veiled4allah: ending injustice always helps

Prime Minister Shinawatra Thaksin, in his effort to pacify Thailand's restive southern provinces, recently bombarded the inhabitants with white paper origami in the shape of cranes by the millions -- a spectacle heavy on symbolism but light on substance. The question: If the Thai government had been fair and just in dealing with its Muslim minorities all along, would it have to resort to theatrics in search of elusive peace? On Dec. 5, 2004, military planes flew sorties over southern provinces rocked by Muslim unrest and insurgencies, dropping 100 million origami cranes in the name of peace. Red, white and blue smoke -- the colors of Thailand's flag -- trailed the jets. Organized dances and aerobic classes were carried out in towns and villages, and village children competed to pick up the paper birds.

The efforts by and large did not work. Immediately after, two bombs went off, another was defused and the owner of a tea shop in Pattani province was slain by gunmen. Assailants also threw grenades at the homes of two policemen in the same province, while in Yala, arsonists set fire to a state school.

The reality is that, paper birds notwithstanding, the rage of Thailand's Muslim minorities remains woefully unaddressed, and in fact the Thai government still treats them brutally.

From culture to language -- many people in the southern provinces speak Yawi, not Thai -- to economic status, Muslims live as an ostracized and marginalized minority, though in the southern-most provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat they are the majority. Muslims make up about 10 percent of Thailand's 60 million people.

Police brutalities and crackdowns are routine in the south. Human rights activists have railed against the torture and disappearance of suspected separatists for years.

In the past few months, clashes have escalated. More than 500 people have died this year alone, and two major incidents in the area have left Buddhist-Muslim relations at their worst ever. In April, police ambushed with machine-guns hundreds of machete-wielding youths, leaving 107 dead. They followed up by shooting to death seven unarmed protesters in October, and packing hundreds more on top of one another into trucks. Eighty-seven people died from suffocation in the airtight, sweltering vehicles.

Resentment against the government is growing, along with allegations of abduction and torture and the disappearances of various Muslim activists, including Muslim human rights lawyer Sonchai Neelaphaijit while under police surveillance in March. Malaysia and Indonesia, both states with a Muslim-majority population, now worry that the unrest will fan a growing radical Islamic flame throughout the region.