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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai Buddhist killed, terror link |
| 2004-05-29 |
| An elderly Buddhist man has been found decapitated in troubled southern Thailand and his attackers left a note suggesting the murder was linked to recent unrest, police said. Residents found the head of a murdered rubber worker lying on a road two hours before dawn on Saturday, police Lieutenant Suwit Phusathit, in the province of Narathiwat bordering Malaysia, told Reuters. "His killer or killers left a note saying ’If you still arrest innocent Malays, we will also kill innocent Buddhists,"’ the officer said. Nice sort of parity there. Killing a pacifistic person because one of your terror buddies was arrested. The body of the 67-year-old man was left in a rubber plantation about 60 meters (200 feet) away. Suwit said police were investigating to decide if the gruesome murder stemmed from recent violence in the Muslim south. "It is possible the killer might want to exploit the recent events to hide some personal motive, or he might really want to instigate tension between Muslims and Buddhists," Suwit said. More than 200 people have been killed since January in bloody violence in southern Thailand. Tension in the region started on January 4 when dozens of suspected Muslim militants raided an army camp to steal almost 400 guns. The unrest exploded into major bloodshed on April 28 when police and soldiers stormed an Islamic mosque in the nearby province of Pattani and killed 108 Muslims holding out there. Sadly, I do not see how it will be possible to mobilize the typical Asian Buddhist against terror. While they maintain a respectable "live and let live" stance, this will not protect them from terrorist acts. It’s pretty disgusting to see such a peaceful religion as Buddhism ostensibly invalidated solely due to its intention of bearing no semblance to the violent fanaticism of Jihadi Moslems. Thailand will need to consider taking exceptionally harsh measures against predators upon their avowedly peaceful population. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #2 I don't know...the Japanese were Buddhist, and they left bloody footprints all over Asia. Yeah, they were Shinto too, but most Buddhists call themselves members of several religions. |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-05-29 7:36:39 PM |
| #1 The unrest exploded into major bloodshed on April 28 when police and soldiers stormed an Islamic mosque in the nearby province of Pattani and killed 108 Muslims holding out there. No CNN, you short bus commandos. Most of them where kill trying to storm police and military posts as prelude to Jihad. 30 some of them were killed when they holed up in a mosque, making it a military base. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-05-29 3:51:46 PM |