Fights for independence Patani State
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 NEWS IN ENGLICH |
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Bomb injures 28 in Ethnic Malay
Region (southern Thailand) |
PATANI
DARUSSALAM: Oct 19 - An explosion Monday at a
crowded morning market in Jala City of ethnic Malay
Region injured 28 people, two of them critically.
 The
bomb, planted inside a motorcycle that was parked near a
pork meat vendor at Jala's open-air market, exploded at
7.30 a.m., injuring the civilians and the soldiers,
Thais First Army Region chief Lieutenant General Phichit
Wisaijorn said.
He blamed Patani freedom fighters for the latest act of
violence.
"We had received a tipoff to prepare for a car bomb, but
they used a motorcycle instead," Phichit said.
Police reportedly checked the parked motorcycle minutes
before it went off, but failed to detect the bomb.
Three Ethnic Malay provinces -
Patani, Menara and Jala - have been plagued by violence
since Jan 4, 2004, when Patani freedom fighters raided
an army depot, killing four Thais soldiers and making
off with 300 weapons, escalating the Patani's Liberation
struggle.
An estimated 3,900 people have died in clashes,
bombings, revenge killings and beheadings in Ethnic
Malay Region.
Besides a long-simmering Patani liberation struggle in
the region, which borders Malaysia, the three provinces
have a recent history of lucrative but illicit trade in
smuggling, drugs and protection rackets.
About 80 percent of the region's two million people are
ethnic Malays. Of the 300,000Ethnic Thai who lived in
the region, some 70,000 have reportedly left their homes
over the past six years.
Although the region, which centuries ago was the
independent Malay Islamic sultanate of Patani, was
conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago, it has never
wholly submitted to Thai rule.
Analysts said the region's Malay population, the
majority of whom speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay
customs, feels alienated from the predominantly Buddhist
Thai state. - PINA |
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