Thursday, August 31, 2006

Synchronized Bomb Attacks in Thailand

A carefully coordinated series of bomb attacks struck southern Thailand today. According to the AP:

Bombed bank in southern ThailandNearly two dozen bombs exploded almost simultaneously Thursday inside commercial banks in southern Thailand, killing two people in a region bloodied by a Muslim insurgency, police said.

The homemade bombs, which were triggered by mobile phone signals, were placed in garbage bins, at newspaper stands and near seats where customers wait for service in the banks in Yala province, said Maj. Gen. Paithoon Choochaiya who heads the provincial police. At least 28 people were injured.

Authorities said two suspects were detained. A review of close-circuit video showed that some of the explosives were planted by women, police said.

Some of the apparently small devices were hidden in women’s handbags or inside books carried by teenagers in school uniforms, said Lt. Gen. Ongkorn Thongprasom, the army chief in the south.

Some of the targets were “Islamic” banks; i.e. those which charge no interest. For some reason they were not exempt from the attacks.

There’s more in the Bangkok Post:

Such simultaneous terrorist attacks in the deep South, where more than 1,300 people have died from violence over the past two and a half years, have become increasingly common as the region’s separatist movement attempts to demonstrate its unity and resilience, authorities said.

It’s important to remember that the “separatist movement” — the media’s preferred term — in the south of Thailand is an attempt by Islamic terrorists to wrest control from the central government in Bangkok.

The Bangkok Post provides some background:

Thailand’s deep South has been gripped by a simmering separatist movement for decades. The area, once an independent Islamic sultanate called Pattani, was first conquered by Bangkok in 1786 but only came under the direct rule of the Thai bureaucracy in 1902.

Pattani’s separatist struggle has been fuelled by the local population’s sense of religious and cultural alienation from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state. More than 80 per cent of the 2 million people in the three-province region describe themselves as Muslims.

80% Muslim is an ominously large percentage. If southern Thailand is like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine, and other predominantly Islamic areas, a de facto ethnic cleansing will soon occur, as non-Muslims flee to other areas before they are killed. This is what I have previously called the “Islamic ratchet”, the process whereby countries which pass a critical mass of Muslim population become increasingly Muslim, until all others are driven out, converted, or killed.

Commenter Ik has given us these statistics for the Muslim population in the Indian subcontinent:

Country 1947 2001
Pakistan 80% 98%-99%
Bangladesh 60% 90%
India 7%  15%

Notice the virtual disappearance of Hindus from Pakistan. But India has not ethnically cleansed itself of Muslims. In fact, their population has increased, presumably as Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh leave their economically dysfunctional homelands to look for work in the Indian powerhouse.

It seems that southern Thailand will go the way of Bangladesh, and become an independent and impoverished Islamic statelet. The wretched poor of the new country will tug at the world’s heartstrings, and the UN and its NGOs will descend on the victims with “aid”. The Islamic Republic of Pattani will become Palestine-on-the-Malacca-Strait.

We have some experts on Thailand among our readers. Anyone want to weigh in with additional information?

4 comments:

Zerosumgame said...

I have seven words for the Thais about the Pattanis:

"Let them go and let them rot."

Wally Ballou said...

I'm no expert, but I've worked and stayed there. I think the dissolution of Thailand is unstoppable - just look at a map. The southern province is a hell of a lot closer to Malaysia than to Bangkok (the only big city). They are even more remote culturally and politically.

Thailand survived uncolonized (alone of all the countries in SE Asia) by knowing when to cut its losses. It used to be a lot bigger, but it stayed independant. They will probably be forced to the Bangladesh solution. They may have to build a wall, though - it's not far to Phuket - the most important tourism center.

In the meantime, the Thai political leadership is clueless and ineffective on this issue - ranging from brutal and blundering local cops to wishy-washy national leaders - remember the ludicrous paper crane airdrop?

ziontruth said...

Wally Ballou: "They may have to build a wall, though"

You forgot the word "apartheid". If it's a wall stopping Muslim suicide-bombers, it's called an apartheid wall. Please remember that, or you'll be sent to moonbat reeducation camp forthwith.

/sarcasm (yeah, like it wasn't clear...)

Wally Ballou: "In the meantime, the Thai political leadership is clueless and ineffective on this issue"

That's not a thing to write about. Now if there were any political leadership in the world fully cognizant of the issue and willing to go the whole hog (or even Piglet) in taking care of it, THAT would be newsworthy.

To ZSG: Trouble is they don't rot, they ask for more to remake in their image.

Mihir said...

Surely you are mistaken, Baron Bodissey. The Hindu fundamentalist Indian state recently murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in Gujarat, and has deployed millions of troops in Kashmir who kill billions of innocent civilians and freedom-fighters there. Thank God for the existence of the righteous democratic state of Pakistan which, as a responsible power, maintains a nuclear balance in the subcontinent, and continues o provide moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri freedom fghters.