commission, immediately if possible," he told reporters.
"But the prime minister asked Chidchai to report to him on which
proposals would require passing new laws, because for those the
government has to wait for a new parliament," he said.
General elections in April failed to produce a parliament and
new court-supervised polls are set for October.
The National Reconciliation Commission, created in March 2005,
called for a new administrative body to oversee the restive
provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala, as a way to mediate
conflicts and give residents greater voice in local government
decisions.
The proposed body is similar to one that Thaksin dismantled
shortly after taking office in 2001. The previous body had been
credited with reducing violence in the region after an upsurge of
fighting in the 1970s.
Thaksin had disbanded the body believing that the threat of
violence had passed.
The leader of the opposition Democrat Party, which enjoys broad
support in the south, said he supported the plan.
"We are in favor of increased local participation (in
government) to win back the trust of the people. Winning back the
trust is the key," Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters.
The commission also called for the creation of an unarmed
peacekeeping force comprising police and military; improved
schools; and the establishment of a special fund to promote
reconciliation.
The report said the government should adopt the Malay dialect of
Yawi as a "working language" in the region, where many residents do
not speak Thai.
It also emphasized the need to improve the justice system in the
south Thailand, where few people have been prosecuted over the
violence.
Also Tuesday, a Buddhist and a Muslim were killed by suspected
Islamic militants in the south, police said.
Amnart Chuliwan, a 40-year-old Buddhist government informant and
owner of a second-hand jeans shop, was gunned down at his store in
Yala, one of the three Muslim-majority restive provinces on the
border with Malaysia.
"We suspected it was the work of militants because they knew he
was a government informant," Yala police captain Job Koewsrijan
said.
In neighboring Pattani province, Nirandorn Sama, a 46-year-old
Muslim village chief, was shot dead on Monday by suspected
militants in a drive-by shooting.
(China Daily June 7, 2006)
