International   

Thailand steps up alert

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, APRIL 29. Shock waves of the raids on police outposts in southern Thailand on Wednesday and the ripple-effects of the stunning response by the security forces seem to have come as a new wake-up call for the authorities across South East Asia, according to regional diplomats and analysts.

With the Kingdom of Thailand `shaken' by yesterday's events, the Government of the Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra today said the situation would "soon be normal'' and that the flare-up would not affect economic growth. The Deputy Prime Minister Suchat Jaovisidha claimed that the situation was "not a matter to be overly concerned about.'' At least one high-ranking security officer was being transferred to Bangkok from the affected region.

Security authorities stepped up alert, even as Bangkok maintained that most of the "armed assailants'' were teenagers given to drug addiction and not any particular political agenda of insurgency. However, security officials, including the Defence Minister Chettha Thanajaro raised the possibility that the raiders were Muslim insurgents who sought to wage war against the predominantly Buddhist country. According to the Defence Minister, the attackers might have even received help from abroad.

With 107 of the raiders killed and 17 arrested in what turned out to be the worst carnage of this kind in southern Thailand, inhabited mainly by Muslims of Malay ethnicity, questions about a possible alienation of the people in the affected areas came to the fore. Mr. Suchat noted that the Government's next task was to draw up schemes for boosting the income of southern residents.

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